Madam, - Recent correspondence about British and Irish identities in the North has served to highlight the fact that the Good Friday Agreement, for all if its strengths, has not helped us to move beyond the traditional unionist/nationalist dichotomy.
We remain locked into a form of politics where the constitutional status of Northern Ireland remains the only issue to the virtual exclusion of any meaningful debate about wider social and economic questions.
For Northern politics to develop in a new and less tribal direction it is necessary to move beyond the agreement and try to break out of the "two communities" model. How can this be done? The answer is certainly not via the simplistic notion that unionists are not really British at all, but only think they are, and that it is only a matter of time before they realise this and turn to the Protestant United Irelanders and Wolfe Tone for inspiration. This is as much a fallacy as the notion that Northern Ireland was "as British as Finchley".
While identity is largely a subjective matter and ethnic categories are rarely as clear-cut as some would like, it can be safely said that we in Northern Ireland are neither as British as Finchley nor as Irish as Connemara.
Neither is any stable solution likely to be found in nationalists outbreeding unionists and "winning" any referendum on the Border. Even if this unlikely demographic scenario were to emerge, no one can seriously believe it would be possible to create a united Ireland on the basis of a 50-per-cent-plus-one majority with huge remaining resistance from the unionist community.
For a different form of politics, which may in due course bring about a united Ireland, to emerge, I suggest it is necessary to"park" the national question so that the unionist fears of losing and the nationalist burst for the finishing-line can both be set aside. In football terms both sides are going for a win. Unionists were ahead as long as we were "an integral part of the UK". The Anglo-Irish Agreement, with its recognition of the Irish dimension, and the Good Friday Agreement can be seen as nationalists having equalised; now they are going for the winner.
Why not call the game a draw and recognise that we are neither just another part of the UK nor are we the fourth green field? We can be Irish or British, or a bit of both. What we now have almost amounts to some form of joint authority. Why not formalise it as an historic compromise and let a different form of politics emerge where shared economic and social interests would open all kinds of non-tribal and consensual possibilities? - Yours, etc,
JOHN O'NEILL, Belfast 7.