Sir, - The decision of the GAA to retain Rule 21, pending future developments, is the right one. Rule 21 exists in its present form for the same reason that both the SDLP and Sinn Fein (who together speak for almost all Northern Nationalists), boycott the NI Police Authority. That is because the RUC in its make-up and its behaviour is not a normal police force. The British Army remains the one body in Northern Ireland whose murders are not merely uncondemned, but ignored or excused by the responsible state. In these circumstances, Rule 21 is a focused and peaceful way for Northern nationalists to register a protest. To describe it as sectarian in these circumstances is profoundly dishonest.
The GAA is doubly right, in that it gave special weight to the views of Northern Nationalists. If the present peace process becomes a device by which Southerners forgive and forget on behalf of Northern Nationalists, then we are all facing sustained strike and the renewal of violence.
Turning the other cheek is an act of courage and restraint. Requiring others to turn it is highhanded and cowardly, especially if those others are in the line of fire and you are not. - Yours, etc., Frank Fitzpatrick,
Dunville Avenue, Dublin 6.