Sir, - In writing about the Ballsbridge riot 20 years ago (The Irish Times, July 17th), it was not my intention to address the politics of the H-block tragedies, but to focus on the Garda response to anarchy on the day of the protest march.
Yet, as respect for the dead is deeply rooted in our culture, to an extent perhaps unique in Western society, I readily acknowledge that the 10 hunger-strikers died bravely and, according to their lights, in conscience free.
In her anger otherwise directed at the Garda, Joan Byrne (Opinion, July 23rd) chose to ignore the fact that an orderly and peaceful demonstration was used as cover to attack our democratic State.
Cynically climbing on the backs of the hunger-strikers, anarchists, in their planned vicious assault on the police lines, brought disrepute on the popular response to human suffering which motivated the multitude in taking to the streets.
A baton-charge is a hateful operation for citizen-police. Apart from natural repugnance, they know from experience that in the fallout no mercy will be shown by hurlers on the ditch.
Perceptions are often coloured by fear and anger generated by close proximity to confrontational violence, and by prejudice.
Relying on a tendentious report in the Sunday Tribune, Ms Byrne describes "garda∅ with their numbers removed \ women and elderly people". Was the sub-editor on duty not aware that only city-based garda∅ normally wear district numbers; that their colleagues drafted in from provincial centres did not carry numbers on their uniforms to be "removed"?
While the discipline of some isolated garda∅ may have been dented, was it not wholly admirable that, in the main, frail human nature in uniform withstood the anarchists' physical and manic verbal abuse, in Garda experience unique in its ferocity?
In the rising tide of protest, policemen all over the world are being subjected to this kind of violence. During the Boston riots 20 or 30 years ago some policemen were isolated and doused with urine. Their human outrage, but not the provocation, was captured by television cameramen who were lying in wait, having allowed themselves to be manipulated by agents provocateurs.
Read Paddy Agnew's report on the disturbances in Genoa (The Irish Times, July 23rd), quoting one of the organisers: "Genoa is a setback for those who believe in peaceful and positive protest . . . What we have seen here have been acts of stupid thuggery."
A protest march "70,000- strong, of all nationalities . . . good-natured and cheerful", was hijacked by rioters who "threw cobblestones and Molotov cocktails at the police".
The anarchists were "wearing helmets, masks and body padding as well as wielding iron bars or heavy sticks."
That is what peace-loving Irish society was exposed to at Ballsbridge on July 18th, 1981, when a mere cadre of our unarmed civil police force bravely faced down anarchy, in defence of Joan Byrne's right to protest. - Yours, etc.,
Gregory Allen, Upper Kilmacud Road, Blackrock, Co Dublin.