Sir, - Pat Doherty (February 11th) states: "No one has the authority to rewrite the [Good Friday] Agreement, which the overwhelming majority of the people on the island of Ireland voted in favour of adopting."
Republicans should practice what they preach. Whatever the circumstances leading to the emergence of the PIRA, its continuing existence demonstrates an inherent republican contempt for the will and authority of the Irish people as a whole.
It could be said that republicanism is the opium of a minority section of the Irish people. They tend to think and act as if "ourselves alone" constitutes the Irish nation. They seem to believe that they have some "historic" right or sacred duty to impose a republican "solution" upon the Irish people - not to mention the Ulster Protestant people.
Republicans ruling the roost is not my idea of national self-determination, any more than the Good Friday deal itself. - Yours, etc., Malachy Scott,
Belfast 15.