Sir, - I wish to congratulate Detective Garda Tony Fagan for his brave and brilliant letter (February 11th). His main thrust is, I believe, that many Irish people, while decrying IRA murders of gardai and civilians, have a covert tolerance for the activities of the IRA because of a "sneaking regard" for their proclaimed political purposes.
The fact that all IRAs since the illegal Army Convention of March 26th, 1922, have been mutinous against the Second Dail and its successors, and are therefore treasonable conspiracies, seems to escape some people, dupes as they are of the IRA and Sinn Fein. The proposition that these para-militaries are murderers and enemies of the Irish people seems also to escape certain sentimentalists.
All IRAs since the time of Michael Collins have been antidemocratic and profoundly anti-Irish. All of them hate and despise the Irish people. Furthermore, the modern IRA in all its manifestations is rabidly nationalist and (dimly) state socialist. It is rightly to be described as "national socialist". The German acronym for this particular ideological persuasion is Nazi. If we as a people permit the IRA to bully us, we will pay a terrible price for our collective cowardice. - Yours, etc., Tom Garvin
Dundrum, Co. Dublin.