Sir, - With Tim Pat Coogan's column headed "Unionist veto still the big rock on the road to peace" (Opinion, January 18th), we are back a century to 1901 and the world of D.P. Moran who, in his Leader, liked to lash out with ethnic abuse at groups on the island who did not meet his standards of Irish nationality. I look forward to Mr Coogan reviving the term "sourface" to describe Ulster Protestants.
According to Mr Coogan, a substantial part of the Ulster Unionist Council is essentially a Ku Klux Klan. David Trimble is the best that unionism could "throw up" (the term is used twice in the same sentence to establish its emetic connotations). But there is no point in bemoaning his "lack of leadership qualities" (i.e. his failure to lead unionists in the direction Mr. Coogan would like). The rest of Mr. Coogan's colourfully written piece (is there a word for a cross between a meander and a rant?) is in the same vein.
Mr Coogan's faith in the Good Friday process suffered a setback when Mr Trimble "pulled the Assembly plug". Simple as that. He expects we have already forgotten the drama of three months previously when Mr Trimble did what every nationalist commentator had exhorted him to do for months: he persuaded the KKK (sorry, UUC) to "jump first". Apparently this doesn't count: while Adams and his supporters had to "battle for their ideas" with republicans, the intra-Unionist debate on sharing power in the absence of decommissioning seems to have been a pushover.
What I would love an answer to is this: if Mr Coogan has such an intense gut dislike of unionists such as Trimble (and remember, these are the nice guys of unionism) why does he want a million of them sharing a state with him? Evidently he is slavering for joint sovereignty over them. Maybe he is in thrall to one of the oldest republican delusions - that unionists "respect" those who talk tough to them, i.e. hurl tribal abuse.
Mr Coogan's column is unlikely to bother unionists. But it should bother those of us who had hoped - who still hope - that there is some reality behind all the talk of the last few years of reconciliation and "historic compromise". - Yours etc.,
Dermot Meleady, Dublin 3.