EDITOR – No one has seriously considered the viable alternative of our Republic going back into the United Kingdom to solve what is sure to be one of the longest running interregnums the Stormont Assembly will ever see.
And probably lead to its final closure this time.
All we hear from republicans is their quest for a united Ireland as a solution with no alternative and no blueprint for it.
Well, there is an alternative: by the Republic going back into the United Kingdom, dare it be said. Then there would be a united Ireland automatically.
Why should we continue to listen to the painstaking and hopeless struggle for a united Ireland and its dogma from republicans, and suffer failed and crippled devolution? It’s not working and only on the blink since 1998.
These two islands, if brought together, could forge a new relationship with the EU if we were all one instead of being divided as it is with border and jurisdiction problems currently.
I believe that the decision in 1916 by a few hundred rebels to rabble rouse to get most of the island of Ireland to leave was a very big mistake indeed.
The Irish State has been nothing but a post-colonial nightmare in terms of government since then and right up to the present, but especially on emigration where the lack of opportunity for the younger generations is extremely limited.
The Irish Dáil handed over the newly founded State to the Catholic Church who ran it and still runs it in many key quarters with an iron fist.
Even today 2022, we can see Dublin’s new maternity hospital being the subject of intense controversy because of its association with religious quarters and what are ‘clinically appropriate’ procedures which can and cannot be carried out in the hospital.
The Irish health service overall is right-wing and favours people with money with private insurance policies in an American-style system, which Northern Ireland’s people would never accept.
When the rebels of 1916 who had a stronghold at the GPO in Dublin were eventually captured, they were booed by passersby as they were arrested. The 1916 rising wasn’t as popular as republicans would like to think and far from it.
The Northern Ireland Troubles would never have existed if the island did not partition in 1922 and the Irish State would not have remained in the dark ages for so long after that, with a very narrow business base based mainly on farming and controversial tax-less foreign direct investment —which take their profits elsewhere.
To my mind the Republic should consider rejoining the Union as a better alternative of bringing about unity and forget about what the long passage of time has proven will not be achieved.
Maurice Fitzgerald,
Shanbally,
Cork.
Bantry could be out-of-bounds under Nato
EDITOR – Where would Ireland be without the French to look after our affairs? It’s a question that media reports of comments made by the French Ambassador to Ireland, Monsieur Vincent Guérend, have led me to ponder.
It is not today or yesterday that The Southern Star published correspondence from me warning of just some of the consequences that would follow were our neutrality ever to be surrendered by our joining Nato, or some other military alliance.
Noting our location on the western approaches to Europe, one could envisage West Cork being in the eye of the needle. Easy to imagine is the likelihood that Bantry Bay would become a deep-water naval base – a no-go area, fenced-off from public view and filled with submarines and warships, while the town of Bantry becomes a ‘green light’ playground for foreign sailors, some from France!
Easy to imagine, also, is that a similar fate would befall Mayo’s Killary Harbour and Knock Airport, and Donegal’s Lough Swilly, as warships and fighter aircraft descended upon us to defend Europe’s western outposts.
Interesting to read reports of what the French Ambassador to Ireland has had to say as he warned that ‘something like neutrality’ would not stop Russia if it intends ‘to harm a neutral country’ – an apt piece of speculation when one remembers the brave Castletown-Berehaven fishermen whose recent intervention successfully persuaded Mr Putin to remove his ‘exercising’ warships from their fishing grounds off our south west coast.
Asked if Ireland should follow Finland and Sweden by joining Nato, M Guérend went on to say ‘that’s not at all for any of us, and certainly not for France to decide, or encourage or discourage’. One could not help noticing the inference in his response that France would never meddle in the affairs of a neutral country. Patently, that is not true!
By voicing his opinion on a matter that is especially dear to the Irish people, surely the ambassador was speaking on behalf of the government he represents and, by doing so, was going beyond his brief?
Indeed, if results in the recent French Presidential election suggest anything, perhaps the time has come for France to concentrate on its own affairs and leave the matter of Irish neutrality in the hands of the Irish people!
Don Hall,
Baltimore.
Do we really need the expense of more TDs?
EDITOR – We are informed an additional nine TDs will be elected to the next Dáil. Are additional TDs needed or is it just more jobs for the boys and girls?
These additional TDs will have salary, allowances, staff and office support in addition to various other services – all at substantial cost to the taxpayer.
I suggest the total cost of supporting these additional TDs would go a long way to providing support services to children with special needs.
We, the electorate, must insist politicians (and indeed senior civil servants) show more consideration for taxpayers’ money.
Michael A Moriarty,
Rochestown, Cork.
Not very much press freedom under Putin!
EDITOR – Politicians Clare Daly and Mick Wallace were on television and the media blaming America and Nato for the war in Ukraine.
Did Ms Daly ever stop and ask how much press freedom she would have in Russia to criticise the state?
Michael Hallissey,
Mayfield,
Bando
