Unionists fail to pay their respects to Reynolds

Did I blink during the RTÉ live coverage of Albert Reynolds’s funeral or did no prominent member of the unionist/loyalist community come to Dublin to pay their respects to the former taoiseach?

One would have thought that David Trimble, Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson, Nigel Dodds, Billy Hutchinson, Dawn Purvis, Reg Empey, Jeffrey Donaldson, or John Taylor might have attended to acknowledge that Reynolds got the IRA to call a halt, in August, 1994. No other politician had done this since 1969.

There has also been little mention of the fact that the National Treasury Management Agency was the brainchild of Reynolds. Things maybe bad now, but only for the NTMA they would be worse.

Most bewildering was the number of “political analysts” in their 30s on broadcast media talking about Reynolds’s legacy, having read about his life and career on Google. Most of them were no more than 15 when the IRA ceasefire was announced 20 years ago and had no understanding of the context that led up to August 1994.

Ken Murray

White Cross

Duleek

Co Meath