James Galway suggested that Ian Paisley may have been indirectly responsible for some killings. David Trimble also attacks Paisley (Irish News, June 9) and asks: “Had there been no Paisley would we have had the Troubles?” Gregory Campbell defends Paisley stating that those responsible for the Troubles were the terrorists.
In acts of terrorism those who pull the triggers and plant the bombs are often brainwashed by others, just like the 17-year-old, English-born, Islamic suicide bomber highlighted recently.
The history of Ian Paisley is well documented and many of his exploits are recorded in ‘A Persecuting Zeal’ a portrait of Ian Paisley written by the Rev Dennis Cooke. I have referred to this book several times below.
In 1959 Paisley stood on a soapbox on Sandy Row and read out the name and addresses of Catholic families living locally. A number of Catholic homes were subsequently attacked. Was Paisley indirectly responsible for this?
Was he indirectly responsible for the actions of convicted murderer Hugh McClean, who said “I am terribly sorry I ever heard of that man Paisley, or decided to follow him”.
(A Persecuting Zeal, page 149).
Was Paisley indirectly responsible for the actions of Noel Doherty and Billy Mitchell, both convicted for their part in the explosion at the Silent Valley Reservoir in 1968?
“... again interviewed by police, Paisley acknowledged he had driven Doherty and Billy Mitchell, a Free Presbyterian Sunday school superintendent, to the house of another Free Presbyterian, Robert Murdock, from Loughgall, Co. Armagh. The significance of the trip for Doherty and Mitchell was that the Loughgall venue was later proven to be one of the links in the explosives conspiracy.” (A Persecuting Zeal, page 150).
There is also Paisley’s association with private armies like, the Ulster Protestant Volunteers, the Third Force and Ulster Resistance and his opposition to every political initiative from the Sunningdale to the Good Friday Agreement. Would Gregory Campbell also like to air brush all this from history? Maybe he could tell us what he has done with his Ulster Resistance beret.
It has also been suggested that we should not speak ill of the dead. Paisley had no such scruples when commenting on the late Pope John XXIII: “This Romish man of sin is now in hell”. (A Persecuting Zeal, page 141). Paisley claimed he lived his life in accordance with the teachings of the bible. He must have missed Luke 6:37, “Judge not, that ye shall not
be judged.”
P McKENNA
Newry, Co Down
‘Real’ IRA should try to get out and about more
A recent documentary on the die-hard purists and carriers of the one true sacred flame, that is the Real IRA, mentions, among that clique’s ‘wish list’ and ‘wee certainties’, a supposed hatred of all things British. There is surely a chasm between such a mentality and the meeting between Adams, McGuinness and Charles Windsor, which was at least a partial rapprochement with a certain level of good will and emotional generosity on both sides. A large percentage of the population of Scotland, Wales and England are Irish or of part Irish ancestry, just as many Irish have DNA that is anything but ‘pure’ Irish. Largely Irish brain and brawn, from the early 1800s onward, built the British rail and road network, canal system and nearer our own times, motorways, housing, the London Tube system. You only need to listen to the Dubliners sing McAlpine’s Fusiliers to hear all this celebrated as heroic and the Irish are greatly admired globally for being hard-working, among their so many other creative talents and accomplishments. For all the atrocities committed by the British establishment against the Irish, centuries of oppression which revisionists would like to airbrush away, there have been countless creative encounters and individual friendships between the British and Irish, down the generations.
Some of those with a hatred for the British may well have individual grounds for such feelings. But are we to ‘bin’ the best of British invention, humour, science, art, literature, music?
The ‘Real’ IRA should try to get out and about more and a ‘get a life’, instead of taking life.
JOSEPH DONNELLY
Holland Park, London
Poor case for a version of Ireland
Martin Mansergh’s blinkered views (June 19) would not at all be accepted to any time nationalist or republican.
He uses my knowledge, or lack of it, with regard to my Irish passport to put his point across. Big deal Martin, those of us living under British rule would consider what is printed on a passport of little consequence when compared to the stark reality of partition.
No where in Emmet’s speech from the death court does the word partition arise. So how does Mr Mansergh know what his thoughts were when he made that speech in 1803? He is twisting the words of one of our most noble sons to suit his distorted view on the word Ireland. But those of us who are not little Irelanders will not be fooled?
In his rant he says that every working day of the year Irish ministers and officials sit at EU and other international tables behind a plaque with Ireland written on it.
Yes they may sit behind a plaque with Ireland written on it but if the word partition is not heard at these meetings then the whole thing is a sham. Martin you make a poor case for your version of Ireland when that word partition is staring you in the eye every working day of the year.
VAL MORGAN
Newry, Co Down
Social bonding
The longer you live the more likely that your spouse, partner and close friends will predecease you, leaving you on your own.
In Britain the number of people has doubled since the early 1970s. In 2010 sales of single-serving cookware increased by 140 per cent according to the Daily Mail, which reported that frying pans, small enough for just one egg, plates for one slice of toast and one cup teapots are now some of the fastest selling items in cookware.
But now research tells us that good reliable friendship with people we cherish is most important if we want to survive diseases like cancer. Close contact with good friends and especially with women affects the way we think, who we trust and how we manage our finance.
Unlike most men with their mates, most women reach out to their female friends to share the emotional burden of illness which dilutes their loneliness and fear.
Social bonds are equally important as the new drugs that are changing our lives for good.
MICHAEL DALLAS O'KANE
Plumbridge, Co Tyrone
Execution of heretics
Strictly speaking Colin Nevin (June 23) is right when he says that witch burning isn’t mentioned in the Bible but the real point is that killing them is sanctioned (Exodus 22:18 and Leviticus 20:27).
The word ‘heretic’ may not appear in the Bible although ‘heresies’ appears in Galatians 5v20. Execution for heretics is mentioned in Exodus 22:20 and Deuteronomy 13:5. That the Bible is unspecific about the methods to be used for these executions is academic.
S MILLER
Larne, Co Antrim
