Afford Derry real opportunity of economic renewal
John Hume was first nominated by the journalist Barry White in 1983 as statesman of the Troubles. His reputation has only soared since then until climaxing in the present book.
One of the contributors, Austin Currie, discusses John Hume’s university campaign in 1963 saying that its failure caused bitter disappointment.
However, in 1982, I was involved in the Derry Civic Committee, a cross religious, cross class organisation which was formed to fight again for Magee.
Magee had been shut by bigoted unionists with indecent haste in 1963 in favour of the market town of Coleraine. However, after two years of strenuous effort Magee was reopened as a full university campus and as such it remains open today.
Its success was striking under its first and greatest provost, Prof Robert Gavin, who had a major impact on the campus and the city, before retiring in 1995.
However, sectarianism has always made progress difficult and the government always plumps for Coleraine, although it has a population of only 55,000 against the city of Derry’s 110,000 just 30 miles away. Derry, after all, is the second city of Northern Ireland and the fourth city of Ireland.
This of course is gerrymandering by the back door and the fruits of that resulted in historic consequences.
It is important to let publicity shine on the dark corners of sectarianism in government in Northern Ireland.
The faceless men have not gone away, you know, and omerta will not deter them as they go about their sinister business of asset stripping Magee.
It is interesting to compare Magee with Galway whose university was opened in 1982. Its population is 75,000 and its student population is 17,500.
We must ensure with the dispensation of a power sharing executive that Derry be afforded a real opportunity of economic renewal.
MICHAEL CANAVAN
Derry city
Unwavering devotion to EU has made Ireland its model poodle
Ever since accession to the European Communities through 83% voting for the Third Amendment in the 1972 referendum, there has been a largely consistent and unwavering devotion in Ireland to its European superiors.
Ireland has been its model poodle, carrying out the seamless implementation of the 1986 Single European Act, the 1992 Maastricht Treaty and the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty. After giving the wrong answer to the 2001 Nice and 2007 Lisbon treaties, repeated referendums gave the European Union its preferred results. Irish obedience to its Brussels bosses were further illustrated with the 2012 passage of the European Fiscal Compact.
One would think that surely the Irish electorate would be developing a degree of Eurosceptic sentiment, given the erosion of national sovereignty and a particular disregard for democracy that has operated in tandem with the process of EU integration. The way in which Greece was dealt with last summer laid bare the ruthless nature of the powers that be in the EU, rendering the Greeks to a mere ‘vassal state’ as the Deustche Bank described.
The recent RTÉ-BBC NI cross-border survey suggests, however, that support for the EU in the 26 counties of today is as strong as ever. A total of 84% of those sampled, when the undecided are excluded, wanted to stay within the EU. Apparently €64bn in bank debt being imposed upon the taxpayer in the 2010 Irish bailout is a price worth paying.
The Irish people’s apparent inability to envisage Irish destinies without being through an EU prism extends to the political class. Fianna Fáil, historically self-styled as the standard bearer of Irish sovereignty, led Ireland’s integration into the European institutions and are vociferous in their support for them. Fine Gael, southern Labour, and the SDLP are equally infatuated with the EU. Even Sinn Féin has had to jump on board the pro-EU bandwagon. Nowadays they are ‘Eurocritical’, whatever that is.
At Sinn Féin’s first Annual Convention in 1905, it was declared that “…we deny the right of any but our own countrymen to shape its course. That course is not England’s and we shall not justify our course to England.”
It seems today that this attitude has been modified so as to justify their course to the EU.
Regarding Irish unity, I find it rather unfortunate that today it simply entails the north leaving one union to reunite with the south in the EU’s ‘ever closer union’. How can EU membership be compatible with the idea of the “unfettered control of Irish destinies” as stated in the 1916 Proclamation?
For a country that has been historically subjugated spurring a rich desire for independence, it baffles me how secondary the issue of Irish sovereignty is in Irish political discourse and how content much of the electorate is with Ireland’s place in what Channel 4’s Paul Mason describes as the “semi-superstate” of the EU.
MARK PETTICREW
Belfast BT9
Casting aspersions
I can only say I was appalled by former deputy SDLP leader Seamus Mallon’s very personal attack on John Hume while in conversation with the BBC’s William Crawley.
Mallon accused John of being ‘played like a 3lb trout’ by Sinn Féin in the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement, an agreement signed nearly 18 years ago.
Why is Seamus chiming in from the sidelines long after his retirement?
If he felt so strongly about John being ‘played’ then why did he not speak up at the time when he was sharing high office at Stormont with David Trimble?
It is a bit beyond the pale to be casting aspersions on his former colleague who is no longer able to defend himself.
The negativity of the likes of Mallon and others in the SDLP is widely rejected by the nationalist/republican electorate of the north.
It is despicable and it has no validity today nearly two decades later.
The bitterness of these comments by Mr Mallon is plain for all to see.
The SDLP have had a few 3lb trouts on the line themselves down the years but they always let them get away,
KEVIN ROONEY
Downpatrick, Co Down
SF now party of austerity
Following my recent letter about Sinn Féin’s U-turn on the welfare cuts Allister Matthews replied by claiming that I was simply “SF bashing” (December 2).
He went on to add that Sinn Féin “stood alone in the recent negotiations to protect the sick, unemployed and low paid”. He added: “Did I want Sinn Féin to walk away and leave the most vulnerable to the savage of Tory Cuts?”
Allister, that is exactly what Sinn Féin did in these negotiations. By handing the power to implement welfare cuts to the most vulnerable over to the Tories, Sinn Féin have abdicated their responsibility to their constituents.
Sinn Féin claimed to have softened the blow of the welfare cuts by settling for £86m annually over four years to alleviate hardship. However, as the Green Party, People Before Profit, Trade Unions etc have all pointed out this is a ‘con’. The Social Security Agency already has a ‘discretionary fund’ of £80m a year to top up the benefits introduced here as a result of the welfare cuts.
In September Sinn Féin on entering the talks stated that “no claimant would ever receive a penny less in benefits’. This ‘red line’ position has now been negated. As Eamonn McCann rightly said Sinn Féin is now the ‘party of austerity’.
S FOX
Glengormley, Co Antrim
Kurdish repression
The persecution of the Iraqi Kurds by Saddam Hussein was a factor used by western leaders, along with weapons of mass destruction, to persuade the public that military action was needed which led to an invasion of Iraq back in 2003.
At present, Nato member Turkey is targeting and persecuting Turkish Kurds in border towns such as Cizra and across the country. Journalists, political leaders and academics who speak out in favour of Kurdish rights and against the Turkish government are threatened, jailed and even shot down in the street. There is little or no reporting about these human rights abuses by Turkey here in the west.
M CAIRNS
Belfast BT15
