Move On, Reverend

SOME of Father Sean McManus’s remarks in his letter “MacBride Still Crucial,” (April 4-10) are inexcusable and very harmful to Northern Ireland.

McManus’s assertions that “there is still deep seated and virulent anti-Catholic sectarianism” in Northern Ireland, and that there is a mindset that sees Catholics as inferior, are so ridiculously exaggerated that they are very damaging to our efforts to continue Northern Ireland’s progress.

Yes, you can still find individual Protestants who hate Catholics, just as you can find individual Catholics who hate Protestants, but in the main we are so far beyond that now that it is tragic and frustrating to read such dated rhetoric in a newspaper. Indeed, I challenge McManus to walk into any Protestant neighborhood in Northern Ireland and find someone who feels that Catholics are “inferior.”

McManus is one of a handful of voices occasionally seen on this page so utterly out of touch with the new Northern Ireland that his words are dangerous. Dangerous because they can motivate men of violence to fight battles that either don’t exist, or certainly don’t need to be fought in a way they once may have. For years we accused Ian Paisley of such inflammatory language, and we thought, and hoped, we had left that behind.

If McManus needs Irish America to believe Northern Ireland in 2007 is the same as Northern Ireland in 1967 in order to make relevant his role as president of the Irish National Caucus, then could someone please give him a job.

Thomas Keown

Somerville, Massachusetts

Irish vs. English

IN Peadar O’Fiach’s letter “English Domination,” he seems to overlook the atrocities committee by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, while emphasizing the atrocities committed by the IRA. Both sides are guilty and nobody condones those horrible acts of terrorism.

Has he ever read about the reign of terror which Cromwell imposed on Ireland during the 1640s ? He was sent by Britain to slaughter and plunder Ireland and force the people from all of Ireland to Connaught with his motto “To Hell or to Connaught.”

In Drogheda alone, only 30 men escaped the sword out of a garrison of 3,000. The land was then given to the English settlers who became rich landlords.

Does O’Fiach think these actions endeared the English to the Irish? Or is this trade and development as he suggests in his letter? Remember this was done by the people who gave us the Magna Carta!

The Irish economy is booming thanks to the European Union. Where does O’Fiach get the notion that Ireland is under England’s wing in the EU? It is my understanding that all countries have equal standing and voice in the EU.

The young Irish of today can live full and satisfying lives in the country of their birth, surrounded by family and friends, and it makes me proud to see it. This would not have happened under England’s domination.

One Englishman I greatly admire is British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has done much to further the peace process in the north of Ireland and doesn’t seem to be interested in being the dominant member, a far cry from Margaret Thatcher (the Iron Lady) who didn’t want to move forward and was stuck in the glories of the past.

Mae Doyle Sullivan

Media, Pennsylvania

Foolish English Lover

PEADAR O’Fiach’s letter “English Domination” (March 28-April 3) of the blessings bestowed by the British Empire is a scholarly wonder.

First he cites the 25% of the world population living in commonwealth nations who so appreciate English rule for bestowing stable free democracies upon them. Even flag and currency designs using British symbols are invoked as proof of this appreciation.

Since he credits no sources for his statistics of appreciative former colonials, are we to assume he personally conducted massive surveys of commonwealth citizens? Quite an impressive feat from his stronghold near the Botanical Garden Metro North station.

Next a giant leap of logic — sort of — in claiming India’s rising economy is a benefit of “its long and close relationship with England.” Gandhi didn’t see it quite that way when he marched to the sea for salt and made homespun cloth as a protest against English economic bondage.

O’Fiach seems not to grasp that colonialism, by design, sucked colonies dry of natural resources, displaced native products in favor of the occupiers’ manufactured products and forced cultural changes contrived to suit the agenda of the occupiers. It was all about power and wealth, not altruism.

And then another giant leap of logic (?) — apparently he thinks Ireland, as a smaller EU member, is still “really under England’s wing, since England is the EU’s dominant member.”

Does the membership of the EU agree? Do the citizens of Ireland concur?

Ireland participates fully in EU membership while England, which joined for fear of being sidelined by a strong united Europe, still holds themselves separate from the larger European community, did not join member nations in accepting the euro and distanced themselves from the findings of the European Court of Human Rights regarding British violations of the rights of Irish dissidents.

Finally O’Fiach talks about his great respect for the English. I respect many individual English, but neither their empire nor their treatment of colonial subjects is worthy of respect.

Some of my English friends understand well that England abused Ireland in the past. Ask descendants of the Amritsar massacre or the Croke Park massacre or the Black and Tan solution how their families felt.

Go see Ken Loach’s historically accurate The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Civil war marked the exit of the British from many of their colonies besides Ireland.

In Ireland, they deliberately left weapons behind and pressured Michael Collins with threats of returning if he didn’t attack the Four Courts. They intentionally offered a choice between their return or civil war, which they may have hoped would result in their return anyway. Remember, they tried to make a comeback here in 1812.

I recall O’Fiach’s earlier letter disputing readers who blamed English policy for the Famine. He suggested that the British were always motivated by a desire to bring Ireland to level of prosperity comparable to England’s.

I can’t help thinking of O’Fiach as the Irish American equivalent of a Holocaust denier. My big question is, what is his game here? Why the many letters over an Irish language name version praising English involvement in Ireland?

Is it worth continuing to debate this Holocaust denier? And does Peter from the Bronx think adopting his Irish nom de plume fools us?

Anne T. Murphy

A/k/a Aine Ni Murchadha

New York, New York

Goodwill for All

WHEN I was with the now defunct American Irish Political Education Committee, I wrote their editorial praising the Good Friday Agreement but pointed out that it would work in practice only if both sides in Northern Ireland exhibited the goodwill needed to make it work. That goodwill was not present at that time for reasons we need not go into now.

I greet with even greater hope the recent peace agreement, and support the positive views of Niall O’Dowd as expressed in his recent editorial comments in the Irish Voice. This is the hope too of the great majority of the people in Northern Ireland, of that I’m sure.

It will be up to the political figures in the Nationalist and Unionist communities to make the Assembly work for the benefit of all the good people of the North, and not to allow themselves to fall back into the petty squabbling which prevented a better life for all in the past.

The time for finger pointing over past injuries is past. And I particularly address the Nationalist community in saying that this way forward is the best road to a united Ireland, better by far than the road of coercion.

Albert Regan Doyle

Sanibel, Florida