Sir, - The Irish Association is an all-island body set up over 60 years ago to promote social, cultural and economic links between both jurisdictions. A few years ago I chaired a meeting of the association in Buswell's Hotel at which members of the education committee of the Orange Order spoke. Such was the interest that there was standing room only and many could not get into the room. After robust exchanges, at the end of the meeting all agreed, including a reporter from An Phoblacht, that the session had been informative and useful.
Before returning to Northern Ireland one of the Orangemen said to me that he wished there could be a plaque commemorating the foundation of the Orange Order at the site of the first meeting in Dawson Street 200 years before. Saying we were a tolerant society here, I suggested he ask the cultural committee of Dublin Corporation if this would be possible. Obviously the committee responded favourably and the day of testing our tolerance has arrived.
True to her motto, "Building Bridges", President McAleese has had the Orange Order to tea. The Lord Mayor, Cllr Mary Freehill, welcomes them to Dawson Street. I suspect that, like myself, neither would wish to join the Orange Order - women cannot become members, but there are other reasons why we might not wish to join, too.
We ask so much of both communities in Northern Ireland in the name of reconciliation. This march will say more about us here than about the Orangemen.
In his moving poem Ceasefire, Michael Longley writes of Priam, King of Troy, mourning over his dead son Hector, slain by Achilles:
"I get down on my knees and do what must be done And kiss Achilles' hand, the killer of my son."
No matter what our views on the Orange marches the process of reconciliation and the development of a tolerant Irish society has to take place here as well as in Northern Ireland. - Yours, etc., Senator Mary Henry,
Seanad Eireann, Dublin 2.