Sir, - Your edition of April 30th has an interesting and provocative, if totally one-sided, article on the suicide of Bobby Sands by the artist Robert Ballagh. However, the photograph that accompanies it is a little unusual not in itself, but in its caption.
In my experience, in a newspaper such as The Irish Times, the subscription of such photographs usually contains merely factual material and not matters of opinion. However, in addition to this factual, descriptive material someone has appended the following sentence: "Those who followed the hunger strikers learnt many lessons from that period, in particular that most Irish people support measures that will achieve political democracy as well as peace."
This may or may not be true, but it is certainly a matter of opinion and interpretation rather than of fact and I wonder whether its inclusion does not show an attempt to massage matters in the interests of a republican interpretation. If so, it is certainly misplaced. - Yours, etc.,
Senator David Norris, Seanad Eireann, Baile Atha Cliath 2.