Madam, - I share Dennis Kennedy's wish (Opinion, June 21st) that the IRA should disarm and disband without delay. However, it is fanciful to hope that its ex-members could be persuaded or forced to embrace forgetfulness, considering how much the society into which they would be integrating is given to commemorating the violence of the past.
The majority community owes its origins to violent events in the 17th century: the seizure and colonisation of most of the land of Ulster; the crushing of indigenous resistance with the help of a genocidal campaign by a regicidal tyrant; and the final victory of a usurping king. The community claims that a core element of its culture is the celebration of these triumphs of physical force.
While bands march, drums beat and bonfires blaze, the physical force tradition is in safe hands and needs no "nurturing", as Mr Kennedy puts it, from semi-retired IRA men. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DRURY, Avenue Louise, Brussels.