Madam, – Reading your report on the Fianna Fáil Regional Conference in Cashel (Home News, May 24th), I note that Dr Martin Mansergh refers to Eamon Gilmore’s membership of the Workers Party in the 1980s when they “were fraternal mendicants of the Soviet and North Korean Communist Parties”.
This is rich coming from a man who is currently a member of the Fianna Fáil Party whose founders included those who helped bankroll Russian Communists to the tune of $20,000 in the 1920s in exchange for a 16-carat diamond pendant and three big sapphire and ruby brooches formerly the property of the Romanovs – the executed Russian Imperial Family. – Yours, etc,