Words can kill

IN the aftermath of the Easter Rising in 1916 and the significant loss of life that ensued, the poet WB Yeats posed the question: “Did that play of mine send out certain men the English shot?” Yeats was referring to his 1902 play, Cathleen Ní Houlihan, which was overtly nationalist and republican in sentiment.

Following the recent conviction of two men for the brutal homophobic murder of Shaun Fitzpatrick in Dungannon, Co Tyrone, should not certain unionist politicians in the North who have persistently expressed ad hominen homophobic comments ask: “Did those words of mine send out certain men to kill?”

Tom Cooper