Few advantages to our colonial past

THE advantages which our colonial past bestows upon us according to A Leavy (Letters, May 3) are of a very questionable nature.

Firstly a democratic government, besides the obvious difference between a monarchy and a republic, our former rulers did not care much for the democratic election results of 1918.

As for a legal system, I hope the Guilford Four and the Birmingham Six, plus countless others hung or deported, are thankful for their treatment under this system. When it comes to literature and language, which of our two countries was a beacon of learning and writing, while the other was in the clutches of the dark ages? We were not called the Island of Saints and Scholars for nothing. With regards to our infrastructure, how else could the conqueror get its spoils to the ports for export home, like the great oak forests that this land was raped of to build an English navy and to export grain, even in famine times.

According to A Leavy, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 “drew a line under the wrongs of history.” What has changed since then? We have had obstruction into enquiries of collusion in the murders of Pat Finucane, Robert Hamill and Rosemary Nelson by the Inquiries Act of 2005.

We have had the Stormont raid of 2004 with its sinister objective of bringing down Stormont, the admission of bugging of elected representatives by Mo Mowlam in 2000 and by MI5 in 2005. Even this year we have had the attempted framing of a remand prisoner in Maghaberry and the public statement of the police ombudsman of non co-operation and blatant interference in its investigations.

A Leavy states that the monarch was invited on our behalf by the elected head of this state.

Is this the same head of state who thought it was a good idea to bail out Anglo Irish? Now everyone can see what a good idea that was, too.

James O’Leary

Whiddy island

Bantry

Co Cork