Sir, - Seldom, if ever, has a "prima facie" case, which had been accepted as proven by all and sundry for over 30 years, been so belatedly challenged as in Steven King's review of Kevin Haddick Flynn's book Orangeism; The Making of a Tradition (Books, July 24th). The charge, made by Lord Cameron in his 1969 report into the origins of the Civil Rights Movement, was that the Unionist government at Stormont had engaged in "blatant manipulation" of the electoral boundaries in Derry City, so that a Unionist/Protestant minority of 8,700 people could return 12 councillors, while a Nationalist/ Catholic majority of 14,400 people could elect only eight councillors.
The rebuttal by Mr King, who refers to "the so-called gerrymander of seats" is that "the Nationalist Party only ever put forward eight candidates and the Catholic vote was split between the Nationalists and the NILP, while Protestants were almost entirely Unionist". The historical facts, which I suspect are as well known to Mr King as they are to everyone else, are that all of the City's Nationalist/Catholic population was herded into one electoral area, the South Ward, which had only the capacity to elect eight councillors. On the other hand, the minority Unionist/Protestant population was spread out over two electoral areas, the North Ward and the Waterside Ward, which between them elected 12 councillors. This deliberate policy of discrimination against Nationalists/Catholics permeated every area of the civil administration in Derry City and was the catalyst for the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement there in 1968.
It is depressing that Mr King, a special adviser to the Unionist Party, which with other parties signed up to and is now charged with delivering the changes heralded by the Good Friday Agreement, should at this stage still be engaging in futile denials about past injustices. After all, if the Unionist Party really believed that there was nothing wrong in the North in the past, why should we expect it to want to become involved in shaping a new future? - Yours, etc.,
Patrick Fahy, John Street, Omagh, Co Tyrone.