Madam, - Gerry Fitt may have been many things but he was no nationalist "Uncle Tom". Along with many others, he fought politically to highlight the discrimination and sectarianism of the unionists who had held unbridled power in the Six Counties since the 1920s.
He forced the British government to intervene when he exposed in the House of Commons the injustice done to nationalists so that it could no longer ignore what was going on in its own backyard and political slum. It is nauseating to hear Ian Paisley and fellow unionists now demanding democratic standards from nationalists before they enter into talks to get the Assembly up and running again. The absence of democracy in Northern Ireland was fully exposed when the British prime minister, the late Ted Heath, had Stormont prorogued.
The fact that the British crown knighted Gerry Fitt is a credit to him and to the government which approved it. It is sad that he has been laid to rest with his wife in England, far from their beloved Belfast, but perhaps it is for the better. Otherwise I have no doubt there would have been some attempt to desecrate their grave, not by loyalist thugs but by the green variety who saw no evil in killing innocent people from all sides of the political divide in pursuit of goals that Gerry Fitt strove all his political life to achieve peacefully. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN M. REDMOND,
Hazelbrook Road,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.
Madam, - Vincent Browne (Opinion, August 31st) has a distinct advantage over me in that he remembers the late Gerry Fitt when, in the 1960s, he had fire in his belly. I can speak with no authority other than that of someone who grew up in the heart of West Belfast in the late 1970s when it was represented by Gerry Fitt, by then reduced to a caricature of a nationalist representative, and under effective military occupation.
The fact that Gerry Fitt had turned his back on his constituents needs to be put on the record because there are those in positions of influence today (some of them even employed as leader-writers) who believe all would be well in the North if nationalists would just retreat to the brand of politics epitomised by Mr Fitt. I say this softly lest I be accused of triumphalism: no chance. - Yours, etc,
MÁIRTÍN ÓMUILLEOIR,
Publisher,
Daily Ireland,
Armagh Road
Monaghan.