Irish unity
Sir: Irish unification can only be, and will only be, brought about by a proper unification of these two islands — call them the British or Western Isles or what you will. That is to say by some sort of confederation of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic, and the Isle of Man for good measure. And otherwise You can talk till you're black in the face (which may not be long in coming about) about Irish unification alone. Or the Irish dimension alone, as if it, and not the British dimension in and out of Ireland, was the most important Problem for all of us. Yes, even those of us who are of Irish birth and upbringing, but who are not blinded by the crass and stupid overweening nationalism of the catholic-Gaelic Irish, we can recognise that these islands are unalterably an economic and geographic unit, and should be and must be for the safety of all become a political and social unit. Meanwhile, British journalism and the British media may continue in their particular trendylefty form of self-effacement, as if there was no British dimension anywhere worth the name, and as if fifty-six million people here on this island must go on without a murmur being blackmailed by three million Irish Catholics into forcing a million Protestants out of the British dimension and into a Catholic-Gaelic Republican Irish dimension whose whole ethos is alien and repugnant to them. And none of you appear to see that it is these same Gaelic Irish who are the undemocratic overweening Green Fascists, forcing you, all of You British, and not only the Ulstermen, to bow to them. Ireland Will be Gaelic and Catholic when Ireland is free, said Padraig Pearse. Yes, indeed, and to hell with those Who are not Catholic and not Gaelic, be they Ulstermen, Britishers, or what have you! And all Mr Heath can do is to threaten another form of blackmail, the .usual one of cash, unless the Protestants do bow the head! And this is a British Conservative Government? Who do you think You're kidding, Messrs Heath and Wilson? I might well sign myself Disgusted, Late of Anglo-Irish Parnellite Household, Dublin (in its better days before the partition), but you might then refuse to Publish this letter. I leave you no Option by saluting personally your efforts to become less trendy-lefty and more like the once fine liberalconservative organ you once were.
Ewart Milne 46 De Parys Avenue, Bedford Sir: I am sorry to have to spoil Mr Clive Gammon's little joke (November 25) with a tedious detail of textual accuracy in his criticism of Our Ireland' programme, but I'm afraid that no one actually asked Lord Brookeborough the question he suggests. Mr Gammon quotes part of the answer which Lord Brookeborough gave to the question, "Would he justify the discrimination that took Place in Northern Ireland on the grounds that Catholics couldn't be trusted and therefore had to be excluded?" As the programme was concerned with the political development of Northern Ireland between partition and the mid'sixties, and as Lord Brookeborough was a member of the Stormont government for a considerable part of this period (he retired in 1963 — is that "long since "?) I can think of no one who is better qualified to give the Unionist point of view.
I doubt very much, incidentally, if the question which Mr Gammon thinks is so fatuous — why did the Protestants in Northern Ireland fear the Catholic minority — is as fatuous as he believes. Indeed I would hope that people who watched it with an open mind might have found the programme helpful in answering it.
Howard Smith Senior Producer, Further Education, Television, British Broadcasting Corporation, Villiers House, Haven Green, Ealing W5
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