Sir, - Simon Partridge (August 31st), responding to my letter of August 29th, raises an interesting point. There probably is no precedent for a state to expel "loyal" citizens, but it is questionable whether that would stop a majority of the British people voting for it. I think most of them would jump at the chance of giving the problem to someone else.
For while a percentage of the people of Northern Ireland consider themselves to be British, a great many more people in Britain consider everyone in the North to be Irish. For they are alien to us. Bitterness and hatred of Catholics and the Republic is alien to us; provoking their neighbours by marching up and down is alien; throwing pipe-bombs at soldiers and policeman is alien. Loyal British citizens?
The actual point of my letter was to raise the question: however romantic it may be to have a united Ireland, would the people in the Republic wish to take on the burden, with all that entails? I think that that's the question to be asked, for if the answer to that is a resounding no, then doesn't that end the whole raison d'Ωtre of Sein FΘin/IRA and the republican movement? Perhaps The Irish Times should commission a poll. - Yours, etc.,
Brian Hales, Hornchurch, Essex, England.