Madam, – The letters from Niall Ginty and Paul Dowling (March 11th) display a dangerous willingness to play political games.
Peter Robinson could easily have decided to play on the fears of some unionists and, mindful of a threat from the right, mouthed the hysteria that Mr Ginty considers to be political comment. However, any reasonable person listening to his resolute, calm and determined tone could not fail to have been impressed. Here was a man playing a leader’s role and acting responsibly in the face of threat.
Martin McGuinness could have equivocated and sought refuge in circumlocutions. What we saw, however, were two men, political foes, standing shoulder to shoulder in the face of the irrational.
I had hoped that any person of good will would have given these men the credit they were due.
When one considers exactly what happened in the 26 counties when the political class was presented with a “peace process” in 1922, I wonder where your two correspondents get their “holier than thou” attitude. In the North we have, perhaps, the most successful conflict resolution process of recent times. It cannot have been easy for Ian Paisley to lead his party into government with Sinn Féin. That he did it with good humour was commented on by all. Despite the insinuations of Mr Ginty, Gerry Adams led a united Republican movement towards an honourable peace.
In 1922 political “friends” could not agree on a piddling oath and De Valera led his “republicans” out of the political process and began 13 months of murder and mayhem – the same De Valera who founded the Fianna Fail Party! Both sides butchered and murdered with gay abandon.
In Irish the Civil War is known as the “War of the Friends”. In the North it was not “friends” who were called on to make peace. I think our Northern political leaders need to be given credit for their achievements. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The brazen political hypocrisy of the Adams and McGuinness Provisionals has now reached a new sickening low with their call to inform to the police in the ongoing conflict in the Six Counties.
The comments of both Adams and McGuinness in the wake of the incidents exposed the real feelings of men who once were considered Republicans. They now want people to inform to the police in order to protect their huge political payments and their positions of power under the British Crown.
The fact is the Republican Movement they joined is still intact despite their best efforts at destroying it by selling out and surrendering to the British and accepting partition and British occupation. For as long as British troops remain in Ireland they will be opposed by the Irish people.
Their weasel words ring out at a time when they are also commemorating the Gibraltar Three who were executed by British state agents in this ongoing war against the British occupation in Ireland. Adams and McGuinness have the gall to parade to the graves of men and women who died in the cause of Irish freedom while acting as agents of the British Crown against true Republican people.
The operation at the British Army barracks in Antrim finally exposes the real nature of these so called figures in Republicanism who are now so compromised that the have to do the bidding of the British.
Not only should they stay from Republican graves this weekend and in future, they should also cease using the name Sinn Féin because they have disgraced it. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Congratulations to Vincent Browne (Opinion, March 11th) for drawing a moral equivalence between those of us who voted Yes to the Lisbon referendum, the British Government fighting Muslim extremists and those who killed the British soldiers and the police constable, along with the attempted execution of pizza delivery boys for the crime of doing their job.
Mr Browne must be a very brave man indeed. Even Republican Sinn Féin would hesitate to draw those conclusions in public, yet Mr Browne bravely does so. I thought that since the departure of Mr Myers, bizarre flights of hyperbole masquerading as logic were gone from the pages of The Irish Times, but apparently not so.
Mr Ruairí Ó Brádaigh must be delighted that he now has a fresh source of intellectual weaponry to hurl at the rest of us who are angry and disgusted that, at a time when this country is on its knees financially, so-called “dissident Republicans” disgrace us with unprovoked murders.
No amount of hand-wringing about global politics will unbury the dead or undo the gross injustice that has been wrapped in a spurious Tricolour. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I fear many of us were lulled into a false sense of security by the amazing progress achieved by the power sharing executive in Northern Ireland.
The only one who kept his feet firmly on the ground was the chief constable of the PSNI, with his regular warnings. Progress was obviously too much for the begrudgers and alleged patriots who hoped for failure.
I’m bound to say I’ve been much impressed by the reaction of the First Minister, Peter Robinson. They certainly have the right man at the helm. He is entitled to unstinting support from all parties. No if, buts or maybes. No weasel words. Murder is murder, whoever the perpetrator. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – You do the bereaved families of the assassinated soldiers and policeman in Northern Ireland a grievous wrong by continually referring to the perpetrators by the sanitised term “dissident republicans”.
These acts were terrorist acts and in my view your paper furthers the terrorist agenda by a stupid attempt at political correctness. – Yours, etc,