Sir, – With reference to Seán Gallagher attending a Fianna Fáil fundraising dinner and not contributing, is it the equivalent of smoking cannabis but not inhaling? – Yours, etc,
MARY FLAHAVAN,
Dublin Road,
Naas,
Co Kildare.
A chara, – Seán Brosnan (October 20th) tries to make Martin McGuinness’s three times election as an MP, by the people of mid-Ulster, as some kind of indicator of his commitment to the democratic process? He conveniently failed to point out that Mr McGuinness never once actually took his seat in the Palace of Westminster, and paid a substantial proportion of his MP’s salary into his party’s coffers. His commitment to the electorate was, and is still, blinded by his commitment to himself and Sinn Féin. – Is mise,
DAVID WILKINS,
Vevay Road, Bray,
Co Wicklow.
Sir, – Bríd Rodgers (October 20th) claimed that, from as early as 1973, the SDLP negotiated an acceptable solution at Sunningdale – an agreement that failed to mention the word “equality” once. Seán Farren (Opinion, October 13th) similarly asserted that the SDLP provided an effective constitutional alternative which achieved the northern “civil rights agenda” of fair housing, fair voting and fair employment. (He neglected to recall the “civil rights agenda” demanding removal of emergency legislation.)
Ms Rodgers and Mr Farren clearly need to be reminded that civil rights activists such as my late father, Oliver, became unemployable many years after Sunningdale as a consequence of their continuing peaceful protests for equality. Nevertheless, Oliver and colleagues worked tirelessly in the 1980s and 1990s with the late Dr Seán MacBride SC, the late Kevin Boland, the late Neil Blaney, the late Rory Brady SC, Dr Martin Mansergh, Gerry Adams, successive Fianna Fáil taoisigh and many others to promote a serious, non-violent, constitutional, civil rights alternative – namely, the MacBride Principles for Fair Employment.
As armed conflict raged, the MacBride Principles campaign peacefully promoted human rights law remedies for deprived working-class communities suffering decades of multi-generational structural discrimination. Yet the SDLP’s professional leadership actively opposed the MacBride Principles campaign domestically and internationally, alongside the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Northern Ireland Office (notably political affairs branch), and certain Catholic religious and business persons, including leading Knights of Columbanus.
Along with Gerry Adams, John Hume and many others, I am content to recognise the contribution that Ms Rodgers and Mr Farren both made to the Belfast Agreement. But they must, in turn, recognise that many Northern nationalists who understood the IRA’s rationale for reacting violently to British and unionist oppression over 25 years, were persistently failed by the very professional political class in whom they had hesitatingly invested hope at the outbreak of the conflict.
At least there is now a genuinely effective, non-violent, equality-based, political alternative under the leadership of joint First Minister Martin McGuinness around which all Northern nationalists can, and should, unite. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Presidential candidate Martin McGuinness complains of trial by television “down here”.
Something the families of the so-called disappeared would have settled for “up there”. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Seán Gallagher was willing to endorse “sabre rattling” republican rhetoric when he was director of elections for Fianna Fáil TD Séamus Kirk in 2007 (Home News, October 20th). However, Mr Gallagher declared a few days ago that he finds the language in our national anthem too “militaristic”. I hope in the interim he enjoyed his trip to Damascus! – Yours, etc,
Sir, - Frank McNally's Irishman's Diaryof October 12th was a brilliant bit of writing and so very entertaining. Maybe the result of the presidential election may come down to the difference between dah-dum or dum-dah. - Yours, etc,