A chara, - Your edition of July 15th reports James Molyneaux's nostalgia for "the good old days" when Catholics used to prepare food for Orangemen returning from parades. There is plenty in Christine Kinealy's article on the same page to suggest that this cosy vignette - often (though not necessarily in this case) trotted out as some kind of rebuke to "intransigent" residents' groups - is unrepresentative of the experiences of Catholics during the marching season in the past.
For anyone interested in peace, Mr Molyneaux's remarks are worrying in that they indicate the existence of a mind-set which enables some to take pleasure in, and see nothing odd in, the idea of a set of people facilitating the commemoration of the military defeat of their ancestors, and the subsequent domination of their own community.
Orangemen are surely unique among the ideologues of the world in publicly longing for such compliance on the part of their foes. Is there any hope that they will begin to form reasonable expectations of their neighbours? - Is mise, Eamann O hEigeartaigh,
Bothar an Ghlasaird, Tir an Iuir, Baile Atha Cliath 6.