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Sir, – Thanks for the grim photograph (July 12th) of a towering Loyalist pyre (with a near-Pisan lean), adorned with a coffin bearing a crude "message" to the IRA.
It was, of course, totally uncivilised to include the late Martin McGuinness on the receiving end of this communication. However, we could in charity interpret the gesture in the contrary sense – once he had formed his productive partnership with Ian Paisley, he came almost, if not fully, to share the sentiment of the “message”.
In any case,we should try to extend our charity to those showing pyromaniac symptoms, as they seem to be imprisoned in adolescent levels of insecurity and hatred.
Their community and their culture are not under threat or likely to be swept away either by Papists or homosexuals.
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One small niggle : when everybody could see the “message” in its fine full four-letter form on the side of the pyre, I wonder why you felt it necessary to eviscerate it in the accompanying article.
If your style rules are so squeamish, you could have left the word out altogether. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DRURY,
Brussels.