SCHOOL EDITION 29 MAY 2024 - Flipbook - Page 16
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WEDNESDAY JANUARY 22 2020
www.irishnews.com
LETTERS
THE IRISH NEWS
113-117 Donegall Street, Belfast, BT1 2GE; email: letters@irishnews.com
Opportunity for
taoiseach to
shape next
100 years
I
T IS appropriate for An
Taoiseach to reflect
on the damage caused
to relationships by the
proposals for an RIC
commemoration – ‘United
Ireland further away following
RIC commemoration fall out’
January 9).
Mr Varadkar claims to aspire
to a united Ireland in his
lifetime. Rather than reflect
on the damage caused by a
flawed form of remembrance
he could do more, and
better, by his government
providing a forum where the
implications of providing
for the rights of one million
British citizens in a new
Ireland could be examined.
This could use the Citizens’
Assembly or New Ireland
Forum models to explore
how we will provide for civic,
cultural and identity rights.
Among other matters, such
a forum would examine how
we provide for the civic right
of British citizens born on the
island to hold every public
office, up to an including the
office of president. There
is a lot of work to do. Mr
Varadkar has an opportunity
to play his role in making
sure we shape the next 100
years properly. He should
take it.
CONOR QUINN
Lisburn, Co Antrim
Surely after 100 years a dispassionate perspective is long overdue?
T
HE controversy about the RIC
has been depressing and few
have come out of this well.
I have always envied people
who are so certain of their beliefs.
Like the old westerns – the baddies
wore black hats and the goodies
naturally, wore white hats.
But a reality check is needed? Anyone
who served in the RIC, disbanded 98
years ago, is now long dead, just as
anyone who knew them.
Surely after 100 years a dispassionate,
if not compassionate, perspective is
long overdue? A key question must
surely be, if we can’t accept the past,
what chance do we have for the
future?
One must assume that most people
accept the principle of the rule of
law and the need to enforce it in a
civilised society?
For example, the need to drive on
the left-hand side of the road rather
than indulge in the right to choose,
depending what side of the bed one
got out that morning. If one moves
from civil to criminal law, can fellow
citizens expect protection from
injury, if so from whom?
Looking back to Ireland’s war of
independence, perhaps the first
example of asymmetric warfare,
legend records that Michael Collins
fought in plain sight. Collins
apparently criss-crossed Dublin on a
bike, leaving mayhem and destruction
in his wake. Indeed Collins was
so anonymous that repeatedly he
evaded capture.
Did it not occur to all those mythmakers that most of the time many
RIC officers knew exactly who he was
and his whereabouts? But instead of
arresting him they would speed him
on his way, with a nod and a wink.
I am sure some RIC officers did
behave badly, but that doesn’t mean
that every day the great majority did
not do their best for kith and kin, as
they saw it.
Even with the distance of time it
still seems easier to sloganise and
troll politicians who know how
complicated the truth can be.
Speaking of westerns, one ended
with the line “when the legend
becomes fact, print the legend”.
That was fiction. In 2020 can Irish
republicanism cope with truth and its
history? If not now, when?
Timely
reflection
A
We regret that we
cannot give prior notice
of a letter’s publication
date, acknowledge
unpublished letters or
discuss the merits of
individual letters.
CAUGHT ON CAMERA
Commemoration event for RIC could not be more inappropriate
O
NE acknowledges that those
who recently organised the
event to honour members of
the RIC were well-meaning.
However, in the context of celebrating
the war of independence such an
event could not have been more
inappropriate. Imagine the US
beginning a celebration of the
Revolutionary War with an event
honouring the ‘Red Coats’.
It isn’t as if there are not members
of the RIC who deserve to be
remembered in the struggle for
independence in 1920. The mutiny
FRANK HENNESSEY
Belfast BT9
CATCH OF THE DAY: Fishmongers on Springfield Road, west Belfast
PICTURE: Mal McCann
by members of the Royal Irish
Constabulary in the police barracks
in Listowel, Co Kerry in June 1920
was a significant event in Ireland’s
war of independence.
Fifteen constables refused to be
transferred and to hand their
barracks to the military. As news
of this spread throughout the RIC
and later appeared in the press, the
pace of members of the force taking
early retirement or being dismissed
quickened. Eventually, by March 1
1921, 2,570 members had left the
force. Their places were taken by the
hastily-recruited Black and Tans. For
the most part, these were ex-soldiers
and they received little, if any, serious
police training. Their indiscipline
and the outrages for which they
were responsible alienated the
Irish people, most of whom had
little enthusiasm for the policy and
actions of Sinn Féin and the IRA.
The result was that the crown forces
found themselves operating in an
increasingly hostile environment
which cast serious doubts on their
capacity to successfully pacify the
country.
Subsequently the members of the
RIC who continued in active service
assisting the crown forces until the
Anglo-Irish Treaty were generously
rewarded by the British government.
The members who left the force
for patriotic reasons or who were
unwilling to be used as a paramilitary
force and be at odds with their fellow
countrymen and women were treated
shamefully by successive Irish
governments.
J ANTHONY GAUGHAN
Blackrock, Co Dublin
LLISON Morris’s
reflections on suicide
(January 9) are moving
and timely. She writes that
‘in the Republic suicides
are currently at their lowest
since 1989’. In fact, suicide
is in global decline. Around
the world, suicide decreased
by a third between 1990 and
2016, albeit with significant
variations between countries.
The greatest single outlier
is the US, where suicide
increased by a third between
1999 and 2017.
Different factors are relevant
in different countries. In the
US, ready availability of guns
is critical – despite having
4% of the world’s population,
the US experiences 35% of
the world’s gun suicides. In
context of Northern Ireland,
Allison points out that ‘we
are a post-conflict society
and that has had a dramatic
effect on many people’s
mental health and then there
is the generational impact
of that trauma on family
members born after the
ceasefires’.
These observations point
to the fact that suicide is
very much an all-of-society
problem that requires an allof-society response. Mental
health services have a key
role to play, but so too do
schools and colleges, social
services, housing authorities,
the criminal justice system
and the general public.
Politicians, too, have a vital
role, ensuring that resources
are adequate and that there
is an all-of-government
approach to this issue.
BRENDAN KELLY
Professor of Psychiatry,
Trinity College, Dublin