Letter: As News Letter coverage shows we were among the lucky ones in the Troubles

For all of us in Ireland the Troubles have come uncomfortably close.

I started speaking out in 1985 after the Anglo Irish Agreement when I had to send my wife and children back to England from Dublin, my wife's academic career in ruins.

She was a brilliant Pascal and La Rochefoucauld scholar, a lecturer in Trinity College Dublin in 1969-1978 and 1979-1985 and a Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, her own alma mater, in 1978-1979 which she resigned in order to support my own career in Dublin.

I am afraid that I lacked the courage of many of those speaking out and I broke down in December 1985 under the pressure of doing so, as my wife became increasingly alarmed. These were indeed terrible times.

It took me five years to recover but the experience destroyed the happiness of my family and indeed destroyed the marriage itself.

But we were among the lucky ones as is clear from your many reports and many anniversaries in the Belfast News Letter.

We survived with our lives and have had to make new lives for ourselves, they in England and I in Ireland.

Thirty years later I had another young son. He was educated in Dublin and is a part of the younger generation which I hope will take us to better times.

At a speech day in his school I was talking to a parent from Northern Ireland and happened to mention the case of Edgar Graham which had made a great impression on me.

Astonishingly she said that she had been standing by Edgar Graham when he was shot. What could I say to that? I was dumbfounded.

Many brave people in Ireland have spoken out over the years.

I recall once again Shane Paul O'Doherty whom I had the privilege of teaching Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the late 1980s. My only pupil from Wormwood Scrubs and a great man.

Many brave political leaders have taken us to where we are today and we are grateful for their wisdom and courage.

But we are not there yet and we must continue in hope and friendship.

Dr Gerald Morgan,

Fellow Trinity College Dublin (1993), Lydbrook School (1946-1953), Monmouth School (1953-1961), Meyricke Exhibitioner, Jesus College, Oxford (1961-1964), D.Phil. (Oxon.), 1973