Peadar’s tale of man’s inhumanity

Sir — I have been following Ulster teams, a rabid supporter of all Ulster counties, since I listened to the broadcast of Cavan and Kerry in 1937. I have been reading about (and later attending or playing) Gaelic football just as long, but I have never read anything that moved me as much as Joe Brolly’s interview with Peadar Heffron (Sport, Sunday Independent, October 29).

I have been shocked at man’s inhumanity to man when I visited the concentration/extermination camps of World War II and the French village where all the men were shot and the women and children burned alive in June 1944, but nothing has depressed me as much as the story of Peadar Heffron in Joe’s article.

It was not the awfulness of the dastardly action of the morons who planted the bomb that shocked me as much as the failure of his clubmates and neighbours to rally to his support.

I had looked forward to a new future for Northern Ireland in which old, bigoted attitudes would wither in time and many events over the past 20 years seemed to be pointing that way. I realised there were still pockets of bigotry and sectarian hatred but I felt that these would disappear in time. Now I’m not so sure.

There is a lot of clamour for investigations into the torture of nationalist internees/prisoners, but Peadar Heffron’s torture will last every day until he dies. Keep on telling it as it is, Joe.

Padhraig McGinn, Carrick-on-Shannon