Madam, – Might I suggest that as part of the “Hands across the Divide” campaign, both President Mary McAleese and Michael McDowell make a formal application to join the Orange Order or the Royal Black Institution? I look forward with great interest to the outcome of their labours.
– Yours, etc,
Madam, – We think Nama is a challenge. Try co-celebrating the outcome of the Battle of the Boyne! Maybe the IRFU would come to the rescue with another rousing Four Provinces song to replace The Sash?
– Yours, etc,
Madam, – I’m a bit bemused by the words of our former minister for justice, tánaiste and ex-Progressive Democrat leader Michael McDowell at the MacGill Summer School that “generally speaking there is an under appreciation of the Orange tradition in Ireland”.
He went on to say, “You look at the problems in the Ardoyne and for people in the Republic one of the most offensive things is to see the Tricolour being waved by people who are engaging in sectarian rioting.”
That may be true, but I would have thought that the burning of the Tricolour, as well as the sectarian burning of effigies of Catholics on top of Orange bonfires, would be far more “offensive” and willing of his words. But then again, as a Republican and somebody who abhors all forms of sectariansim maybe I just “under appreciate the Orange tradition in Ireland”.
– Yours, etc,
Madam, – The spirit of Pádraig Pearse might be envisioned smiling kindly on Michael McDowell for suggesting that it is time the Republic considered making the Twelfth a public holiday (Home News, July 22nd ).
That initiative, if successful,would honour the resolve expressed in the 1916 Proclamation that “all the children of the nation” be cherished equally. It would also honour the requirement to bring about the “lasting truce between orange and the green” which is signified in the white panel of the Tricolour – a flag which symbolises the all-embracing concept of Irish nationality conceived by Thomas Davis,whom Pearse had named, shortly before the Rising, as a father and evangelist of Irish nationality.
– Yours, etc,