Maurice Fitzgerald's continuing rant against northern nationalists is exposing him as a one-eyed revisionist with little grip on reality. By simply pretending that the violence in the six counties started for no reason whatsoever, he ignores (and in doing so condones) the traditional violent sectarianism of the Orange Order against northern Catholics and the abuse of power which pushed an entire society, once again, to the verge of collapse.

His view that a genocide has been perpetrated against the unionist "majority" rings entirely hollow in light of the fact that the majority of people who died in the conflict were actually Catholic. Whatever his reasons for this, they have nothing to do with the facts. The notion that genocide can be committed against an "apparatus" is as obscure as it is desperate, and turns the UN definition of genocide on its head.

He claims "Unionists have always had right on their side". Really? It feels more as if Fitzgerald is deliberately ignoring the issues of collusion, the Glenanne gang, the Shankill butchers and Bloody Sunday for the sake of a good old-fashioned anti-republican rant. I say this simply because any right-minded person, while acknowledging the suffering of both sides in this dreadful conflict, would consider it entire folly to make arguments whereby one section of the community claims moral superiority over the other. The truth is neither side of the conflict has ever had the luxury of exclusivity of virtue.

Philip Connolly

New Ross,

Co Wexford.