Sir, – Many emergent states, including Ireland, commenced their statehood with two political parties. These parties usually resulted from civil war, with all its bitterness. They needed to mature and develop into democratic, political entities.
Our two main parties never changed. As a young person visiting Irish towns and villages over 70 years ago, this failure to mature politically was very apparent. Residents of some houses I was told were “Blueshirts” (Fine Gael followers), while residents of other houses were deemed “Bolshies” (FF followers). Looking back over the years I feel that this has never changed. Politically we are still prisoners of our past.
This must change if we are to face the increasing challenges of a modern sophisticated world. As the recent financial debacle and our delegation to the EU summit has shown, we are poorly equipped to deal with modern political situations. “Cute hoorism and gombeenism” don’t cut much ice in Europe or elsewhere.
In the few years before the next general election we must form new parties which will give transparency and real democracy to Irish politics. Cronyism, nepotism and parish pump politics must cease. I hopefully look in my last years to see a New Republic with no “Bolshies” or” Blueshirts” to remind us of our past failures. There are sufficient young educated and bright people here to make this change possible. – Yours, etc,