Sir, - We have just celebrated the birth of Christ. We are beginning the Jubilee or Holy Year of the Lord. We shortly embark on a new millennium. The peace process is taking hold. The country is doing well, except for a certain level of poverty in some sectors which we hope will be rectified in the near future.
And, at such a momentous time, when meaningful symbols and gestures, religious and civil, North and South, are of the utmost importance, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin declines an invitation to have Mass said at St Patrick's Church of Ireland Cathedral in Dublin.
It seems we haven't changed all that much in 300 years. To paraphrase a former Dean of St Patrick's, Jonathan Swift, we have just enough religion to make us differ, but not enough to make us love one another. - Yours, etc.,
Jackie Robinson P.P., Aghaboe, Clough, Ballacolla, Co Laois.