Sir, - It was with a sense of depression that I watched the Eurovision Song Contest. No, not because the Irish entry did so badly, but because the whole event was done through English. The presenters used English, most of the songs were in English and the results, excepting the French vote, were given mainly in English.
I have nothing against English - it is my first language and many of our cousins on the Continent can speak it fluently - but it threatens to reduce our different cultures to some sort of smug Euro-blandness, a prime example being the sickening efforts of the Danish presenters at romantic interplay.
I don't speak a word of Danish but would have welcomed its use as an expression of identity and as a means of cherishing our differences. - Yours, etc.,
Eoin Dunne, Grangebrook Avenue, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.