Sir, – Flags and emblems are such a sensitive issue in Northern Ireland that it is difficult to comprehend how Belfast City Council could have made its controversial decision to restrict the flying of the state flag over City Hall.
The solution to this avoidable problem is simply to restore what was the status quo and allow the flag of the UK to be flown over Belfast City Hall for as long as that flag is the official state flag for Northern Ireland. It’s time to put people and peace first. The answer is to let the appropriate flags keep blowing in the wind and take the wind out of the sails of those who encourage violence. – Yours,
EDWARD HORGAN,
International Secretary,
Irish Peace and Neutrality Alliance,
Newtown,
Castletroy,
Limerick.
Sir, – I endorse Dr Billy Leonard’s wise words on Belfast City Council’s decision to end the practice of flying the Union flag for 365 days a year (December 6th). Doing nothing for fear of provoking unionist violence gives in to the threat of violence.
It displays the paralysis of mind that prevented Terence O’Neill doing anything of substance to tackle discrimination against nationalists during the 1960s. Someone who become an influential politician made essentially the same point in 1969 as Dr Leonard makes today, but later changed his mind. He challenged the idea that British reform of Northern Ireland should “proceed slowly” because of resistance from supporters of Rev Ian Paisley.
That, he said, “implies a corollary, the greater the resistance, the slower the pace. This is an encouragement to the Paisleyites in and out of uniform to increase their provocations. Those who are repressed will respond – and are responding – in kind, and the more gradual the process the more long-drawn out and bloody it will be”.
However, even though it turned out as he predicted, the views of the observer, Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien, changed. Ian Paisley, who O’Brien described in 1968 as a “hate merchant” became in 1988 O’Brien’s “ally... in defence of the union”. Thankfully, due partly to the British and Irish governments standing fast against Paisley and O’Brien’s opposition to the 1985 Anglo Irish Agreement, Paisley, though not O’Brien, agreed eventually to sit with Sinn Féin in government under the 1998 Belfast Agreement.
That agreement continued a process of reform in which public space is expected to be neutral shared space. An Alliance Party compromise has delivered flag flying on 17 designated days. That should be sufficient. – Yours, etc,