Our role in US wars helped provoke crisis

In 1624 John Donne wrote: ‘No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee....’

Today’s bells are not just tolling for Aylan Kurdi, washed away by the sea, they are tolling for us and Europe and humanity. The chaos that Aylan Kurdi and millions more were fleeing was substantially caused by unjustified wars waged by the US, and European NATO states, shamefully fuelled by Ireland at Shannon airport, for a few dollars more. We will ease our conscience by taking in 1,800 refugees, but will continue to allow US warplanes to refuel at Shannon.

Edward Horgan