Sir, - I wonder how the RUC constables feel about having been faced up to the Orangemen with orders not to let them pass, and then ordered to let them through? Mortified, I should think. Likewise the British Army squaddies told to recoil the barbed wire they had scarcely finished setting up to stop the march? Humiliated? I feel sorry for them.
If the decision to reverse his previous firm resolve to prevent the march down the Garvaghy Road was really taken by the Chief Constable alone, and without pressure from his political masters, then clearly he should resign. Whoever was responsible has put at risk many more lives than may have been at risk at Drumcree on the day before the 12th. - Yours, etc.
Rathgar Avenue,
Dublin 6