Madam, - The author of the obituary of Andy Barr in your edition of April 5th provided a severely distorted version of the history of trade unionism and socialists in the Belfast shipyards which seemed to owe more to ethnic mythology than to any acquaintance with the city's labour history.
It is a travesty to claim that shipyard trade unionism had "a sorry history of discrimination against Catholics and indeed against socialists". While there were indeed trade unionists in the yard with strong unionist and anti-Catholic attitudes, there were many others, Protestant and Catholic, who put class before ethnicity or religion.
During the sectarian violence of 1920 when over 5,000 workers were expelled from the shipyards and engineering factories in Belfast, a quarter of the expelled workers were Protestants, described at the time as "the backbone of trade unionism in the North".
From the Ulster Unionist Labour Association in the 1920s to the Unionist Party's failed attempt to create a Trade Union Advisory Committee in the 1960s, the Unionist regime knew it had to deal with a shipyard trade unionism that was the backbone of an oppositional labourist consciousness within the Protestant working class. Andy Barr's stature and achievements deserved a better informed obituary than this. - Yours, etc.,
HENRY PATTERSON,
Professor of Politics,
University of Ulster,
Jordanstown,
Co Antrim.