Many countries worldwide have been partitioned and do not see a need for commemorations — they accept partition and live in the present

Perhaps we should ask why the Christian churches are having a partition commemoration service in Armagh Cathedral, well intentioned as it is meant to be?

The Irish delegation which negotiated the Treaty in 1921 accepted partition which gave rise the Free State and Northern Ireland. Many countries worldwide have been partitioned and do not see a need for commemorations. They accept partition and live in the present.

However, by refusing to attend the Armagh event, President Higgins seems to show a lack of acceptance of the wishes of Northern unionists to remain in the UK. He also does not represent his own people who want a ‘tolerant all-embracing vision’ of the island of Ireland, in the words of Henry McDonald (Sep 20).

He might look in his own backyard. Protestants and Catholics in Southern Ireland with unionist backgrounds left an Anglophobic state in large numbers since independence and those who remained ‘were, or seemed to be, enervated’ by the majority, as the late Provost of Trinity College, FSL Lyons, wrote in Culture and Anarchy in Ireland. With the recent increase in traditional Irish nationalism, their state of enervation is likely to continue.

Robin Bury, Toronto, Canada

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