Letter from Ireland

My trip to Ireland in December began with a stern looking young man at Glasgow airport asking me why I was going to Belfast. A passport with visas from five continents is suspect—the terror is global now. I tell him I want to visit friends. This is true, although my best friend, a priest named John Niel Fitzpatrick, is dead. He was killed by a British bullet while administering the last rites to a dying boy who had been shot on the street. An enviable death for a priest. The Anglican bishop came to the funeral.

The Belfast airport is far from the city, almost on Lough Neagh, and during the long drive I questioned my friends. Is there any hope for Northern Ireland? Yes and no, they answered. They are priests, who don’t care for murder and manslaughter, and, they are convinced that an all-Irish council will be an important step toward reconciliation. But both sections of the IRA are against it, as are the Protestant extremists led by William Craig and Pastor Ian Paisley.

EK

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Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

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My trip to Ireland in December began with a stern looking young man at Glasgow airport asking me why I was going to Belfast. A passport with visas from five continents is suspect—the terror is global now. I tell him I want to visit friends. This is true, although my best friend, a priest named John Niel Fitzpatrick, is dead. He was killed by a British bullet while administering the last rites to a dying boy who had been shot on the street. An enviable death for a priest. The Anglican bishop came to the funeral.

The Belfast airport is far from the city, almost on Lough Neagh, and during the long drive I questioned my friends. Is there any hope for Northern Ireland? Yes and no, they answered. They are priests, who don’t care for murder and manslaughter, and, they are convinced that an all-Irish council will be an important step toward reconciliation. But both sections of the IRA are against it, as are the Protestant extremists led by William Craig and Pastor Ian Paisley.