Sir, - Several recent letters have compared the response in the South to recent LVF murders with the response to Provisional IRA violence such as the Warrington bombing. Such comparisons are understandable; but it is wrong to draw the inference that the Warrington bombing mattered to people more than the LVF murders.
I attended the demonstration in Dublin following Warrington and I'm sure I speak for many of those present in saying that it ultimately had more to do with the perpetrators than the victims. The message was simple: the Provos claim that their violence is on behalf of the people of Ireland; we, the people of Ireland, repudiate that. The LVF, on the other hand does not claim to speak on our behalf. The proper place for a demonstration against the LVF thugs was in Belfast.
Billy Hutchinson's statement at the Belfast peace demonstration that "we are here to commemorate innocent Catholics" was essentially Northern loyalists sending the same message to the LVF as Southerners had sent to the Provos: you do not represent us and cannot take our name in vain to murder innocent people. The days when the use of alphabet soup such as LVF, INLA, etc., can be used as sufficient justification for sectarian murder are drawing to a close. - Yours, etc.
Sean Swan,
Walnut Grove, Wexford.