How to beat the tribal war dancers today

MARTIN McGuinness is no daw. But he was taken aback by a quick witted reporter on UTV’s Assembly election special last Thursday who asked (a la JFK) not when he had left the IRA, but why?

“For personal reasons,” said Martin.

As this was supposedly the early 1970s, his commitment to ‘the cause’ had evaporated a lot quicker than his vow of silence to his comrades, which would put many a Sicilian hitman to shame.

But, contrary to what your letter writer Conor Foley then deduces (Irish Examiner, Nov 22), this abridged version of Martin’s troubles is (if perfectly understandable as a kind of political poultice) not likely to draw out the hard truth any more than the underlying venom which both the IRA and the British paratroopers have harboured since those watermark horror killings of Bloody Sunday.

But if Martin is fooling no-one about his commitment to the cause (a united Ireland), then unionists are making no bones about their commitment to the union, and as such are unlikely to be swayed by calls for transfer of votes to so-called pro-Agreement candidates who are the natural enemies of such a union (Sinn Fein).

The very best that can be hoped for is that the UUP, Alliance, SDLP and Women’s Coalition cross party lines to vote strategically for each other when either Sinn Fein or the DUP threaten to corner the market with their tribal war dances.

The SDLP and the UUP can bolster their own positions by voting for those who have done most to advance the cause of peace, namely themselves, and all those who have worked the Good Friday Agreement in the broad-cloth of peace.

Richard Dowling,

Coote Street,

Mountrath,

Co Laois.