Sir, – I was amused at Alex Kane’s view that for unionists, the Taoiseach’s comments on unification plus the Windsor Framework and recent lost legal cases are “fuelling the fear that their sense of identity as UK citizens has been undermined” (“Unionism may step back from the Belfast Agreement”, Opinion & Analysis, September 13th).
When canvassing for Alliance in Enniskillen last May, I was told by a unionist voter (on hearing my accent) to “go back to England”. For him, unionism didn’t mean a British identity – it just meant his section of the community running the Six Counties. The British were just there to pick up the bill and should keep their noses out. When I told him I actually lived in Donegal, he was incandescent and said I was as bad as the “Shinners rocking up in their cars with Southern number plates”.
Maybe unionism’s problem isn’t with the Taoiseach, or the judges, or even the Belfast Agreement but the fact they want to live in a fantasy land in which everyone else is cancelled out? – Yours, etc,
KENNETH HARPER,
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Burtonport,
Co Donegal.