Sir, - With loyalists of the ilk of the NI Orangemen, the Queen certainly doesn't need any rebels. It is a very strange form of loyalism that allows its adherents to call the Queen "a parrot"; to disobey the laws and regulations of the Queen's Government; to abuse, attack, shoot at and seriously injure members of the Queen's forces of law and order; and to commit arson at will. It is to be hoped that we will all be protected from such misguided and criminal fervour.
Acting on the principle that "if the mountain won't come to Mohammed then Mohammed must come to the mountain", and bearing in mind that the NI Orangemen are totally opposed to the rerouting of their Garvaghy Road parade, would it not be possible to re-route the relevant 200 metres of the road itself? Could it not be closed off permanently, dug up and houses built on it? The new section of the Garvaghy Road could be relocated through an area where no offence would be caused to anyone, and that would still be known as the Garvaghy Road.
This plan would enable the Orangemen to demonstrate that they do not speak with forked tongues when they say they have no interest in triumphalism, and that all they wish to do is march along their own beloved Garvaghy Road. In fact, they could parade along it as often as they liked and whenever the notion took them. The rest of the country, north and south, would also benefit in that the common people would not have to tolerate the ludicrous rigmarole of the annual confrontation at Drumcree. Would that some God, somewhere, would give them sense.
Somehow I have a very strong feeling, after serving for nine years in the RUC and having taken it all in small, medium and large doses, my hopes are emanating from a source that can only be described as cloud-cuckoo fantasy land. - Yours, etc., W. G. A. Scott,
Friars Hill, Wicklow.