Real aims of toxic Sinn Fein

Sir — The sky is definitely darkening if your contributor Ed Brophy (Soapbox, Sunday Independent, August 20) believes Sinn Fein is about an abiding faith in the State. Sinn Fein is the party whose stated aim not that long ago was to bring down the governments in both Northern Ireland and the Republic.

He also declares Sinn Fein not to be toxic and refers to Ms McDonald by her first names, to give her a softer feel as if she were some benign den mother. This woman is probably soon to be leader of the political wing of the Provisional IRA, a woman who refuses to denounce the atrocities of that organisation. An organisation that carried out similar atrocities against the innocents of these islands as do now followers of Isil across Europe.

Mr Brophy boldly pronounces that the 18-45 urbanites will decide the next election, thereby dismissing the franchise of the over-45s everywhere, with those of us living in the country having no say in the matter. He further declares that Micheal Martin perpetrates the myth that up to a fifth of the electorate is off limits for government. The last time I looked, majority rules and by my reckoning 80pc of the population do not want Sinn Fein anywhere near government.

It is incumbent on all of us of an age that suffered the 30 years of terrorism at the hands of the IRA to continue to educate the younger electorate, including the deluded Mr Brophy, that to use Gerry Adams’s own words “they haven’t gone away you know”. Brendan Hogan,

Wexford

The irony of Ed Brophy’s position

Sir - At the end of Ed Brophy’s article (Soapbox, Sunday Independent, August 20) there was a footnote telling the readers that Ed was the chief of staff to Joan Burton during the last coalition government. Joan Burton’s Labour Party, as I recall it, was all but wiped out on Ed’s watch.

Yet here he was deigning to give advice to either FF or FG on why they should be thinking about a coalition with the considerably less than constitutional, Sinn Fein.

Clearly Mr Brophy doesn’t do irony. Eddie Naughton The Coombe Dublin 8