ROBERT Sullivan’s letter (30th September) contains a number of clichés and inaccuracies. Firstly, my letter (September 25) was not a tirade but a reasoned rebuttal of his defence of Trevor Ringland’s distorted history of the north. Mr Sullivan’s faux outrage is nothing new, it is one of the oldest tropes in the imperial handbook. When an oppressed people resist their colonial overlords there is shock on the part of the oppressors. Branding the colonised as angry ingrates, even when their only crime is vocal resistance, is one of the many tools colonists use in their efforts to silence their victims and to dismiss their concerns.
Secondly, Northern Ireland is not a country by any definition or by any stretch of the imagination. It has no history of being an independent country nor of ever being a nation state. What it actually is, is a dysfunctional, mutant, gerrymandered statelet founded on the twin pillars of anti-Catholic sectarianism and discrimination.
Thirdly, the IRA was not actually beaten militarily. After 30 years of conflict, initiated by the UVF, hostilities came to an end through a ceasefire because the British army could not defeat the IRA and vice versa.
Mr Sullivan then goes on to refer to ‘Paul’s magical geographical unity’. There is nothing magical about Ireland’s geographical unity, it has been a fact for millenia, one that is beyond dispute and one which has rankled loyalist bigots for decades.
Mr Sullivan exhorts nationalists to ‘just live and be happy’. We nationalists have been trying to live and be happy in our own country for centuries but our peace and national development as well as our attempts to preserve our culture, language, heritage and faith have been continually interrupted, thwarted and stymied by successive waves of terror by the British and their proxies. But despite centuries of brutalisation, dehumanisation, partition, murder and theft etc, the green tide keeps rising and intolerant unionists are quaking in their worn-out brogues.
Mr Sullivan speaks about reality when the reality is that nationalists are the ones who have endured a living nightmare which was already centuries old when its latest instalment, the northern statelet, was created.
Our aspirations are not dead or faded but rather they are real and enduring and they will be realised. What is dead is the unionist majority in the north and with it, unionist hegemony. Welcome to the new reality.
PAUL BURNS
Belfast BT14
Republic’s new lockdown disproportionately damaging on evidence provide
We were told that lockdown would only be used to stop the health service being overwhelmed. It’s clear that while there is a worrying increase in the numbers of new Covid cases other significant indicators such
as hospitalisations, patients in ICU and deaths are fractions of what they were during the previous lockdown.
It’s also clear that we are missing critical research and information as to the cost of lockdown. All loss of life is a tragedy and we must do all we can to reduce these numbers, but lockdown is not a cost-free policy.
I have asked the government, Nphet and the HSE over and over since April, what is the cost of these restrictions in terms of mortality, morbidity just in terms of cancer, heart disease, stroke and mental health alone and its clear that no research has been carried out to ascertain the human cost of lockdown.
2,500 people have got cancer in the Republic just since the start of October. 124 people have died of cancer so far in October. Many more are experiencing delayed diagnosis and treatment. I have spoken to medics who have indicated that capacity in this area has been significantly reduced and waiting lists massively increased. This will result in lost lives.
This is not to mention poverty, unemployment, billions of euro of national debt and a wiped out enterprise sector.
All these issues are themselves are indicators of future morbidity and mortality.
PEADAR TÓIBÍN TD
Aontú leader, Meath West
No prospect of unity by consent
Politicians and media commentators from the nationalist community have had much to say about unity in recent times, but there has been little reaction from unionists. The only reaction I can recall came from Arlene Foster who said she would consider leaving the country in the event of unity, and of course, Lord Brookebrough said something similar in 1963.
Why have the unionists not reacted to all this nationalist talk of such unity? Why are they not repeating their traditional slogans such as ‘No surrender; not an inch’.
Does it mean that even they are contemplating unity? It is more likely that they think it better to keep the nationalists happy with faint hopes and vague promises.
Were they to continue their traditional slogans, it would put a pin in the nationalist balloon and support for nationalists of constitutional outlook would be damaged.
As I see it, all this nationalist talk of unity is just so much humbug and eyewash; there is no prospect of unity by consent.
Even if a referendum showed a significant majority nothing would come of it. Ulster would fight and the constitutional nationalists would back down.
It is not very likely, but it is a remote possibility that, at some point in the future, the unionists might agree to abandon some of the nationalist areas close to the border. Looking at it from their point of view the west bank in Derry is not much of an asset and they might say the same of south Armagh.
SHAEMUS HARAN
Adare, Co Limerick
Ridiculous points of view
I refer to another annoying letter (September 30) from the Robert Sullivan, Co Cork. It seems strange to me that this anti-Irish scribe gets so much space in The Irish News. I am a firm believer in people having their say but this pro-British, pro-unionist, gets more paper space than most contributors. Every one of his letters has the same theme, anti-Irish and anti-republic. I’m sure that his letters are not taken seriously in Cork. The people of Bantry would not agree with his ridiculous and stupid points of view.
VAL MORGAN
Newry, Co Down
