Sir, - I am prompted by the events of the past few days in Northern Ireland to reflect on the decision of President Mary McAleese last year to bring Orange drummers to Aras an Uachtarain.
The provocative and ghoulish action of the Portadown Orange Lodge in beating Lambeg drums and shouting taunts on the eve of Rosemary Nelson's funeral last Wednesday is another example of the absolute intransigence of Orange bigots. In light of this, Aras an Uachtarain to the perpetrators of such evil actions I submit that to invite Orange drummers to Aras an Uachtarain piles injury upon insult for an already beleaguered and persecuted nationalist community.
We cannot fool ourselves into believing that these drums are musical instruments, whether in Portadown or elsewhere in Northern Ireland. There are, now as they have always been, implements of repression used to intimidate and create fear among Catholics and nationalists. They are instruments of war, not peace.
Franklin D. Roosevelt said: "There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness." Chamberlain's experiment with appeasement is another well-known historical failure.
I propose that it is neither politic nor practical to pursue such a policy with the intractable barbarians in Ireland at this time. - Yours, etc., Joe McGowan,
Cliffoney, Co Sligo.