Sir, - Has moving to London induced some sort of psychic crisis in John Waters, or has he just been drinking water straight from the Thames? He delights us with the intelligence that the only Irish people interested in re-joining the Commonwealth are "lunatics" and "descendents of Blueshirts who have wet dreams about shaking hands with the Queen" (Opinion, December 1st). This is fine rhetoric, but is actually nonsense. It was Cosgrave and his "Blueshirts" who took us out of the Commonwealth in the first place. His implied definition of "Irish" is worthy of a Free Stater or follower of Conor Cruise O'Brien's "Two Nations" brand of Unionism. What about the 1 million Protestant Irish who are quite keen on the Commonwealth - or are they included under the label "lunatics"?
There is no contradiction in Bertie Ahern speaking one minute of rejoining the Commonwealth and of Irish unity the next. Even the Provos have realised that the Protestant British-Irish identity has to be accommodated. If there is to be a united Ireland, it cannot be Eire writ large, it must be a new Ireland which has come to terms with the fact that it encompasses a significant, though minority, British identity. If Paris was worth a mass . . . - Yours, etc., Sean Swan,
Goteborg, Sweden.