Sir: Whilst agreeing with Edward Crawford (Letters, 18 October) that
the appalling pogrom perpetrated against the Jewish people in Limerick in 1904 extended to include the Protestant people throughout what is now the Republic, this depraved activity did not stop in 1921, The 'truth that dare not speak its name' is that for the next 75 years the Irish state has proved an inhos- pitable domain for those other than the self-styled 'Gaelic Roman Catholic Irish'. Where did all those hundreds of thousands of Protestants who played such a part in Irish life in 1921 go to? Unlike the IRA, they have gone away. I wonder how many American tourists on holiday in the Repub- lic stop and reflect on why there are so many derelict Protestant churches. Are they ever shown them, I wonder?
That is bad, but what is much worse is what is happening here ' in Ulster today. Ongoing organised boycotts of Protestant- owned businesses are commonplace in rural Ulster. Protestant farmers have had their sons shot dead to ensure that land would not pass from one generation to the next. The graveyards of Fermanagh and Tyrone are stark testimony to the more `contemporary' activities of Sinn Fein/IRA. That Gerry Adams would not speak to Simon Sebag Montefiore is not surprising. That our Prime Minister could speak to Mr Adams is.
R. Hutchinson
Business and Professional People for the Union, PO Box 324, Belfast, Northern Ireland
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