Have we become an island of saints and soldiers?
WHAT interesting times we live in! The Irish and British governments rightly celebrate our peace process. Meanwhile, they respond to Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine by declaring military victory the only thinkable prospect, and ramp up the weapons industry in an ever-expanding arms race.
Their tortuous reaction to Gaza refuses to confront the US’s obstinate supply of weapons for a calamitous Israeli ‘self-defence’.
Can this be reconciled with the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, in which both governments rejected ‘any use or threat of force’? Can it be squared with conscripting the ‘Three Patrons’ as icons of Ireland’s ‘modernised’ foreign and defence policies?
St Patrick, kidnapped and enslaved as a youth, is trafficked to the White House. Brigid’s legacy is appropriated without reference to her selling her father’s jewelled sword to buy food for the poor. ‘Colmcille 1500’ in our National Museum fails to spell out how his exile, ordained or self-imposed, was in repentance for his involvement in the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne.
A relic of his psalm book, weaponised centuries after his death, is jauntily presented as ‘An Cathach/The Battler’.
Have we become an Island of Saints and Soldiers? Where have all the Scholars gone?
JOHN MAGUIRE, UCC Professor Emeritus of
Sociology, Dublin 4.
Mount Street disgrace
OUR much-vaunted Céad Míle Fáilte, especially over the national holiday hullabaloo, is shockingly contradicted by the immigrants’ tents at Mount Street in Dublin.
How can our holy Catholic bishops and our wholly millionaire countrymen allow the Government to betray our best instincts? There are empty offices and churches all over the city.
If there is no better welcome for these embattled callers on our generosity, I will have to find a tent and join them next week.
LELIA DOOLAN, Kilcolgan, Co. Galway.
War crimes complicity
AS the people of Ireland celebrate our national holiday on this St Patrick’s weekend, we should be mindful of our history and our humanitarian responsibilities.
As war crimes, arguably amounting to genocide, are occurring in Gaza with tens of thousands of civilians, especially children, being killed by bombs, bullets, disease and starvation, we should recall our own Irish famine and colonial occupation abuses. Our Government should be taking all possible measures to comply with its international obligations and humanitarian responsibilities to help end the suffering of the Palestinian people.
Our Government leaders have failed to recognise the Palestinian state, and successive ministers for foreign affairs and for transport have been approving the transit of US military aircraft and aircraft on contract to the US military through Shannon Airport and Irish airspace, while falsely claiming this is not a breach of Irish neutrality.
Last Thursday, March 14, US Marine Corps, KC130J, number 168068, arrived at Shannon Airport at about 18.20pm, coming from Fort Worth Texas, and spent the night at the airport.
Also on Thursday, US Air force C40 number 02-0202 refuelled at Shannon coming from Washington
before flying on to Amman, Jordan. And on March 12, Omni Air N828AX, on contract to the US military landed at Shannon coming from the US and flew on to Kuwait. It also refuelled at Shannon on its return journey to the US on March 13.
These are just some recent examples of Irish Government complicity in war crimes and failures to comply with our international, humanitarian and moral responsibilities. GERALD HORGAN, Castletroy, Limerick.