Sir, - Mark Urwin (December 13th) expression of sadness and disappointment at the decision to unconditionally delete Articles 2 and 3 of the 1937 Irish Constitution and their replacement with a woolly definition of the Irish nation may find favour with more people than he suspects. The original Articles were a non-belligerent, non-threatening assertion of the sovereignty of the nation inserted into the 1937 Constitution by Eamon De Valera to create a consensus and a path into constitutional politics for dissident republicans in the 1930s. It offered a de facto consolation and a de jure pragmatism.
Irish constitutional definitions of Ireland were legitimate because they represented the democratic wishes of the Irish nation in self-definition. British constitutional definitions of Ireland are just an assertion of territorial rights of conquest, and if Ireland is a sovereign nation then they had no legitimacy.
It may be of interest to Mr Urwin to know that on December 2nd I marked the deletion of Articles 2 and 3 by wearing a black armband outside Dail Eireann for a period of time. In spite of the attempt to invent a more acceptable version of partition, I certainly wish the new Assembly every success in its quest to create structures of government which embrace all political opinion on this island. - Yours, etc.,
Tom Cooper, Knocklyon Woods, Dublin 16.