Catalan identity

SIR – Guy Sainty (Letters, October 7) does not do justice to the Catalan sense of nationhood (“never an independent state but part of the kingdom of Aragon”).

The County of Barcelona, which included most of modern Catalonia, became connected to Aragon in 1137 as part of a dual monarchy. Before that, the County had been an independent entity since at least the early ninth century, under an unbroken line of 24 counts. After its joinder to Aragon by means of a dynastic marriage, a long line of kings of the united monarchy continued to bear the joint titles of “kings of Aragon” and “counts of Barcelona in Catalunya”.

This may all have been a long time ago, but Spain tramples on the Catalans at its peril. Jolyon Grey Cheltenham, Gloucestershire