Sir, - Art O Laoghaire (February 1st) tells us he felt queasy while watching the Holocaust Remembrance Day broadcast - but not because he was reminded of the horror and pathos of the millions of Jews (including a million children), gypsies, homosexuals, socialists, Slavs, and people with disabilities who were done to death in the most horrific mass murder and genocide of the 20th century.
No, his queasiness was apparently due to the presence of the Prince of Wales and the British Prime Minister at the commemoration, and to the moralising of Bob Geldof. One of the latter's sins, according to your correspondent, is that of not having been sufficiently scruffy or foulmouthed. Another, presumably, is that of having been one of the few people who did anything imaginative and effective (as opposed to the inaction of most of us) when confronted with another kind of horror - famine in the Third World.
As today's Ireland, slowly and painfully, becomes increasingly multiracial and multicultural, the interest of free speech on your Letters page must surely be balanced with awareness of the insidious effect of this type of letter. I think many readers would have expected The Irish Times, of all newspapers, to consider this before deciding to publish such a letter. - Yours, etc.,
Marilyn Taylor, Courtlands, Silversprings, Cork.