A chara, - There's a simple solution to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Padraic Pearse himself told us when he spoke these words over the grave of the "unrepentant Fenian" O'Donovan Rossa in 1915: "They have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace." Clearly, what you need to do is dig up those Fenian dead. Get them out of there. That's what's causing all the trouble.
Now, I know those six counties aren't part of Ireland, no indeed. You and I know it, Clinton and Blair and Trimble know it, but those poor corpses haven't gotten the word, since there was only one Ireland when most of them bought the farm. All they know of Ireland now is the earth they're buried in, and that only stops at the sea.
The tricky part will be what to do with them. Two possibilities come to mind. You could haul them out into the Atlantic and dump them with the quarter-of-a -million famine emigrants who didn't survive the crossing. Or you could send them over to England to lie with old comrades in quicklime in a prison yard. The latter would be an appropriate "EastWest" gesture of good faith, since the British government, as I recall, was loath to part with the remains of Roger Casement.
Of course, you'll have to give Casement back. And one of you is going to have to dig up Dev. I don't think he'll go quietly. Whatever you do, don't waste time. The referendum on Articles 2 and 3 is being drafted as we speak, and pretty soon you're going to need your shovels. - Is mise,
Mary Stasia
Concannon, Locust Grove, Virginia, USA.