Madam, – I read with horror the comments by Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin that the murders of the two British Army soldiers “were wrong because they were in breach of a peace process entered into in good faith by Irish Republicans” (The Irish Times, March 12th).
This is like saying the murders of fellow humans were wrong because someone forgot to fill in a form correctly or apply for a permit which would have authorised or justified their actions.
The simple fact is that the murders were wrong because they were immoral, unlawful and contrary to all that normal decent people hold to be right.
The same goes for the murders that IRA/Sinn Féin supported, condoned and indeed encouraged over the past 40 years. What is wrong today was wrong then.
When will Mr Ó Caoláin and his fellow-travellers in Sinn Féin realise the blatant immoral hypocrisy of their position. Until they admit that what they supported was wrong they cannot have any moral standing in any of their mealy-mouthed pronouncements on the latest unjustifiable atrocities. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Martin McGuinness has condemned the murderers in the North as “traitors to the island of Ireland” with absolutely no mandate from the people.
Of course, he is correct.
However, is it not a shame that Mr McGuinness never sought to measure the actions of his IRA comrades by the same standard? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The relatives of the two young soldiers and the PSNI member have suffered a terrible loss and our sincere sympathy is with them. There may, however, be a silver lining to the dark cloud of murder in the North. For the first time, nearly all the people of this island – nationalist, unionist, Catholic and Protestant – are standing shoulder to shoulder in defence of democratic freedom and security.
The murders show there is still an infection, however small, of the political virus of “physical force republicanism”. Patrick Pearse was an honourable man, who stood up in uniform to fight for what he believed in. But he created a fantasy Ireland in his head and unfortunately he went to live in it.
For a century after his death, in church, school and political platform, we paid reverence to him and his “physical force” ideology. A taoiseach boasted of having Pearse’s picture in his office. A Minister of State, Dr Jimmy Devins, recently saluted Liam Mellowes, who fought to subvert our democracy in the Civil War, as a “great champion of Irish freedom”.
We do not need to look far for who is to blame. As well as “sneaking-regarderism”, even in the Dáil, we do not wash our political hands so we now have to cope with a political bug that could develop into a life-threatening MRSA.
If, however, we now admit the part we have played, we can help ensure a safer world for our grandchildren by having the theme of the celebration in 2016 to be thankfulness that we have finally left the dark days of murderous madness behind us. – Yours, etc,