Letter: A new spirit in Ireland

Sir: If Dick Spring and other decent Irish people want to help to bring IRA violence to an end, there is something they can do that would be more effective than calling for peace.

There is no point in appealing to the better side of a terrorist's nature. Public shock and outrage are the very things he seeks to promote.

It is the Irish people themselves who help to keep alive terrorist hopes of driving the British out of Northern Ireland. By insisting on their constitutional claim to the territory - and refusing to discuss it without some compensating advantage - they give the terrorist a spurious justification for his violence. Even the Irish High Court regards the IRA as seeking to achieve by force what the court regards as a 'constitutional imperative' to unify the island of Ireland.

Irish people could strike a real blow for peace by depriving the IRA of all moral and legal justification for its violence, simply by removing Articles 2 and 3 from the Irish Constitution.

Yours faithfully,

IVOR STANBROOK

London, SW1

26 March