Sir: Gerda Cohen's article ('Lovely coun- try', 28 July) made
me infinitely sad. As an American who has for the last two years enjoyed the friendliness and hospitality of the people of what in truth must bd one of the most lovely countries in the world, I am at a loss to understand why anyone would wish to present the facts in such a bitter and twisted fashion.
No one would deny that Northern Ire- land has sectarian problems, but if looked at objectively and in comparison with many parts of the world in which I have lived and to which I have paid visits, they fade almost into insignificance. Why do people who have never been here or who have just paid a lightning visit, seem to delight in heaping fuel on the fire? Do they not realise that this distorted image is a principal reason for the very high rate of unemployment? Do they not realise that they are simply assisting the cause of the handful of people who choose to live by violence? Could they not .write more often of a country in which life is still based firmly on the family unit, where children are clean and tidy, where courtesy and kindliness are the norm not the exception; a country in which the school system is as effective as any in the world and where hard work is still considered a virtue?
From her name I must conclude that Gerda Cohen is a Jew. I wonder how she would feel if someone from Ireland went to Israel, a country with infinitely more in- tractable problems, and painted it in the colours in which she has painted Ulster.
Virginia Tate
13 Grey Point, Helen's Bay, Bangor, County Down
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