Sir, - From time to time your correspondents raise the point that the economic refugees from the Famine, and those who followed them in the succeeding decades, were accepted in great numbers, particularly by America but also by other nations of the New World. But for this, the death toll from the Famine would have been far worse.
It is usually suggested that this historical experience of the Irish nation imposes on us a special obligation, not only in respect of political refugees but also for economic refugees and regarding immigration in general.
This is a powerfully emotive argument, since many, if not most, regard the Famine as the result of a political failure, rather than an economic or social one, and the people of the Irish diaspora as political rather than economic refugees.
It therefore suggests that not only have we a particular obligation to welcome refugees, but also that the distinction between political and economic refugees is a cruel and uncertain one.
This special, Irish obligation is a chimera. America accepted the Irish not as the political victims of a British attempt at genocide or as starvelings in need of her help but because she had canals to dig, railroads to build and wars to fight and had not the men to do it all. And so with the other nations that accepted us. We owe no gratitude except to God - that when the victims of the Famine needed lands to go to there were nations at the point, economically, where immigrants were wanted. America, Australia, and all the others accepted the Irish because it suited them to do so. That is all.
We may as a nation decide to assume exceptional responsibilities for economic refugees, but there has been no such obligation imposed on us by history. - Yours, etc.,
Harold's Cross,
Dublin 6W.