I could say that I am a millionaire but it wouldn’t make it true – wishful thinking instead. Michelle O’Neill and Alex Maskey can say they are republicans but it doesn’t make it true.
Michelle says that as first minister designate she has a responsibility to promote reconciliation and that is why she is attending the coronation of someone as king, simply because of the family that he was born into. Let me just say that reconciliation refers to the re-establishment of relations that pre-existed. Please tell me when, historically, Irish republicanism was friendly towards Britain/unionism/loyalism? How does support for a monarchy sit comfortably with any notion of republicanism? Is reconciliation a term used by Sinn Féin as a euphemism for political realignment? How much can you take its spokespersons at their word?
Having a look back to 1998, for example, this is what Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin had to say: “I would be opposed to any dilution or dimunition of Articles 2 and 3. I would also be opposed to the inclusion of what I would read to be a unionist veto.”
Of course, the principle of consent in the Good Friday Agreement was just that, a unionist veto, and we all know what happened to Articles 2 and 3 but still Caoimhghín remained a Sinn Féin TD until 2020.
All of the 1981 hunger strikers had been members of the IRA and INLA and last year at the Sinn Féin hunger strike commemoration Pat Sheehan told the audience that the hunger strikers had irrevocably broken the British government’s policy of criminalising them.
The H-Block prisoners’ viewpoint was that they were political prisoners fighting for a legitimate cause. In 2007 when Sinn Féin accepted policing and justice in the six counties, it skirted over the fact that this policy effectively criminalised those activists who took part in the previous conflict and gave tacit support to their prosecution in the Stormont House agreement.
How then can anyone take what Sinn Féin spokespeople say seriously?
SEAN O’FIACH
Belfast BT11
Hope that new king will begin transformation
As an Irish citizen who believes that a healthy society is always based on a citizenship of equals, I can still find the goodwill, and out of respect to my fellow country men and women who feel fidelity with the English crown, to wish King Charles III good luck for his coronation and a peaceful and just reign. I do sense that there is an unstoppable drive for change that will deliver a more compassionate and fair society which will ultimately end the rule of this out-of-date nobility.
I hope King Charles is the right person to begin this transformation by acknowledging the truth and hurt caused by the British Empire as they brutally exploited many generations of helpless nations and to terminate for ever any glorification of this shameful past by English nationalists and their misguided followers. A good start would be removing the oath of allegiance to the monarchy (for any office ie MPs, judiciary etc) so that loyalty by those who serve us is always committed to the people and just laws of the land and not to any unelected hierarchy. He should urgently replace the current British honours system based on the bygone days of empire and a failed colonial past and rename them with righteous titles that truly recognise citizens for their good deeds and acts.
If the English monarchy is to gracefully decline then a lasting legacy to King Charles III’s reign would be to have a British Isles of free and equal nations by breaking the power of a UK constitution which allows a built-in English majority to mitigate the rights of the Celtic nations. England needs to create its own devolved assembly with Rishi Sunak as its First Minister. Each of the four national regions would have their own devolved assemblies with sovereign rights in each jurisdiction and equal voting rights in a new British Isles government and only a majority from these political institutions could select a prime minister and any new administration.
The Scottish, Welsh, Irish and English peoples must have the freedom of choice to govern together as equals or as independent nations but must always remain firm friends and equal partners in our shared islands.
MICHAEL HAGAN
Dunmurry, Co Antrim
Democrats must condemn all occupation
In response to media demonisation of Diane Abbott MP and her
misuse of words – they are only words (stick and stones). No-one was killed, nor does she support or advocate killing or terrorising, unlike
many other British MPs. Anti-Semitism has been weaponised by Israel to such an extent that western media
give Israel a bye-ball – no condemnation or broadcasting of Israel’s violent treatment of its two million captives and neighbours, the Palestinians.
Putting by force a country inside someone else’s country was always destined to cause instability and regional unrest, as it did when Britain put a country (as they call it) inside Ireland’s 32 counties. No condemnation by western media but it must be condemned by all right-thinking democrats. Why is an Israeli-occupied West Bank – and similarly British-occupied six Irish counties – deemed acceptable, democratic and worthy of praise and reward, yet a Russian-occupied Ukraine is deemed so barbaric and aggressive as to be worthy of starting World War Three with sanctions upon sanctions, which has ironically caused recession and a cost of living crisis?
PETER McEVOY
Banbridge, Co down
Irish sovereignty not an aspiration
Michelle O Neill’s declaration that she is attending the coronation of a British monarch demonstrates again how Sinn Féin have moved from being republican to accepting the monarchy.
Not only accepting British rule but reducing the Irish people’s rights to an aspiration.
This is not and never was the republican position.
She further states falsely that the unionists’ position is also an aspiration. Not true. The unionists’ position is enshrined in the agreement Provisional Sinn Féin accepted and Provisional Sinn Féin can now only play lip service to our sovereign rights. They now are a British political party playing a full role in upholding the violation of Irish national sovereignty. Shame, shame.
FRANCIS MACKEY
Omagh, Co Tyrone
