Madam, - May Irespond briefly to two responses to my letter of August 7th? Derek Reid (August 8th) makes the point that I "would do well to remember that less than 70 years ago Irishmen fought fascism to give me the right to an opinion". A veiled rebuke, no doubt, to Ireland's wartime neutrality.
During the second World War, Eamon de Valera expressed an opinion on behalf of the Irish government and the Irish people that it was our intention to pursue a policy of neutrality during the conflict. British prime minister Winston Churchill, outraged at our "impertinence", threatened to violate that neutrality by seizing our ports if it was in Britain's interests.
No doubt those same Irishmen who were fighting fascism for my right to have an opinion, as Mr Reid states,would have been sent to Ireland to forcibly silence Irish opinion on our policy of neutrality during the Emergency.
Furthermore, I would remind Mr Reid that the Irish people expressed an opinion at the ballot box in 1918 which overwhelmingly supported the separatist ideal. This was subsequently rejected by the British, just as the opinions of the Irish people on their religion, language, culture and way of life for more than 700 years were ruthlessly suppressed by our former colonial masters, rendering the Irish people politically and culturally impotent.
Patrick D.Goggin (August 11th) says I seem "to convey the idea that the only real Irish soldiers are those who have been attempting to undermine our democracy since the foundation of the State".
Let me assure Mr Goggin that I hold in equal contempt those who have been undermining our democracy since Independence, and those who held us in subjugation for 800 years, instilling in us British colonial values which some of us have yet to shake off.
- Yours, etc,
TOM COOPER, Delaford Lawn, Knocklyon, Dublin 16.