LETTER : Pledges in Irish cathedrals

YOUR balanced editorial ("Peace before principles", 10 September) referred to the impasse preventing talks on Northern Ireland. There is a way out.

I suggest that there be held, contemporaneously, in the Protestant Cathedral in Belfast, and in the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Dublin, services conducted by the respective archbishops at which, in Belfast, David Trimble, with a leader of the Ulster paramilitaries, and in Dublin, Gerry Adams, with a leader of the IRA, all commit themselves and those they represent to the maintenance of peace throughout Ireland. Their words should be embedded forthwith on plaques in the two cathedrals. Honour satisfied, the talks to achieve a political solution may then proceed.

Stanley Best

Winkleigh, Devon