Peace process hero shifts gaze to Iraq

Just when Irish academics were getting to grips with Iraq, attention switches to Palestine and Israel.

Still, Professor Brendan O'Leary, one of the heroes of the Irish peace process and a staunch advocate of legislation to underpin the peace process with respect for civil rights, has published a welcome new work on Iraq.

He writes: "Friends, Happy new year. Please forgive this shameless e-mail-promotion, but publishers advise their authors to be shameless: it sells books, and in this case I want to be read. Please see a link below to Amazon.com where you can buy my book, How To Get Out of Iraq with Integrity, for $23.07, a pre-publication discount on the hardcover price: the publication date is January 23 2009."

I hadn't heard of the Tuesday's Child charity before but plan to join their torchlight procession from Clonard Monastery at 6.45pm this evening to protest the horrific invasion of Gaza.

And finally from our Dublin correspondent, Niall Meehan, in a letter to the News Letter.


Dear Editor,

It is unlikely, while composing her speech for a meeting commemorating
the centenary of the SIPTU trade union, that President Mary MacAleese
thought it might upset the DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson. Not just him, the
ever sound-bite ready Ken McGuiness was also offended. The Newsletter
put Jeffrey's objection to the President's view that people join armies
for economic reasons on its front page - and devoted an editorial to
criticising the allegedly "deep-seated republican" sympathizing
President (January 5th 2009 - story & editorial below).

To this I can only ask: have you taken leave of your senses?

Asserting that many people join armies to escape from poverty could
not be regarded as controversial, not in most parts of the known (or
the sane) world at any rate. Even though President McAleese quoted an
Irishman in First World Was British uniform, Tom Kettle, MP, this too
was somehow held against her.

If such anodyne remarks cause this amount of fuss, then unionists have
little enough to be worried about. But clearly, worry they do. For
many years politicians in the South advised on not upsetting
unionists, because they are very touchy on the subject of Irish unity
and so forth. Former UK unionist, Tom Kettle's nephew Conor Cruise
O'Brien, was the an early and often proponent of this point of view.
Given the inane unionist reaction to President MacAleese'e remarks at
the the SIPTU Centenary meeting, this approach must be seen to be
redundant. Unionists will find reason to feel insulted anyway.

Merely because of the ridiculous though mildly diverting reaction it
might generate, I suggest an end to the O'Brien approach. If unionists
see offense where none is given, then it is probably better to give
them something to really sink their teeth into. As a start, I suggest:
Jeffrey Donaldson and Ken McGuinness are political nutcases.

Yours sincerely,

Niall Meehan