Sir, - While Donal de Roiste's criticisms of the Orange Order and its practices (June 11th) are well founded, I cannot see the basis for his seemingly impractical solution to the parades situation. An invitation to the Order to march in the South might fill a vacant slot at the end of the nine o'clock news, but would be forgotten within the hour - unless Mr Paisley decided to spend a few minutes denouncing it for the entertainment of the assembled media.
The idea, certainly, is a novel one, and is much in the optimistic vein left by the agreement. However, the Orange Order lives and thrives on confrontation. Mr. Paisley would find it impossible to even talk on the telephone with someone from the Republic, let alone accept such an invitation.
This very fact also invalidates Mr De Roiste's dismissal of the suggestion that Catholic residents should welcome the parades, and that they should go so far as to throw flowers at the marchers. Why not? Just as the Palestinians could have made much more rapid progress in the Middle East by staging completely peaceful demonstrations, rather than their preferred violent fights with Israelis, the Garvaghy Road residents could stem the Orange tide, so to speak, by turning their neighbourhood into "the most sarcastic street in Ireland." It would be humiliating to the bowler hat brigade, but it would also bruise that which they hold most dear to them - their egos.
As a young member of the Church of Ireland who has grown up in the South, I also find myself in disagreement with the statement: "Southern Protestants must feel very uncomfortable at the antics in Harryville". I do not feel uncomfortable in the least, as I view the ties between Protestants, such as those in question, and those such as myself, as purely coincidental, yet unavoidable. As stated by Dr Eames in an interview in this newspaper (May 12th), Southern Protestants have more in common with their Catholic neighbours than with their co-religionists in the North (less radical exceptions noted). This country, fortunately, is becoming more secularised and less sectarian with each successive generation.
However, I would still hold an anti-partition viewpoint, for various reasons - but primarily because I could never agree with even attempting to assimilate, as Patrick Kielty put it, "three hundred thousand Laurel and Hardys" into a country which is quickly, and thankfully, losing its reputation for closed-minded religious conservatism. - Yours, etc., Graham Copeland,
Enniscorthy,
Co Wexford.