Sir, - I remember Michael Collins in my mother's shop in Ringsend. He put his arms around her to console her after the Black and Tans had shot all the stock off the shelves. He was a lovely man, but I won't be voting for Mary Banotti. That was then, this is now.
Nor will I vote for Mrs McAleese: too dictatorially learned, a glib answer for everything. Nor for Dana: she should have saved it for next time round when she might be more familiar with the Republic. Mr Nally is a nice and honest man but he's past it.
Adi Roche is my best idea of how Ireland looks right now. We are a young nation, only 70 years a'growing and just look what we have achieved! Look at Mrs Roche's personal achievements. Look, too, at all the bright youngsters, see them pouring off the school bus, see them on the college campus, see the new people on TV, their voices on radio, their successes in theatre and music. Adi Roche is the radiant face of Ireland today, charismatically Irish, natural and unaffected, with the soft southern voice of the people all around us. She is how we are today, we people who rose from the ashes. In her secure background she can withstand, and dismiss with wry amusement, all this dissection and analysis, and character-filleting. That she is very beautiful in face and graceful in figure is a bonus. - Yours, etc.,
From Lilian Roberts Finlay
Dunsany, Co Meath.