Sir, - in general, Fintan O'Toole's article, "Cruiser's New Voyage", etc., (May 11th), is a fair and not unfriendly assessment, but there is one formulation I would like to correct. Fintan describes me as having "voluntarily forsaken" my own "tribe". I have not forsaken any group of people. I have broken with an ideology and with a project. The ideology is Irish nationalism and the project, irredentism directed at Northern Ireland (usually in coded terms). Far from forsaking the community in which I was brought up, I continue to cherish and defend its vital interests, especially its interest in peace, to which the main threat is now coming from the nationalist irredentist project, both in its violent and in its constitutional forms (which are linked).
The greater the progress which may be achieved in moving down the nationalist/irredentist agenda, the more bitter will be the dissension and the greater the violence, spreading eventually over the whole island. What Gerry Adams calls "the Irish peace process" is riots taking up in the direction of, peace and reconciliation but in diametrically the opposite direction. I believe it, therefore, to be in the interests of all the Irish people of whatever "tribe", that "the Irish peace process" should be brought to a halt. In pursuing peace and reconciliation by this route I have joined with those in the unionist community who oppose "the Irish peace process" by lawful, democratic means, and who are also doing something for peace and reconciliation, inside Northern Ireland, by rejecting all sectarian associations and tendencies.
I am greatly heartened by the many messages of support I have received directly from my neighbours here in Howth and, in calls and letters, from other parts of Ireland. As a passerby called out to me as I walked on Howth Head on Sunday: "I wish you well in your quest." I sincerely thank all these wellwishers. - Yours, etc.,
Whitewater,
Howth Summit,
Co Dublin.