Sir, - We have just witnessed rather quaint election in Northern Ireland. By a strange mechanism known as the d'Hondt formula Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien, who was not a candidate for any constituency, ended up as a delegate to the "all arty talks on behalf of the one man UKU party. The one man elected for this party was Robert McCartney MP whose principal policy is to transplant Northern Ireland to become an integrated part of Great Britain.
The realisation of this noble dream would mean that the inhabitants of such bastions of the British way of life as Derry City, the Falls Road, Crossmaglen and South Down will rest easy in the knowledge that their heritage will henceforth be protected by uniting permanently with their blood brothers and sisters in Hampshire and Kent. In recent days the UKU party have linked themselves closely with Dr Ian Paisley, a well known exponent of moderation and charitable intent. This has all the ingredients of an interesting and quite exciting alliance since the DUP leader never ceases to remind us that he would never trust any British government.
This is the latest to political home to be chosen by Dr Cruise O'Brien, whose previous declared loyalties included the Irish Labour Party and Fine Gael. In his role as a distinguished columnist he has frequently taken great delight in quoting - what people have said in their past lives. He uses this device to justify what is invariably a less than complimentary description of the person being quoted. To mark his "dection" he has now taken to mainge such remarks as "We (the unionists) will not accept George Mitchell as chairman" or other similar comments designed to assist the cause of permanent peace in Ireland.
Observing this apparent metamorphosis I wondered whether this was the same Cruise O'Brien who on one occasion so emphatically expressed a somewhat different view. I ran to my bookshelf and, sure enough, there it was, To Katanga and Back by none other than Conor Cruise O'Brien. On pages 30 and 31 he was discoursing on the value he placed on freedom and the following gems leapt from the pages.
"I slept better for Habeas Corpus, read Macaulay to my daughters, never doubted that the Glorious Revolution of 1688 was a glorious and auspicious event indeed, FOR ENGLAND. I felt obliged to add the last two words - which an English liberal would not necessarily have thought of adding - because I could not help remembering - it was in my bones to remember - that the event which opened in England such a splendid chapter of achievement and growing liberty "had imposed, in Ireland, a system of oppression and calculated degradation such as Europe has seldom seen".
"Any Irishman . . . cannot help remembering that there was probably never a greater bastion of freedom than Great Britain in the 18th and early 19th centuries and that his forefathers were prisoners in that bastion.
"Englishmen are born gloaters; Irishmen born brooders. There are, it is true, brooders who take to gloating and they did much to build the Empire. Yet the brooder gloater, such as the Irishman turned Englishman, is not, as a human type, altogether a success".
Without meaning any offence to our English neighbours I would suggest that Dr Cruise O'Brien should ponder again on the essential truth of that last sentence and that a nationalist turned Paisleyite is even a less successful human type. Finally he should remind his integrationist friends that, as in all transplant operations, there is a possibility that the part they wish to donate could very well be rejected by the recipient, in this case the "mainland", whose inhabitants might wish to be consulted before they are compelled to undergo the proposed surgery. The man who came back from Katanga has it in him to provide a useful service to his country and that country is Ireland. - Yours etc
Dail Eireann, Baile Atha Cliath, Dublin 2.