Sir, - As someone who was present at the Nobel ceremonies in Oslo, I would like to reply to Robert Ballagh's rather stern letter of December 22nd. According to Mr Ballagh, David Trimble's Oslo speech was not only mean-minded but flaccid, preachy, arrogant, bad-mannered, self-serving and hypocritical. It strikes me that Mr Ballagh is the one who is mean-spirited.
The Oslo speech may not have been a Gettysburg Address, but it did recognise the nobility and wider relevance of the struggle in which the ordinary and law-abiding people of Northern Ireland have been engaged over the past 30 years. Terrorist groups which refuse to disarm are the enemies of an open society in Ireland in the same way that fascism and Marxism once blighted much of this continent. Trimble was right to be realistic about all of this. He may be ridiculed, but then so was Burke in his day.
John Stuart Mill described the 19th-century Conservative Party as "the stupid party". I suspect that some nationalists and republicans have taken pleasure from regarding the unionists as the stupid party. Now observe their rage as Trimble proves this is patently untrue. - Yours, etc., Dr Esmond Birnie,
Assembly Member, Ulster Unionist Party, South Belfast, Parliament Buildings, Belfast 4.