DENNIS KENNEDY,
Sir, - Eamon Delaney has been such a refreshing poke in the eye to the Irish establishment, to the Department of Foreign Affairs in particular, that it is a pity to see him boarding such clapped-out old bandwagons as Irish neutrality, the American connection, and the wonderful uniqueness of being Irish (Opinion, Januuary 7th).
Irish neutrality has never been much more than a posture, about as well-founded as Mr Delaney's assertion that Ireland played no part in the Great War. Ireland's initial refusal to join NATO had nothing to do with any tradition of neutrality or non-military stance but, as the archives show, was all about partition. Far from being dragged into European integration, Sean Lemass could not wait to join, and made it clear that future involvement in European defence would be no obstacle.
Of course there is an American connection, American investment and much aping of American ways, good and bad. But so there is in most European countries. Was post-September 11th sympathy stronger in Dublin than in London? Are Irish people emotionally closer to Americans than are others? The correspondence columns of this newspaper since September 11th suggest room for debate.
So the next parish to the west is America. (Actually it is Canada, of which there are large areas between Galway and Boston.) But so what? It is still a couple of thousand miles away. Much more relevant in terms of influence, relationship and identity are parishes to the north and east, not more than one step away, in Northern Ireland, or a few dozens miles to the east in other parts of the United Kingdom. And why all this talk of parishes? Who lives in parishes any more, if they ever did? Mr Delaney 's Ireland begins to sound a bit like De Valera's in the 1930s.
As to this new, "incredibly absorbent", multicultural Ireland, I am not sure many immigrants or would-be immigrants find it too absorbent, and it must come as a bit of an eye-opener to Catalans, Galicians and Basques to learn that Spain is far more mono-cultural than Ireland.
Bashing the EU and sniping at Brussels Eurocrats is fine, but not if you do it from cloud-cuckoo land. - Yours etc.,
DENNIS KENNEDY,
Belfast 7.