Madam, – Thirty years ago, Edward Sweeney’s suggestion (July 2nd) that Ireland should rejoin the British Commonwealth would surely have evoked a decidedly defensive, if not outright dismissive response from the greater part of the citizenry on this island. Today, we can address this matter rather more confidently, and in the spirit of Farmleigh I propose that rather than reactivating our membership of an imperial old boys club, we paddle our own canoe and establish a new organisation, Cónaidhm Thíortha Dhiaspóra na nGael (CTDG), or the Confederation of Countries of the Irish Diaspora, whose membership would be open to those countries (including Britain!) with an agreed fraction of the putative 70 million people worldwide entitled to hold a Certificate of Irishness.
The development of the function and goals of CTDG I leave to those better qualified than I. – Yours, etc,