Madam, - I write in response to Fintan O'Toole's column (March 21st) castigating Martin Cullen for attending a ceremony for the Fighting 69th infantry in New York during St Patrick's week.
The Fighting 69th is emblematic of the history of the Irish in America. Indeed, if O'Toole walks into the Dáil he will see the battle flag of the regiment which was presented by John F. Kennedy to the Irish nation on his visit in 1963.
The history of the regiment during the American civil war when thousands of Irish-born soldiers died in service to the Union army in the battle against slavery will always ensure that the regiment, which annually leads off the St Patrick's Day parade in New York, has a unique place in Irish American culture.
Martin Cullen was entirely correct in attending a ceremony honouring this regiment.
Not to have done so would have been an insult to the memories of so many Irish who died defeating slavery and later fascism during the second World War.
O'Toole has written sensitively in the past about the need for the Irish to acknowledge their war dead, whatever battlefield they died on.
Cullen was merely doing the same for generations of brave Irish soldiers in America.
- Yours, etc,
NIALL O'DOWD, Sixth Avenue, New York.
Madam, - My blood boiled on reading of the latest antics of Minister for Transport Martin Cullen during the St Patrick's Day celebrations in New York.
How much did Bertie Ahern - or even the Minister that Mr Cullen was presumably deputising for, the Minister for Defence - know in advance about the sentiments the Minister would express "on behalf of the people of Ireland"?
In any event, it appears that Martin Cullen took part in a ceremony to welcome home and congratulate Irish-American troops returning from the Iraq war expressing "the pride of the Irish people" in their actions.
Not alone does he not have any mandate for this, as any opinion poll will tell you, but the particular regiment being referred to (the 69th infantry division, or "fighting Irish") was responsible for the death of an Italian citizen at a checkpoint, when the car he was in was fired on. .
This pathetic grandstanding looks immeasurably worse when the figures for the opposition to the war within the US itself are viewed - a 65 per cent disapproval rating at the moment.
It surely puts the tin hat on whatever credibility this Government had, presuming the Minister has its backing.
Yet another humiliation and betrayal of those of us who opposed this lunacy at the outset.
The electorate are entitled to answers on this.
- Yours, etc,
EOIN MacDONAGH, Glenbower Park, Churchtown, Dublin 14.
Madam, - Like Fintan O'Toole, I am opposed to the war in Iraq. His article of March 21st last suggests that he may have missed a wider connection between Waterford, (the constituency of Minister for Transport Martin Cullen) and the US 69th Infantry Division, known as the Fighting 69th.
Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher (1823-1867) was born in this city.
Meagher commanded the Irish Brigade of the 69th which fought in all the major engagements, in the east, of that war.
In recent times a wreath from the 69th was placed by members of that unit at the equestrian statue of Meagher on the Mall in Waterford.
- Yours, etc,
DES GRIFFIN, Lower Newtown, Waterford.