A chara, – As a Dubliner who has been living, very happily, in the North for many years, I was amused and affronted, in equal measure, by the self-righteousness and the amnesia displayed in so many of the letters written in response to the current political crisis at Stormont (January 12th). When I first came up to the North, I used to be slightly offended by terms like "Free State" or "Free Staters", but now I understand better why so many people here use these terms to describe Southerners who believe that the North, as well as the past, is another country. It seems as though the centenary commemorations last year did little or nothing to remind these people that the North is not populated by spoilt brats, born yesterday, or that the South is not inhabited solely by the sainted and the gentle, strangers to all political trials . – Is mise,
JOSEPH McMINN,
Belfast.
Sir, – It has become abundantly clear that the two main actors in Northern Irish politics, Sinn Féin and the DUP have really only one thing in common, mutual hatred. Any perceived advantage, regardless of fairness, or the good of their constituents, is seen as a loss of face.
In retrospect, and based on the behaviour of both parties and their leaders over a period of many years, they have provided little in the way of real leadership. Rather than act in unison and for the obvious good of the people they represent, each has played a waiting game of who will blink first.
This time it was a howler by Arlene Foster. Next time, who knows? One thing should now be clear though, more of the same is not an option. The British and Irish governments must come up with a solution that works for the people of Northern Ireland.
A united Ireland should be firmly off the table until total integration between both traditions has been achieved. Wishful thinking on this issue simply discourages the goal of togetherness and mutual respect. – Yours, etc,
NIALL GINTY,
Killester, Dublin 5.
Sir, – Ultan Ó Broin (January 12th) claims that the “cash for ash” scandal is the political equivalent of leaving the immersion on. However, the hot tap was also left running. – Yours, etc,
RONAN McDERMOTT,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – Every decent human being would have the utmost sympathy for Arlene Foster’s trauma and suffering, during her tender years, when evil actions were perpetrated against her father and the driver of her school bus.
Nothing excuses such atrocities, which are grave offences against God and humanity. Thankfully, on both occasions, the murderous intentions of terrorists were thwarted.
Tragically, however, there are so many other families in our society who were not spared, whose loved ones fell victim to the IRA, INLA, UDA, UVF, et alia. There also victims murdered by agents of the British state. In this parish of Corpus Christi, 16 innocent civilians, including two priests, were gunned down by the British army during an orgy of violence, on August 9th, 1971, and July 7th, 1972. The families bereaved by the Ballymurphy, Springhill and Westrock massacres still suffer. Justice is denied to them and their innocent loved ones.
By voting, overwhelmingly, in favour of the Belfast Agreement, the people of Ireland expressed a desire for a future free from terror, injustice and atrocity. Especially in the North of Ireland, there were hopes for a future in a society administered with competence, parity of esteem, governed with equality and fairness.
Instead, Stormont has lurched from crisis to crisis. It is dogged by scandal and an astonishing inability to manage the basic rudiments of governance. The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scandal is widely perceived as a selfish scheme, driven by pure greed, which would benefit an elite and secretive group, at an expense to the public purse of £600 million.
This latest scandal, which has plunged the Northern Ireland institutions into grave crisis, is symptomatic of a profound and unaddressed dysfunction at the heart of civic life in Northern Ireland. Its name is visceral sectarian hatred – political and religious bigotry – pure and simple.
There is no easy way of saying this – there exists among certain powerful and influential sections of unionism, a radically mistaken sense of self-righteous, supremacist and sanctimonious superiority, towards Irish Catholicism, republicanism and nationalism.
This mentality is every bit as evil as the ideologies that spawned terrorism – loyalist and republican – because attitudes of deeply ingrained sectarianism run the risk of plunging our society back into the depths of violent hatred from which we are barely recovering.
It is inexcusable to risk exposing the present and future generations to the horror and fear, in the midst of which so many of us lived, during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. It is scandalous that so-called professing Christians threaten our society by their fundamental refusal to obey God’s command to love their neighbours as themselves.
I must say clearly, as a minister of the Gospel in the community, unwelcome as it will be in certain ears, the attitudes and patterns of behaviour that are constantly undermining progress and growth towards normal government and parity of esteem, in Northern Ireland, are essentially a rejection of Jesus Christ, by certain persons, who loudly boast of being His followers.
Our society, if it is to begin to thrive and recover from decades of anguish, must reject and remove from power, those hate-mongering politicians, whose unforgiving and unrepentant attitudes of naked sectarian hate and spite, are every bit as dangerous to Northern Ireland as the bombs and bullets of so-called republican dissidents. – Yours, etc,
Fr PATRICK
McCAFFERTY, PP,
Ballymurphy, Belfast.