Sir, Many of us feel we have been duped. We needed to believe lest hope becomes the victim. We grieve for families; we despair of failure and we feel angry. We cannot restore life to those who have lost it. We cannot undo the grief of wives, mothers and children. But we can resolve not to let failure derail us.
We would therefore urge people of goodwill to redouble their efforts. For we must never give up. We owe is to those who mourn in our generation. We owe it to those thousands of the past generations whose lives were also destroyed by the sectarian curse with which Ireland has been afflicted for so long. We owe it, most of all, to those who will follow in the generations to come.
Just now the New Ireland Group would plead with the republican movement to think of Ireland and the pain of its people. And why the republican movement? Because the republican movement and it alone can restore what we are in danger of losing: HOPE. - Yours, etc.,
On behalf of the New Ireland Group,
Ballymoney,
Co Antrim.