Democracy defeats violence

Have we, in our safety down south, forgotten the true terribleness of war?

My grandmother talked about the terribleness of war, having lived through the 1916 Easter Rising and the War of Independence.

Worse still, living through the years before that convinced her that our safety depended on them taking action.

She and my grandfather lived and fought through that terrible time so that you and I could live in peace.

The terribleness of the life they inherited was an unnatural life, one that meant they could not be Irish.

Proud to be Irish? No. Words only spoken in secret. Otherwise, it was an always present threat to their well-being.

So how dare we now sanctimoniously judge the people of Northern Ireland for choices that you and I have never had to make?

I don’t agree with all the decisions that Sinn Féin and the people of Northern Ireland – whether Catholic or Protestant, unionist or nationalist – have made.

I know enough not to judge or to know what I would have done in their shoes.

If you make peace, you have to allow people you don’t like to hold power. This is the point. Offer a democratic alternative to violence.

It seems some Irish people forget that we only got freedom through the gun ourselves.

Or perhaps we should have banned all old IRA members from the 1921 Irish Parliament because of their past actions? It is about time we lived by our side of the Good Friday Agreement and leave the past where it lies.

This is not easy but peace never is. Pauline Bleach NSW, Australia