Sir, - Dr Jim McDaid's letter concerning me ends with the words: "The man who came back from Katanga has it in him to provide a useful service to his country, and that country is Ireland."
I agree, I couldn't agree more. My country is indeed Ireland, and I know that I have it in me to provide a useful service to my country. I also know that I can provide such a service right now, by what I am doing in Northern Ireland.
Dr McDaid has accurately quoted a number of passages from my 1962 book To Katanga and Back and implies that I have departed from their spirit. This is not the case, though I realise that Dr McDaid genuinely believes it to be the case.
Dr McDaid is an Irish nationalist and Irish nationalists find it hard to accept that a person who is not a nationalist - and who is opposing a nationalist irredentist project - can be serving Ireland. So let me explain.
Ireland, for me, consists of all the people of the whole island of Ireland, irrespective of the political, theological and cultural differences that exist between sections of the people of Ireland.
Dr McDaid, and other Irish nationalists, might not in theory reject that definition. But they reject it emotionally and in their political orientation. The island of their emotions and politics consists of the Catholic and nationalist section of the population of the island, atavistically felt to be the rightful owners of the whole island.
The nationalist agenda - currently dressed up as the "peace process" is there to serve that particular vision of Ireland and impose it on that section of the people of Ireland - the unionist majority in Northern Ireland - which does not belong to the nationalist vision.
To my mind this vision, and related political projects, are rendering a deep and dangerous disservice to the island of reality. The tragic obsession with the supposed need to unite the island politically is the motive force for a project which entails the simulation of political acrimony, fear and violence on the part both of nationalists and unionists. If nationalists achieve the breakthrough they are aiming for in the current all party negotiations and they may well do so the result of this victory for the peace process will be violence on a scale never yet seen, beginning with an end to the loyalist ceasefire.
This is not "serving Ireland" as I understand Ireland. The best way to serve Ireland politically in the present emergency, is to do what one can to put a stop to this disruptive and destructive project for putting one section of the people of Ireland on a collision course with another section.
On that principle, I accept Bob McCartney's invitation to join the United Kingdom Unionist Party, and then became a UKUP delegate to the all party negotiations and a member of the Forum, as a result of the 28,000 votes cast for the UKUP in the elections of May 30th.
Dr McDaid quotes a phrase of mine about "the Irishman turned Englishman" and implies that I can now be included in that category. Not true, Bob McCartney is as Irish as Dr McDaid, as Dr McDaid will find if he ever talks with him. And Bob McCartney cherishes the link with the United Kingdom, not out of any infatuation with the idea of England, but because he believes that the link is good for all the people of Northern Ireland, Catholic as well as Protestant.
Dr McDaid refers to me as a "nationalist turned Paisleyite". I am not a Paisleyite, I am a McCartneyite. The people of Northern Ireland know the difference if Dr McDaid does not. "Paisleyism" is taken (no longer altogether correctly) as synonymous with sectarianism. The UK Unionist Party is explicitly anti sectarian. No one can continue to belong in it if he or she indulges in any sectarian utterance or practice. Dr Paisley is our ally in the cause of the Union, and a staunch and mighty ally he is. We respect him as an ally, but that does not make us "Paisleyites". And, in standing up for the Union, peacefully and democratically, and in resisting the insensate effort to impose a nationalist agenda on Northern Ireland, we believe that Dr Paisley and ourselves are at present rendering an inestimable service to all the people of Ireland.
Yours, etc.,
Whitewater,
Howth Summit,
Co Dublin.