Citizens should be very careful who they vote for

In defending Sinn Fein/IRA, Kevin Girvin (Letters, Nov 21) seems to have forgotten it is not 1920. He’s also forgotten the SF party people joined, in 1918, disappeared by 1923 because people rejected its extremism.

Just as they rejected efforts to unite the island when they supported the pro-treaty side in the Civil War, which gives the lie to SF/IRA claims Irish people do not support partition.

History implies that SF/IRA and those who vote for it should be careful what they wish for.Lots of things happened in the past that were considered normal to some. Like SF/IRA thugs murdering people, running its protection rackets, knee capping or protecting sexual abusers. Or diverting money donated from the Irish in America or children and the poor being abused and treated as slave labour by the religious orders with the knowledge of the state itself.

I’d like to think no one would accept such foul standards in 2014, which is why SF/IRA is so reluctant to allow any light to be shone on its activities. It knows normal people would recoil in revulsion.

Desmond FitzGerald

Canary Wharf

London