We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the decision of the Irish Government to send two representatives to Armagh on 21st October to celebrate the partition of Ireland. 

We believe that the partition of our country had a disastrous impact on the people of Ireland. It was enforced as a legacy of British rule, and established a sectarian and apartheid statelet in the north-east. As a result, nationalist people in the six counties found themselves trapped in a regime which condemned them to a life of poverty, exclusion, and discrimination. All of these inequalities were brutally enforced by horrendous levels of state and state sponsored violence. 

We call on the Irish government to heed the fact that more than two-thirds of respondents in a recent poll support the recent decision of President Michael D. Higgins not to attend this event.

While we welcome any attempt to nurture good relations with our unionist neighbours, this cannot be done at the expense of the nationalist community in the six counties who know only too well the catastrophic and violent effects that partition had on this country.