Sir, - The unreformed mindset of unionism, so depressingly evoked by Kevin Myers's perceptive Diary of September 11th, is displayed in all its convoluted and circuitous splendour on the facing page in an article by Lord Kilclooney of Armagh ("Peace process approaches a critical moment").
He writes: "Sinn FΘin/IRA still demand a police service in Northern Ireland which complies with their minority demands, rather than one which would attract the support of both. . .communities." Am I misinformed, or is it not the implementation of Patten and the referendum-ratified Good Friday Agreement Sinn FΘin is demanding?
As long as unionists insist on rationing "their" democracy on their conditions, their community will continue to be misled down the bleak cul-de-sac mapped by Mr Myers - not a bright prospect for the majority of people on these islands who ask little more than a chance to raise their families free from mutual fear and hostility.
It is to be hoped unionists will turn from this verbal artistry, here produced by the representative formerly known as John Taylor, and produce a generation of leadership more conscious of the broader inputs of their culture to the building of our still emerging nation.
Ulster and the southern State are united in one area, if no other. We are all afflicted alike by small-minded, faction-driven representation paying lip-service to the great abstractions of platitudinous rhetoric. It will take more honest leadership than the good lord's to bring us to a state where we are something more than "two peoples divided by a common tongue". - Yours, etc.,
Damien Flinter, Church Hill, Clifden, Co Galway.