Madam. - David Christopher (October 3rd) is perfectly right. "The British Isles" is a convenient and useful (for meteorological purposes, for example) description of a geographical grouping.
The term is hallowed by long usage and is unlikely to be abandoned by the wider world out of consideration for our prickly Nationalist sensitivities. There is nothing political or proprietary about the expression. And weren't the ancient Brits relatives of ours before those wretched Saxons arrived on the scene?
Those who profess to find the term imperialist and offensive should really rid themselves of their post-colonial hang-ups. It is immature for grown-up citizens of this State not to recognise that much of our heritage, and of our contemporary culture is British. - Yours, etc,
JOHN A MURPHY, Rosebank, Douglas Road, Cork.
Madam,- Newton Emerson says that 20 per cent of the inhabitants of Ireland are British (Newton's Optic, October 5th). He is incorrect. Are they Protestant? Yes. Are they unionist? Yes. Are they loyalist? Yes. They are all of the above but the one thing they are not is British. They are Irish people loyal to the crown.
British people are people from the island of Britain. I suggest Newton should clean his optic, or at least his atlas. - Yours, etc,
DERMOT SWEENEY, Ushers Island, Dublin 8.
Madam, - The Dutch would not be happy if the collective term for The Netherlands and Germany was The German Lands. Likewise, the Portuguese would no doubt object if Spain and Portugal together were termed The Spanish Peninsula.
As regards what we should call these north European islands of ours, how about Great Britain and Ireland? As far as I know there is no collective term for Corsica and Sardinia, Greenland and Iceland nor Australia and New Zealand.
Historically, in Britain's colonial past, Great Britain and Ireland were collectively called the British Isles. But many terms of reference deemed acceptable in the past are no longer acceptable (nor in this case accurate) and for many Irish people, this term is unacceptable. - Yours, etc,
LORCÁN BERMINGHAM, Plás an Mhainéir, Bóthar na gCloch, Baile Átha Cliath 7.
Madam, - Áine Nolan suggests renaming the "British Isles" the "West European Isles". I would go further. A simple glance at an atlas reveals that Europe is the only so-called continent in the world which is not surrounded by water. In reality, Europe is not a continent at all, but merely a peninsula of western Asia. I propose the correct geographical term for these islands to be the "Western Asian Islands". - Yours, etc,
MARK SUGRUE, Egham, Surrey, England.