Sir, - P. Quinn (July 27th) expresses his discomfort at the misbehaviour of Spanish and Italian students who invade Dublin every summer to learn English. This is in itself a rather trivial subject, but it illustrates what xenophobia is all about and says a lot about the enormous potential for racism which this country has. I'm not going to dispute that some of these students may behave badly during their visits to Ireland (except for the litter issue: Dublin is a filthy place, with or without foreigners); but I find it amazing that a bunch of mischievous Mediterranean kids should cause so much distress, while so little concern is shown when similar (and often worse) actions are perpetrated by Irish youths all year round. This is the key issue: what matters is not what they do, but who does it.
Through first-hand experience, having being a resident in Ireland for a few years, I've found that this is quite a widespread complaint. My country, Spain, receives thousands of visitors from the British Isles every year. Too many of them get obnoxiously drunk, vomit in the streets, get involved in fights, vandalise public and private property and sing loud hooligan anthems; yet the locals, to whom they usually refer as "Dagos" or "Spics", hardly ever complain about it. They believe this is a small price they have to pay for a strong tourism industry and they don't use these incidents to judge the bulk of decent British and Irish people who just want to have a nice holiday in the sun. - Yours, etc., Francisco Gonzalez,
Monkstown, Co Dublin.