Sir, – The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Michael Jackson, has referred at his Synod to the presence of sectarianism in his dioceses (Home News, October 16th). He states he grew up in Fermanagh in the midst of sectarianism and division; sectarianism there, he states, was "exercised by those with clinical brilliance who sought to eat up such people in a power game of politics and dominance".
I am nine years younger than the archbishop; I grew up six miles from his childhood home; I belonged (and belong) to the same church as he does; and I went to the same school he attended, Portora Royal. His remarks strike me as being exaggerated, vague, unfocused and unspecific. The leading clergy of the Church of Ireland in Fermanagh (Anglicanism being the largest denomination in the county after Catholicism) were hardly notable for their sectarianism; the main Ulster Unionist leaders in the county in the 1970s and 1980s were scarcely anti-Catholic bigots; the ethos of his school at that time was hardly intolerant.
Who are or were the people to whom Dr Jackson refers who sought to eat up others in their sectarian games? Is he able or unable to name them? Sectarianism was scarcely absent in Fermanagh 40 or 30 years ago, but it was neither so pervasive nor so virulent as Dr Jackson suggests.
What is no less odd is that Dr Jackson has failed to mention the most obvious and undeniable manifestation of sectarianism in Fermanagh in the 20 years after the outbreak of the Troubles: the campaign waged by the Provisional IRA against border Protestants, a campaign which culminated in the Remembrance Sunday bomb in November 1987. Why was Dr Jackson so silent on this subject? – Yours, etc,
CDC ARMSTRONG,
Donegall Road,
Belfast.