Letter of the week

The writer of the best letter to the editor of the Sunday Independent will receive a €50 one4all voucher. The selection of the ‘Letter of the Week’ is at the sole discretion of the Sunday Independent editorial team. Any opinions expressed in letters are those of the author, not the Sunday Independent

Sir — Queen Elizabeth II paid a state visit to Ireland in May 2011. RTÉ deployed its top communicators to cover it.

On her final day here, she visited the Rock of Cashel and Cork city. Charlie Bird was the RTÉ reporter at Cashel. The queen’s helicopter landed in a field close to the Rock. She walked across the field from the helicopter to her limousine. My English friends were aghast at the sight.

“What did ye do to her at Cashel?” they demanded. “The Queen never walks on grass. And it was wet.” But the rising May grass masked from sight a smooth, much-used pathway.

In Cork, the royal visitor joined in laughing banter with a fishmonger. “She never behaves like that when meeting her own people in Britain,” the friends moaned.

The RTÉ One evening news repeated the showing of the queen’s departure from Cork Airport, complete with her

Then again, what can you expect, given that the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) introduced this king of the air to skies that had long since been turned into a shooting gallery?

The all-powerful shooting lobby works tirelessly to encourage young men to take up arms against the graceful birds of the air and the harmless creatures that frolic or struggle to exist in our countryside.

Glossy magazines promote the thrill of killing for kicks… the joy of seeing something you aim at having its life snuffed out.

There needs to be a major clampdown on wildlife crime if we’re to save to save what remains of our rapidly disappearing wildlife heritage.

John Fitzgerald,

Callan, Co Kilkenny

Sir — Having delighted in reading about your oldest contributor to the Letters page (Kathleen Corrigan obituary, March 17), I wonder if I qualify as the runner-up?

I am 90, and when I lost the use of a computer I stopped writing. Or maybe it coincided with your cessation of the gift of whiskey to the sender of the best letter? I did win it a few times. Rose McNeive,

Tramore, Co Waterford

Sir — Rose Dugdale and Pearse McAuley: life for a dangerous pair of fools has ended. Not a lot more needs to be said about walk along a red carpet from the terminal building to her aircraft.

The final segment of the bulletin carried a summary of her visit to Cashel. Charlie Bird gave the commentary and ended his report thus: “There was no red carpet here in Cashel; just the lush, green them, except that their admirers are hoping to be the next Dáil government.

Robert Sullivan,

Bantry, Co Cork

Sir — Unfairly, and for the foreseeable future, Leo Varadkar will be continually reminded of his “wrong” timing, despite having taken what has to be a most difficult decision.

He had hardly finished speaking when the scalpels commenced dissection operations on his decision, his past and, indeed, his future.

But irrespective of these “forensics”, his handling of Brexit and Covid must not be scarred or diminished.

Michael Gannon,

St Thomas Square, Kilkenny

Sir — Three different taoisigh over four years. Is this the new definition of political stability? I hope not — otherwise, our economic stability will be seriously compromised.

Seamus Holian,

Balla, Co Mayo

Sir — In reply to the grandfather of the 14-year-old questioning their gender (Dear Mary, Life magazine, March 10), we are a group of mammies, grannies, family members and allies of gorgeous trans and genderquestioning kids and we wanted to tell that grandfather just

Queen Elizabeth in Cashel and Charlie Bird grass of the Golden Vale.” End of report. End of royal visit.

With this one sentence, while in the midst of his national and international peers that day, Charlie Bird ranked supreme. Game, set and match. Perfection.

Bernie Moloney,

Emly, Co Tipperary how much we loved his letter.

We all went through the same process of uncertainty and worry as him and his daughter. We know first-hand the fear you feel when your child comes to you with something that certain sectors of society disapprove of, and the difficulty faced in finding information and support that you can rely on adds to that worry.

We always recommend Teni (Trans Equality Network Ireland) as the first port of call for expert advice and local community links.

Lots of young people are very confident and happy in themselves and don’t need any support — sometimes it is the family who need some space to talk about their worries, and Teni has great resources and supports.

Some young people do benefit from space to talk things through, and if you do want to go privately, we would always recommend therapists from either the Irish Association of Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy or the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, two bodies you can be guaranteed will not engage in any damaging conversion therapy practices.

We want everybody out there who has a person in their lives who is exploring their gender to know that it’s OK to worry. It can be hard to block out some of the terribly misleading and hurtful things extremists say about the person you love.

However, these are our children, and we know that what all children need is to feel safe and loved and accepted as they are. Karen Sugrue,

Co-chair, Mammies for Trans Rights, Moylish, Limerick