A Tangled Web

Pollyanna Murphy



Remember Pollyanna? She was the children's character created by Eleanor H Porter whose infectious optimism enlivened those around her. She was, however, destined to face an awful event, which severely dampened her erstwhile zeal and virtually destroyed her ability to take on the reality of her new-found situation.



Does this all sound familiar? Northern Ireland Secretary, Paul Murphy, is Pollyanna's contemporary embodiment: a man so blinded by misplaced buoyancy he cannot perceive one iota of reality beyond the sheen of fictitious spin. How else could one account for his opinions on the imminent resurrection of a peace process now roundly rejected by a vastly greater number of the pro-Union majority?



Murphy has perhaps not comprehended the fact that should the Robinson/Dodds groupies of the DUP gain ascendancy and leap into the political lion's den with proficient murder force, Sinn Fein/IRA, they will create a fissure in their party destined to bring about its own emasculation, and be punished for doing so by the Unionist electorate.



The Belfast Agreement is dead!! This fact hasn't yet dawned on Irish nationalists who think they can collectively bully Ulster's British majority into a submission not achieved when the IRA was systematically exterminating them. Permitting apologists for irredentist terror to gain governmental leverage over Northern Ireland is not an experiment the pro-Union people would countenance again. It's high time our Government started to realise it.