Sir, - The intimidating blockade of Dunloy by a great number of Orangemen was an outrage and disgrace which no right thinking person could condone. Shades of Germany in the 1930s. The North Antrim community was not to know, however, that this terrifying experience for the people of Dunloy would pall in significance before the week was out.
On top of all that was taking place at Drumcree, the burning to death of three fun-loving little boys was an obscenity which has besmirched the good name of the people of north Antrim in a manner from which not even the most "holier than thou" of us can wash our hands. Oh yes, we attend each other's funerals and we express ritual revulsion with each atrocity, yet even after all that has happened throughout these terrible years, there are still people who, on grounds of some archaic principle, will not go through the doors of their so-called neighbour's church.
And there are still among us those who would pressurise young people - when love traverses our rotten sectarian divide - as to how they will manage their spiritual life together. Clergy and parents and the rest of us as citizens have a long, long way to go to rid ourselves of the unChristian historical legacy which we have inherited from generations of religious firebrands, theological dogma and imperious class consciousness.
Ballymoney is in a state of shock as people mourn the death in such horrendous circumstances of three lovely little boys.
Not so long ago a person was savagely kicked to death in the centre of our town, and people were later heard trying to find mitigating reasons for the revolting brutality of what had taken place! Did we learn anything? What have the rest of us done in the meantime to make such things less rather than more likely? What have we allowed to grow in a town which once had a proud record for more noble community life?
Despair, anguish, the wringing of hands will mean nothing unless we go to the heart of our religious and social class alienation. Can any of us distance ourselves from responsibility for what has happened. What do we really know about the conditions in which our "brother" has to live? Charlotte Street may well be further from the Carnaney estate than Dublin is from Belfast. I feel guilty, do you? - Yours, etc., John Robb,
Ballymoney,
Co Antrim.