Sir, – Kathy Sheridan criticises UK press attacks on President Joe Biden’s visit to Ireland, calling them “idiotic”, “whiny”, “needy”, “raging” “destructive”, “deluded”, “quasi-racist”, a “spitefest” and a “monumental sulk” (“Everyone knew what Biden’s Irish visit was about apart from the sulking British press”, Opinion & Analysis, April 19th). Your columnist could never be accused of understatement, but she certainly has a short memory.
In June 2019, during the state visit of then US president Donald Trump to the United Kingdom, Kathy Sheridan derided that trip as an “ego massage-fest” replete with British journalists “abasing themselves” in interviews with “slack-jawed Americans” (Opinion & Analysis, June 5th). She went on to say that the visit “reduced Britain to vassal status, a fat chicken to be plucked”.
Her piece largely reflected sentiments expressed elsewhere in your newspaper and throughout the Irish media.
How can Kathy Sheridan possibly expect balanced UK media coverage of Mr Biden’s visit or of Irish political affairs more generally when both she and the Irish media display such shameless unwillingness to practise what they preach in their own coverage of UK politics? – Yours, etc,
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BARRY WALSH,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.
Sir, – It’s absurd that Irish media outlets are still having the vapours about the London Times’s spot-on cartoon last week of Biden dressed as a leprechaun. A “confident nation”, as Kathy Sheridan describes Ireland, doesn’t upset itself with a mild dig from a foreign newspaper cartoon. Surely we know that. – Yours, etc,
SEAMUS COLLINS,
St Mary in the Marsh,
Kent, UK.
Sir, – I generally admire the work of Peter Brookes, the cartoonist in the London Times, but I agree with Kathy Sheridan that his recent cartoon depicting President Biden during his visit to Ireland as a leprechaun holding a pint of Guinness was “idiotic”.
While this cartoon was at the lower end on the scale of offensiveness, nevertheless there is an important point at stake here. Satire, whether in literary form or in cartoons, is generally regarded as something that “punches up” – in other words, a weapon of the powerless against dominant groups and people. Most people feel it is insensitive to use it against the powerless – and, particularly, against vulnerable minorities – and it is always controversial to do so. The troubled history of Ireland’s relationship with our formerly dominant neighbour makes satire at our expense emanating from Britain problematic.
A leprechaun trope in a cartoon about an issue pertaining to Ireland should, therefore, have set off alarm bells before publication. This is especially so since there had been much controversy about an earlier cartoon by Christian Adams that appeared in the London Evening Standard in July 2019 showing Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, candidates at that time for the leadership of the British Conservative Party, as leprechauns chasing a pot of gold bearing the inscription “no backstop”, referring to the then current issue in the Brexit/Northern Ireland debacle. Repeating the mistake was unforgivable.
It is notoriously difficult to assess the impact of what appears in newspapers, but it behoves us all to be cautious at this time of renewed tension between Britain and Ireland. Even if derogatory or denigrating stereotypes in cartoons are nothing more than distasteful, they are certainly not helpful in promoting understanding and goodwill. – Yours, etc,
FELIX M LARKIN,
Cabinteely,
Dublin 18.
A chara, – How little it takes for the old British attitudes to bubble up to the surface. The hugely successful Biden visit highlights how far Ireland has come and how low post-Brexit Britain has sunk.
The special relationship has a distinctly green flavour these days. – Yours, etc,
CONOR MacNAMARA ,
Malahide,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Kathy Sheridan criticises “an idiotic London Times cartoon” which recently portrayed President Joe Biden as a leprechaun.
In recent years Martyn Turner’s cartoons in The Irish Times have routinely portrayed Boris Johnson and Liz Truss dressed as clowns, complete with red noses and large clown shoes. Kathy Sheridan’s column has regularly been printed next to these cartoons.
How is this any worse than portraying Joe Biden as a leprechaun?
Right-wing British newspapers don’t have a monopoly on idiocy or offensive content. – Yours, etc,
SARAH-ANNE CLEARY,
Strokestown,
Co Roscommon.