Sir, - Kevin Myers's piece about Mary Ellen Synon and Engels (April 17th) is slyly disingenuous. Engels was not only writing for "a German audience"; he hoped it would also be a revolutionary audience. He hoped his description of the degradation of the Irish under English capitalism/ imperialism industrial cruelties would materially assist the process of education, agitation and organisation to turn the whole world upside down. (Which indeed it did. I suppose Mr Myers would wish it hadn't. But that's another story.)
The nub of Engels's argument hangs on one paragraph. Mr Myers - fair play to him - quotes it: "What else can he [the Irishman] do? How can society blame him when it places him in a position in which almost of necessity he becomes a drunkard ... [etc.]" I do not recollect that Ms Synon in her article made any such point about Travellers. If she had, I am sure the anger caused by her words would by now have evaporated and legal proceedings would not be under consideration.
The whole tenor of her writings in the Sunday Independent has been thoroughly hostile to the notion that society, as such, has any duties towards people in miserable circumstances, except to blame them and to bark at them to shape up or ship out. She is a laissez faire ultra who appears to believe that the Michigan Militia have been given a raw deal by the soft centred, bleeding hearts of culpable liberalism.
Kevin Myers tells us we must not tolerate "the voices of hatred". But that's exactly what he's doing. Very well: he dislikes the excesses of "political correctness". So do I; I also dislike the phrase. But in fact, it is little more than a pompous way of saying "good manners".
As, for instance, it is not good manners to call Travellers "knackers", even though they might deal in horses; the word in common usage does not describe horse dealing but conveys contempt and, yes, hatred, for an entire hereditary caste of Irish citizens. Everyone knows this, including Mr Myers: so why should he choose to insult our intelligence and his own by pretending otherwise? Yours, etc.,
St Bridget's Place Lower,
Galway.