Letters
Poor old Ireland
Sir: One has rarely read in your journal such a pejorative mish-mash of distorted facts and innuendo as is contained in Sheila Lawlor's article entitled 'Ireland's unlucky strike' (24 September).
To summarise such a piece is almost impossible, but, broadly speaking, she can be said to have advanced the proposition that in Ireland today there is high inflation, massive foreign borrowing, state overspending, a revolution in farming methods, a combative situation between the two main political parties — and a longing for an oil strike to solve all her problems at a stroke. In other words, your contributor is saying that Ireland is in a similar position in every respect to that of all other Western nations who have been suffering from the world depression. Bravo! What a brilliant piece of perspicacity!
But just to mention these rather obvious facts is apparently not enough, where the Irish are concerned. Although, for example, every nation in the world has now adopted the Friesian as its main dairy breed, Lawlor comments that in Ireland its adoption is 'remarkable'. And when the government wants to abolish rates (as Mrs Thatcher also does) it is implied that this is evidence of Irish profligacy. Finally, while the rest of the world governments desperately search for the causes of our economic ills, your contributor, with an assured effrontery, claims that in the case of Ireland it is the Irish worker who is responsible for all his country's troubles, when 'he abnegates all responsibility for individual initiative and efficiency'.
Why, I often ask myself, is being anti- Irish without plausible reason always so acceptable in Britain — even in such journals as the Spectator? If Israel had been the target of Sheila Lawlor's attack (a country, by the way, which has a far higher rate of inflation and much more dependence on foreign loans than ever poor old Ireland had) your correspondence columns would be overflowing with accusations of antisemitism.
Cathal O'Connor
Pit Farm, Wellesbourne, Warwickshire
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