Sir, - The dignity of the people of Omagh has inspired and humbled us all. They are a microcosm of the majority of Irish people and we bear a huge responsibility to them to change the climate that spawns the mindless, ruthless few.
The culture has to change. It will take time, but change it must if we are to end forever tragedies like those of August 15th.
Those who signed up to democracy on Good Friday must clearly state that the war is over for good. Nothing less should be tolerated. The ambivalence towards men and women of violence must be questioned. TV and radio interviews have to challenge those who, over the years, have tried our patience with their evasiveness, distortion of facts and arrogant posturing. But too often they were pandered to and we bit our lips as we willed the peace process forward and tried to understand that these representatives had to drag their less enlightened members along with them.
We must dispense with the cruder manifestations of loyalism and nationalism - the drum-beating, the pavement-paintings (of whatever hue), the road-hoardings, the rebel songs, the year-round wearing of green ribbons - emblems which divide not unite. These are sensitive times; be sensitive.
Without the culture of "safe haven", actual or metaphorical, the perpetrators of the horrors of Omagh could not thrive, but this appalling tragedy has unleashed a fierce determination to end this madness for good.
We do not forget our history, but we must get out of its straitjacket and reject the tenets of religion that profess superiority over another. Only then can we move on, grow up. The world is watching. - Yours, etc., Eithne MacFadden,
Church Road,
Carrigart,
Co Donegal.