A chara, - Your Editorial on the latest RTE Prime Time revelations about the 1970 Arms Trial falls into the usual trap of considering the incident solely as it affected the 26-county State without giving due regard to what was happening on the streets of Belfast.
In 1969-70, the Catholic population of the Six Counties was under attack from loyalist mobs, intent on burning their homes and on murder. The RUC and other security forces did not stand idly by - they, with the apparent encouragement of the Stormont regime of the time, actively helped the loyalists in their rampage and when resistance began to surface, police officers and soldiers originally ordered to "defend" engaged the Catholic community in battle.
But instead of supporting their fellow Irish under attack just a few miles to the north, the body politic in the Republic poured its energy into a show trial of those it said was involved in an illegal conspiracy to import arms, as if these arms were to be used in some sort of insurrection or illegal activity.
It was precisely this ill-conceived and futile legal exercise which led to the formation of a more effective and aggressive military force to defend the nationalists in the Six Counties - the Provisional IRA. Had respectable Ireland not stood idly by when the call came for help, there would have been no need for the Provisional IRA to be formed and the Troubles as we know them might have been averted.
The diplomatic efforts of the 26-county government to intervene were ineffectual - worse than useless. Now, with the Prime Time revelations, evidence is emerging that the supine stance of the government was not due to some supposed moral or political philosophy, but was fuelled by a petty internal power game within Fianna Fail and aided by the other so-called constitutional parties.
This is the most shameful episode in Irish history and it eclipses by some distance any of the lawyer-enriching tribunals of the present day. Your recourse to the Latin to find some justification for all of this is equally shameful. If the safety of the State was the highest law, as you contend, then you could safely justify any number of state-backed atrocities anywhere in the world. Tiananmen Square in China is one which comes to mind. - Is mise,
Concubhar LiathAin, Beal Feirste.