Letters: Attack on National Party conference reprehensible

Last Sunday's (November 14) attack on the National Party ard fheis at the Lough Erne Resort, Co Fermanagh by a far-left group was a reprehensible act which should be condemned by all right-thinking people.

Reports in the BBC and elsewhere have described how approximately 20 masked men arrived at the National Party's private conference armed with hammers.

Some media have downplayed the obvious mens rea of the attacking party, describing them simply as "protestors".

Who seriously believes that people who turn up masked and wielding hammers are there to lodge a peaceful protest?

Some of the media has shamelessly equivocated, seeking to portray the violence as between two groups of equally condemnable extremists.

Ideology aside, there are clearly major differences between members of a registered political party who lawfully assemble to hold their annual ard fheis in peace and a group which arrives to violently oppose them and cause attendees harm - some of whom were women and children.

Caoimhín Ó Maolchalann, Ballinasloe, Co Galway