Madam, - Máirín De Burca (July 30th) asks the Provisional IRA what the thousands of deaths were all about, counterposing their path with that taken by the Officials in 1969. She suggests that the Officials choose a path other than the bomb and bullet in 1969. This is simply not true.
As a young man in Newry I was a member of the Official IRA up to 1977/78 (despite a supposed ceasefire called by the officials in 1974). At that time (1977) the Official IRA was busy importing AK47s into Northern Ireland - long before the Provos got their hand on weaponry of such calibre. Needless to say these guns have never been decommissioned.
In the mid and late 1970s the Official IRA were still engaged in shooting and bombing the UDR and British soldiers, robbing banks, post offices and security vans (North and South), forging bank notes, carrying out punishment shootings and beatings, shooting Provos, IRSP/INLA members and various other individuals with whom they had disagreements. Most of my friends ended up spending time in Jail for the Official IRA for such offences.
During that time I and other young volunteers from the North regularly visited our HQ in Dublin at 30 Gardiner Place, where Máirín de Burca was regularly to be seen about the place. She was something of a role model for those of us who were in the Official IRA but were quite politically motivated as well.
Mairin's revisionism is disrespectful to the families of those who died at the hands of the "Stickies", north and south of the Border. It is disrespectful to those who were shot or "killed in action" while operating on behalf of the Official IRA and it is disrespectful to the hundreds of young men (and several women) who served long prison sentences on behalf of the Official IRA.
It would appear that Ms de Burca eventually chose a different path - as I did myself. But my fear is that, so long as we individually try to sanitise our own involvement in the complex network of direct and indirect support we gave those involves in armed conflict in Northern Ireland, we distort history and demonise the other.
In so doing, we end up demonising the truth. Every death in Northern Ireland was tragic and each was a death too many. However, to blame it all on the Provos is simply inaccurate and unhelpful.
Let us all start facing up to our own truth so that somewhere in the distant future an accurate history of those tragic times may emerge. Only then can history offer up the wisdom and hope it is capable of sharing with future generations, helping to avoid a tragic repeat of past mistakes. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN DOWLING,
Bishop Street,
Dublin 8.
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Madam, - As it has taken Provisional Sinn Féin/IRA over seven years to submit to the democratic wish of the people of Ireland, will a similar courtesy be afforded to the unionist parties before expecting them to resume any negotiations? - Yours, etc,
JA CAMPBELL,
Cowper Village,
Dublin 6.
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Madam, - Jim Yates (August 3rd) is on the right lines - but it is Gerry-pandering, not -mandering. - Yours, etc,
D. KENNEDY,
Belfast 7.