Sir, - For over 25 years I have belonged to a number of groups trying to further reconciliation in these islands. As a result I possess reams of documentation on the subject but no ideas as to how it can be imposed on people unless they desire it themselves.
When considering the proposed day of reconciliation, Denis Bradley (The Irish Times, April 6th) has expressed the Irish-British situation truly, I believe, when he says we have all hurt each other and need to move forward together now, having for far too long killed each other in the name of a political aim. He stresses how powerful the proposed day of reconciliation needs to be if true reconciliation is to develop and how it must not smack of one-sided surrender: "We all have got blood on our hands". Exactly right.
Two elements there must be - shared repentance and (insofar as is humanly possible) shared forgiveness. The only tiny difficulty I have with Mr Bradley's view is his use of the word "drive" as in: "It must be driven by the churches". Perhaps "inspired" might be better? But the churches are, I agree, the people to lead it, since they are the ones whose leader's main message was "love one another" and that seventy times seven was not too often to forgive one's brother.
May the preparation for this day of reconciliation be deep and far-reaching so that it becomes not just "a clever idea" but a historic benchmark when all parties to the Anglo-Irish conflict look into the faces of their own and of each others' children, rather than rehearsing the history of their ancestors, and consider what best they can do in conscience to liberate the future from the heartbreak of this agonised and bloodstained century.-Yours, etc., Una O'Higgins O'Malley,
Oughterard, Co Galway.