Madam, - I commend Jim Duffy for his imaginative suggestion that, just as Fianna Fáil, entered the Dáil and joined constitutional politics soon after the assassination of Kevin O'Higgins, so Sinn Féin ought to respond to popular outrage over the McCartney murder and other crimes by breaking its link with the IRA.
Another parallel that should not go unnoticed is the unwillingness of the current Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, just like O'Higgins in that office, to fudge and wink at crime and illegality in an effort to secure Sinn Féin participation in the governance of either the Republic or Northern Ireland.
One can't help but recall that his grandfather, Eoin MacNeill, was one of the first on the scene to comfort the fatally wounded O'Higgins. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN P. McCARTHY, Professor Emeritus of History, Fordham University, New York, USA.
Madam, - Has the mark of a true republican moved from a definite presence in the GPO in 1916 to a definite absence from Magennis's Bar in 2005? - Yours, etc.,
COLM O RAGHALLAIGH, Eadestown, Naas, Co Kildare.