Awful Attitude

Mr. Hafner complains that immigrants coming to Ireland have a negative impact. His words range from ridiculous and unsubstantiated generalization – “these people don’t care about Ireland, they’re just there to make money and abuse social services” – to the blatantly racist and xenophobic – “boatloads of pregnant Nigerian women showing up in Irish hospitals.”

Ireland has never before been in such a position to offer so much help to the world as we can now. For generations emigration from home was necessary for families to survive. The lives we were able to make in other countries throughout the world sustained our homeland.

We now have the privilege of being able to welcome immigrants from around the world to Ireland, and have the pleasure of enjoying the richness of culture they bring.

Attitudes like Mr. Hafner’s have no place in either Ireland or the 21st century.

Sister Lena Deevy
Executive Director
Irish Immigration Center
Boston, Massachusetts

Erin for the Irish

AS a student of Irish history and ardent supporter of the Nationalist cause, I’m not a very big fan of John Spain. That said, his piece “Ireland of the Changes” (April 4-10) was 100% correct.

With literally tens of millions of political and economic refugees across the planet, should they be able to afford a plane ticket or sneak into any European Union country and make it into Ireland, they will look to stay in Ireland as they have been doing.

For a country as small territorially and population-wise as Ireland is, an unrestricted influx of refugees is not a very far sighted policy. The question needed to be asked is, when is enough enough?

Have the Irish people been asked what they think what is best for the nation and the birthright of future unborn generations of Irish children? The answer to the second question is I think not, as the decision has come down from above by the political and media elite who know what is better for everyone else.

They have decided that Erin of the Green Hills and her rightful inheritors are to be sacrificed on the high altar of political correctness, to the God of multiculturalism.

Sean Ryan
Auburn, New York

Get on With It

DICK Keane’s “United We Fall” letter (April 11-17) was a welcome contribution to the letters page.

Urging Nationalists and Unionists to use the current climate of cooperation to make friends instead of fighting over ancient tribal territories stands in stark contrast to many of the letters from the often reactionary and invariably outdated Irish American voices that so frequently clutter this page.

Let’s accept that we have two communities in Northern Ireland seeking to go in entirely opposite directions, and so get on with making the place as peaceful and prosperous as we can for all who live there. Oh and of course Dick lives in Dublin and not the U.S.

Thomas Keown
Somerville, Massachusetts

Immigrant Problems

THERE has been an explosion in immigration to the Irish Republic over the past seven years, which must have an effect on the various services which have become distinctly lacking over the same period of time.

I’m sure there is also some law which has been devised to forbid me from saying so, lest a section of, or indeed all of our recent incomers, be offended. Oh well.

But the fact remains that if there is up to a million increase in numbers, then it follows that there are bound to be cutbacks and deprivations in many of the essential services. Witness the hospital crisis and the dire local authority housing allocation in proportion to the new situation if proof is needed.

Simply put, the sudden increase in population and the severe logistical problems of trying to deal with this critical mass of 10 percent extra, puts the state under tremendous pressure.

These illustrations are but a couple in a long list where performance is falling down. Relating the problems to be in any way associated with immigration to our shores is met with accusations of racism and jingoism and whatever “ism” you’re having yourself.

We are assured there is a continuing “pressing need “ for those from afar to come here to fill the jobs “the Irish won’t take.” Perhaps.

Who did these jobs before the arrival of the willing foreign workers, I wonder? Could it have been the Irish? Had to be, I suppose.

Personally, I don’t care from where people come to work in this place, but what I do object to is the false contention that we are hopeless without the input from those who come to live among us.

There are many of them, granted, and they are making a difference, but it is too soon to define whether this is all for the good of the nation as a whole.

We hear the stories of builders who won’t employ Irish tradesmen who served their time for low wages in this country, but who now are told an employer can get two non-union electricians from Eastern Europe for the price of one native.

Such practices must be storing up resentment and problems down the road, surely. These are issues not addressed when we laud the “new Ireland,” and if anyone dares to broach the topic he or she is sure to be labeled with an “anti” description of one kind or another.

Robert O’Sullivan
Co. Cork, Ireland

The Power of Prayer

THE letter by John Gregg titled “Plastic Paddy March” (March 21-27) led me to believe prayers can be answered.

As a young lad I was taught to pray each night for Ireland. So each night, as I fall to my knees and count the corners and saints over my head, I ask God to take care of Ian Paisley, as we need him to show the world how hate manifests itself into the marrow of such people. Hate is not inborn but inbred, and it has it way of not being controlled. Like a volcano it will erupt from time to time.

Mr. Gregg was so offended by St. Patrick’s Day marches he let forth his eruption of hate on St. Patrick’s religion.

Mr. Gregg let us know St. Patrick was British and the Roman church was only an embryo in Patrick’s time. St. Patrick (Succat at that time) was the son of Calpurnius and a family of Roman citizenship. That island of Patrick’s birth was part of the Roman empire, not quite British yet.

Mr. Gregg has a magical way of turning facts into fiction. He tells us the Irish tricolor is the flag of the slave masters. I was unaware that Pearse, Clarke, Connolly, and the others were slave masters.

He tells us St. Patrick was untainted by the fables of Rome. Again, I was unaware that Aesop was a Pope?

Mr. Gregg tells of all the wrongs of our faith priestly confessions, extreme unction, worship of images, intercession of Mary or any departed saints, purgatory or papal infallibility. Does this mean I have to get rid of all my holy waters and oils? Can I keep my Lava lamp? I promise I will not pray to it any more.

It seems Mr. Gregg thinks our parades are a show of nationalism. St. Patrick’s Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus is a show of nationalism! Mr. Gregg’s torment over our intolerant, bigoted, sectarian marches induces in him this religious hate. Well calm down, John, July is near and I am sure you will see none of that in the upcoming marching seasons in the Northeast of Ireland.

Tonight, Mr. Gregg, you along with Ian Paisley will be in my prayers. I will also bow my head in pride of the Protestant leaders who worked and died for Irish freedom Tone, Emmet, Mitchell, MacCracken, Grattan, Parnell, Shaw, Casement, Bell, Davitt and the many others.

Bill Ashe
Corona, California