Write a commentToday marks the 170th Birthday of the Irish tricolour and commenting on the anniversary MLA Justin McNulty has said we must all do more to live up to it's ideals and reconcile people throughout our island and added that the retrenchment of politics in the North cannot be allowed to lead to a sectarian recession of our communities.
Mr McNulty said “170 years after the Irish tricolour was unfurled from the second-floor window of the Wolfe Tone Club in Waterford by a young Thomas Francis Meagher, it’s aspiration for a people united in spite of the differences of their birth has still to be realised.
“Meagher’s longing desire for a truce between Orange and Green that led to a generous and historic brotherhood between Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics is the work that we must all be engaged in. It is the work that people like Hume, Mallon, Currie, Devlin and others dedicated their lives to.
“The retrenchment of politics in the North means that we are probably as far away from that goal than any other point in the last 20 years. But we cannot allow division and deadlock in our politics to lead to a sectarian recession of our communities. We have come too far together to move away from each other now.
“On the anniversary of a visionary emblem that looked toward a united people, we should all recommit ourselves to that ambition.”
