Sir, - I am getting more and more worried about the agreement. It is extraordinary that the nationalists are giving up their claim to Northern Ireland and still think that they will get it back at a future date. We need only look at other countries such as Israel or Bosnia to see that, even where the right to land is acknowledged, the holders of the land refuse to hand it back. It is obvious, therefore, that the unionists' hold on the land of Northern Ireland will be much stronger after the nationalists have renounced their right to it. It is also obvious that this part of the agreement will override everything else because this is written into the agreement and most other things are either vague or outside nationalist control.
No matter which way you look at this agreement you eventually come back to the question of land. Everyone claims to be losing by this agreement - the unionists, the nationalists, the people down here. If so many people are losing, someone has to be gaining. I would suggest that it is the British who are gaining most. We are giving up our claim to Northern Ireland yet the British have not even made a commitment to withdraw their forces from the North.
We know the old saying that possession is nine points of the law. Not only that, but they seem to have kept all future developments in the North under their own control. I notice that the British have made no claim to be losers in this deal. - Yours, etc., Edward Leane,
Great Commons, Lusk, Co Dublin.