Sir, - John Waters wrote a thought-provoking article on the Omagh bombing (Opinion, August 25th) guiding readers through the turmoil of thoughts and conscience affecting everyone after that terrible event to his conclusion that patriotism must never be discarded. Until the last paragraph of that article I would wholeheartedly endorse his sentiments and rationale.
Then, however, we had the affirmations of purported facts which have quite understandably impelled and will continue to impel some Irishmen and Irishwomen to kill and maim their fellow Irish. "The occupying forces of the British Crown" and undefined persons having been "walked into the ground" by the "invader". I can almost hear the banjo playing.
All Irish people are invaders. Only the snakes were repelled and GBS has told us where they went. The military force which "occupies" the kingdom of Northern Ireland is, in the sentiment of the huge majority of the people occupying Northern Ireland, their force. That force also contains thousands of such Irish people. Are the huge majority of all religious persuasions, or none at all, still invaders to Mr Waters and those who think like him? If so, then Irish people like me may expect no peace, agreement or no agreement.
The Sudanese people of Khartoum were given no more time to mend their ways by Mr William Clinton according to US political rationale than were the victims of Omagh - and of many prior to Omagh, whose mode of demise Messrs Adams and McGuinness would, as with the violently departed from 1916 to the Belfast Agreement, regard as having been perfectly legitimate.
Mr Waters, get real! - Yours, etc., Kenneth E. G. Morrow,
Knightsbridge Park, Belfast 9.