Sir, - The excellent coverage of the Good Friday Agreement in your newspaper has given rise to a healthy and informed debate about the merits of the Agreement. Barring some infelicitous phrasing at Article 2 (the use of the non-juridical term cherish) and at Annex B (an Agreement of this kind is signed rather than done by the parties), the proposed modifications to the legislative and constitutional documents are a welcome step forward for a more inclusive statement of Irish identity. Correspondents in the South who object to the Agreement fear a dissolution of that identity. They may take some comfort in the knowledge that Britain too is undergoing something of an adjustment in identity as it is becoming clear under the present government that civic identity is not co-terminous with ethnic identity. Ethnic identity, defined by family, religion and myth, cannot become a sound basis for civic identity.
The nations of these isles may share the same history but they do not share the same myths. Thus the Scottish memory of Culloden will differ from the English memory of the same, Irish memory of the 1916 Rising will differ from the English and so on. This needs be the case.
In constructing a civic identity for the new Ireland, it may be important to free ourselves from one exclusive interpretation of what it means to be Irish. Religious affinity (which is tied to ethnic identity) then could be gently prised from the forge of Irish consciousness without needing to be battered beyond recognition. And the new Ireland might be spared the kind of rhetoric we have seen that is more redolent of 16th century Geneva than 20th century Dublin and Belfast. - Yours, etc., Dr R.J. Barrett,
Bray, Co. Wicklow.