Sir, - Long before the catastrophe reached English-language media, the Czech/German/Polish floods featured nightly on the German news programme Heute, rebroadcast here by Cablelink.
While recognising the name "die tschechische Republik", Heute normally refers to the country as "Tschechien", much as the French Republic (Republique Francaise) is normally known as France.
We should take a leaf out of the German book and perhaps refer to the new republic as "Czechia" in normal contexts as well as, or instead of, the politically correct "Czech Republic". - Yours, etc.,
From Daniel D. Lawrence
READ MORE
Sweetmount Park, Dublin 14.