A chara, – In an article in your Generation Emigration series (May 5th) Katie Walsh diagnoses Ireland with suffering from a "blame culture" from which she seeks escape.
This article showcases a number of condescending assumptions from someone who appears to think their status as an emigre bestows on them a worldliness and an insight to the essential nature of Ireland.
Ireland and its culture cannot be essentialised from within or without, and the neuroses that the author diagnoses speaks more to her narrow view of Ireland’s culture than anything else.
Leave Ireland and seek self-actualisation wherever you can find it, but don’t assume that you can diagnose, condemn or even blame a cultural malaise that you have decided to absent yourself from the direct experience of.
– Is mise,
MAIDHC
Mac AN EARRAIGH
Glasgow.