Madam, - I read with interest the letter from Pádraig Ennis of Republican Sinn Féin in relation to the GAA's Rule 21 (July 7th). He seems to have got his timing perfectly correct. Now that Dáil Éireann has risen for the summer recess, he has declared the silly season officially open with his composition.
I am almost nostalgic for the language he uses - "the 26 county Government", for example. We have not seen such language since before the peace process took off!
I would like to remind him that the "Stormont Agreement", as he calls it, guarantees the majority of people in Northern Ireland the right to decide their own future. This agreement was ratified by a large majority in the Republic of Ireland (94.39 per cent) and close to 72 per cent in Northern Ireland - giving the agreement the all-Ireland mandate so cherished by republicans.
But then again, democracy was never a strong point of the "republican family".
If these people were not such a threat to ordinary, innocent people, one would have to laugh. Silly season has begun. - Yours, etc.,
SIMON McDONNELL, PRO, Fine Gael Dundrum Branch, Mulvey Park, Dublin 14.