I blinked this morning. The main headline at the top of the page said, "British army propped up sectarianism". The letter beneath it began: "The British army is gone, and good riddance." It went on to attack the role of British soldiers in Northern Ireland. Below it was another letter pointing out the paper's failure to mention the number of unarmed Irish citizens killed by the army.
Why did I blink? The letters were published in the Daily Mail. But before English-based Mail readers turn to the letters page let me add that they appeared only in the paper's Irish edition. The English were treated instead to an altogether different lead letter: "Our cat is a life-saver, not a curse", which told how Tiggy raised the alarm when a house caught fire.
How I wish that the Mail - and the rest of the British popular press - had raised the alarm about the true situation in Ireland's northern six counties in the 1960s. Think of the bloodshed that need not have been spilled if newspapers had cared to see through the official spin of British governments and supported a population demanding civil rights.
