Altered states

Feargal Cochrane’s essay (“Unionism, nationalism and unrequited love,” June) correctly diagnoses one of the features of Northern Ireland’s unique and occasionally tragic predicament at the crossroads of two states: its ambivalent relationships with those two “patron” countries—Ireland and Britain.

But what happens when one of those states is fundamentally altering itself, as the UK currently is? Elsewhere in the same issue, Tom Clark asks important questions about the acceptability of monarchy in the 21st century, and Jill Rutter asks whether Whitehall and Westminster are equipped to rebuild trust in governance. Citizens in Northern Ireland are entitled to ask these questions too, as they consider their own jurisdiction’s long-term constitutional future.

Because of our difficult history, and because so much diplomatic effort has gone into managing our alternately inspiring and dispiriting peace process, there can, in both London and Dublin, be a tendency to infantilise people here as singularly tribal. Whatever the quality of our dominant parties, people in Northern Ireland are capable of making more complex assessments based on argument. My own party has launched a New Ireland Commission to test proposals for constitutional change. Whatever the future of these islands, looking one another in the eye and making arguments based on empathy and reason is progress.

Matthew O’Toole, Social Democratic and Labour Party MLA for South Belfast

Changing of the guard

Tom Clark’s article (“Roadmap to a republic,” June) is a salutary response to the grotesque paean of adulation that accompanied Prince Philip to the grave. Alas, the voice of reason seems to be powerless where royalty is concerned. This is particularly so as a result of The Crown which, in a post-truth age, has managed to enhance the monarchy’s glamour.

At present, therefore, the sovereign people remain content to be subjects rather than citizens and to retain a hereditary institution at the heart of our supposed democracy. But that may change if Charles III speaks out—as he hankers to do, according to Jonathan Dimbleby—“on matters of national and international importance in ways that at the moment would be unthinkable.”