Opinion

The more SF pushes red lines the more it will be pushed back

When are Sinn Féin going to stop champing at the bit on Gaelic language and gay marriage? It seems to be their only stock in trade on negotiations. There isn’t exactly a huge fan club in the Republic for Gaelic and the great majority of people do not speak it at all. Most Irish people have no problem with the Irish president speaking a few words of it here and there, but they do not want it shoved down their throats and used arrogantly and expensively promoted in excess of its popularity or lack thereof. The Gaelic language has been deeply divisive too in the Republic excluding and precluding people across the board where there are “language requirements” for various matters including planning applications and job opportunities. As far as gay marriage is concerned there is a huge dichotomy of opinion on gay marriage in the Republic behind the politically correct scenes. We have many conservative people in the Republic who are not altogether happy about gay marriage, but censor themselves for the sake of political correctness. Others are far more critical and frown upon gay unions. That is just the way things are in the real world and opposition of gay marriage is by no means exclusive to Northern Ireland. We are not living in an ideal world and to be stalling power sharing because of it is wasteful and of course threatens peace. So, there is no gay marriage or an Irish language act – is that any reason to cripple power sharing with Brexit looming and its profound economic challenges? The more Sinn Féin push for their red lines the more they will be pushed back. This is something they have failed to observe, but they keep on persisting and wasting energy, instead of doing more productive things like making sure Northern Ireland has an effective administration for the untold consequences of Brexit. The Gaelic language is not a fundamental matter to live our lives. We all speak English and do not need to learn another language. 

Many thousands of Irish parents lobby the Irish government for exemptions to learn mandatory Gaelic. Beyond the old chestnuts of the Gaelic language and gay marriage, the oldest chestnut of all remains in the shape of a united Ireland. Sinn Féin do not ultimately want to share power. They want the British out and expect the Republic to take over without knowing whether it ever would and be functional in the aftermath? 

MAURICE FITZGERALD


Shanbally, Co Cork

Trevor’s request for honest debate has got off to a bad start

Trevor Ringland – ‘Honest debate needed about why conflict occurred and who was to blame (April 9) – would appear to be suffering from a severe bout of amnesia. To try and alleviate his curiosity some matters he might care to reference, leaving aside the Black and Tans and the plantation and fast forward to how the six north eastern counties of Ireland became a sectarian British colony, with the best part of one million Irish people quarantined against their wishes and deprived of their nationhood;  the B-Specials; the murderous UDR and the history of the notorious discredited anti-Catholic RUC who colluded with loyalist killers in countless dirty deeds and we were expected to believe they were the custodians of the law and the guardians of the people.

We do remember the hundreds of nationalists and republicans interned in Long Kesh. We had the Civil Rights Movement battered off the street by the RUC. The interrogation/torture chambers where the depravity of RUC Special Branch was given free reign, and all this was backed up by the war arsenal of the British government who actually spoke of being at war here. And there was those in power in the original Stormont who declared they wouldn’t have a Fenian about the place. While this is only the tip of the sectarian iceberg, hopefully it will be of some help to those who express naivety about the Brit dirty war in Ireland.

A useful book would be Lethal Allies by Anne Cadwallader and a film on tour at the moment The Glenanne Gang.

Since Trevor Ringland appears to be in denial about all this, his request for honest debate has got off to a bad start.

LAURENCE O'NEILL


Martinstown, Co Antrim 

Muckamore scandal

I am dismayed that there is correspondence circulating which seems to suggest the Department of Health does not believe an inquiry into the abuse scandal at Muckamore Abbey Hospital. On the contrary, health trust officials appearing to mark their own homework is what is not in the interests of patients, families of patients, or even of the many workers at the hospital who carried out their duties with great diligence.

 To be clear, an independent inquiry would serve a different purpose from the police investigation which is already ongoing. Firstly, whereas an investigation is necessarily about establishing guilt, an inquiry would establish exactly what went on and would make clear that many people working at the site were doing their best in times of great difficulty and stress. Secondly, the police investigation is reliant solely on certain types of evidence more recently available (eg CCTV) whereas an inquiry can go back considerably further. We need not just to find out who is accountable for the scandal, but to establish a full picture and what learning arises from this for the future.

For these reasons and others, I am aware of widespread cross-party support for an inquiry. The democratic way forward therefore is for preparations to be made for an inquiry, given that the next health minister will in all likelihood wish to have one conducted.

PAULA BRADSHAW MLA


Alliance Party, Belfast South

Policing political correctness

While anyone with any decent humanity would rightly condemn the killing of Lyra McKee in Derry on Holy Thursday I am concerned by the action of the company Facebook who deleted the account of Saoradh political group.

My concerns are based around the concept of free speech and the democratic right of political groups to use social media, providing they don’t give a platform to hate speech. If one were to follow the logic of Facebook, then all political groups must adhere to some ritual in giving vent to their political viewpoint which must adhere to some sort of ‘normal standards’.


My question is simple who sets the ‘standards’? Surely on the most recent past the company known as Facebook are the last company to call for political correctness.

PAUL DORAN


Clondalkin, Dublin 22

Let’s be honest about it

Unionists will soon be celebrating 100 years of partition and separate statehood. That is the measure and magnitude of the divide between us. To use David Trimble’s word, it is an “irreconcilable” divide.

MALACHY SCOTT


Belfast BT15