Letter: Ulster seizes the moral low ground

Sir: On Sunday in Portadown, not one of a thousand or so Protestant Orange marchers returning from Drumcree Church broke the law. Scores if not hundreds of Catholics did. Which community deserves my support?

I ask as an English Catholic of third-generation convert stock, married to a Protestant and happy with my own personal cocktail: Catholic religion; Protestant history, literature and democratic tradition; mixed family. If I rioted every Guy Fawkes' Night when my neighbours celebrated the defeat of a long-past plot by disaffected Catholics I would be thought insane.

Faced with the public celebration of someone else's culture, there are several alternatives. One is to spectate, as at an interesting local phenomenon or historical survival. Another is to ignore it. A third is to cause trouble - easily the best way to cultivate a reputation for intolerance.

DAVID CRAWFORD

Bickley, Kent