Sir, – In the coming days, hundreds of bonfires will be erected across the North of this island by people apparently asserting their unique cultural “identity”. Some of these conflagrations will have our national flag at their summit in a display of hateful bigotry. In previous years, during such “celebrations”, our Tricolour has been defaced with the letters “KAT” (Kill All Taigs), as a baying mob of intoxicated loyalist thugs roared their approval.
Were such appeals to mass murder directed against Muslims, Jews or those of a fashionable ethic minority, there would rightly be international uproar. But as the targets of these displays are Irish Catholics, many commentators are content to pretend they are not occurring.
It beggars belief that open appeals to ethnic cleansing continue to be tolerated throughout the North. It beggars belief that some unionist political leaders find themselves incapable of vigorously condemning this annual display of hatred.
Finally, it beggars belief that our own “paper of record” continues to portray the Orange Order as a benign cultural influence, while largely ignoring the significant number of its supporters who are apparently motivated by nothing more than supremacy and hatred. – Yours, etc,
Dr RUAIRI HANLEY,
Navan, Co Meath.