Madam, - In his letter on the presence of an Irish naval vessel at the Trafalgar bicentenary commemoration (July 5th), Joe Lynch denigrated the Government by referring to it as "the Dublin administration". After starting with an insult, his subsequent offering did nothing to redeem this reader's opinion. His main point was that "to many" we appeared to be "aligned with the British armed forces" and this damaged our neutrality.
But who exactly are the "many"? And between whom are we neutral? Who is judging us on whether we are aligned with the British armed forces or not? The answer is: nobody, except Mr Lynch and a few Irish people of narrow vision and insecure identity.
Such people should consider the case of Norway, a country with a parallel history to Ireland, as Fintan O'Toole pointed out in this newspaper recently. Membership of Nato has not prevented Norway being accepted as an honest broker in some of the world's worst war situations. In 2002 Time magazine counted 11 "peace processes" across the globe in which Norwegian officials were then actively involved.
Norwegian diplomats brokered (among others) the Oslo accords between the Israeli government and the PLO and the ceasefire in Sri Lanka between the government and the Tamil Tigers. This is the sort of active conflict resolution that Irish neutralists just dream about. At any point in those fraught negotiations, no one interjected: "Aren't you aligned with the British armed forces?" because no one cared. Mr Lynch and his ilk should grow up a bit. - Yours, etc,
TOBY JOYCE, Navan, Co Meath.
Madam, - It is sad that the old "Shinner" mentality is still evident, as seen in the letter from Tom Cooper in your edition of July 3rd, which misses the point entirely about the celebrations regarding the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar. Nelson's use of tactical skill rewrote the textbook on naval warfare and it is this for which he became famous - not to mention that the battle destroyed the possibility of invasion of Britain by Napoleon. Mr Cooper may not know that many Irishmen served in Nelson's navy. - Yours, etc,
Fr JOHN McCALLION CC, Portadown, Co Armagh.