NICHOLAS QUIRKE,
Sir, - As a returned economic refugee from England (1956 to 1994), and now a resident of Kilkenny city for the past eight years, I hope that you will allow me to say a few words about the immigration situation here.
The ongoing RTE programme Irish Empire should be compulsory viewing in every school in the country. The extraordinary benefits that Irish economic refugees brought to all the countries to where they emigrated should be widely known and appreciated and be a source of pride in Ireland.
Living in the UK, a multicultural and multiracial society, I never felt that any race, religion or nationality was better than another.
By dealing in a principled and compassionate way with the problems that immigration brings, the people of Ireland will lose their isolated and insular attitudes and will become a more inclusive people.
This is an experience that Ireland must now go through. With a tiny population and the lowest density in Western Europe, Ireland will not be able to maintain its economic growth and increasing prosperity without a steady and continuous influx of immigrants.
Irish people must never forget that after Independence, when Ireland was able to conduct its own affairs, this most fertile of countries, in a long and peaceful era, was unable to improve the standards of life of its own people. Vast numbers of its young people, its most valuable resource, were forced to leave their homes and families and friends and become economic refugees in another country.
There are memories in most Irish homes of the summer days when their brothers and sisters came home and brought with them joy and happiness, for a couple of weeks, and then a great sense of loss and sadness at their departure.
When our economic refugee immigrants settle down here and prosper and on summer days depart from Ireland on holiday to their homelands and families, will the people of Ireland remember their own experience of emigration and as a result of that will they become more understanding, compassionate and caring? - Yours, etc.,
NICHOLAS QUIRKE,
Bishop Birch Place,
Leggetsrath,
Kilkenny.