Disbelief
Sir: Thank you for printing Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien's address to the BritishIrish Association (1 October). It made fascinating reading, though it must have been tiring to listen to. There are gems of great brilliance in it, concerning the Republic's attitude to nationalist violence ('Retrospective approval. . . and disapproval of any violence in the present') and the ideal outside attitude (`the capacity to take certain reiterated aspirations with a grain of salt'), but I think the much-publicised conclusion is still totally unproved.
The year 1972, the date of Fr MacGriel's survey on which Dr O'Brien leans so heavily, was peak horror viewing time in Ulster. There were Bloody Sunday and Bloody Friday; 7,000 refugees across the Border in a single summer week; `physical illtreatment' by the security forces (the Compton Report); declarations of Marxist class-warfare from the Official IRA. Internment having begun in 1971, the government was taken over by Westminster in 1972. Nearly everyone involved said things which today are unimaginable (viz, the now-invisible Sean MacStiofain: 'I think in the event of a British withdrawal you would see people like Paisley . . joining Dail Uladh, and we would be quite happy with that. We say, first you must get the British out and then it's up to us to ensure that we get a Socialist Republic, not a "gombeen" Republic).
In England, we despaired, wept, raged; any American wanting to buy the place and take it brick by brick to Arizona would have had our blessing and a government grant. Though, of course, we were not going to be intimidated by mere terrorists into giving up all our responsibility for the dear old millstone. It is not surprising that Fr MacGriel's survey reflects the same confusion in Eire. But much has changed in five years — and it is simply not fair to project findings from that disastrous year on to 1977.
Dr O'Brien also quotes BBC research of 1974, showing that 76 per cent of the sample in Ulster find unity 'not acceptable' while 16 per cent find it 'acceptable' and he declares that it is 'reasonable to take these figures . . . as approximately representing the views of the population of Northern Ireland on the question of unity'. It is not. Less than half of the Roman Catholic community in Ulster finds the idea of unity with Eire acceptable? Not 'necessary', not 'desirable', just acceptable? It gives rise to elegant snorts of disbelief.
I am not convinced that a plebiscite tomorrow would prove Dr O'Brien's theory. We must vote in a Conservative Government so that Mrs Thatcher can introduce Mr Lyti,:h to the referendum. Anne Woolfe The *Irish News, 70 Hatton Garden, London WC1
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