Sir, - I was surprised to see, in yesterday's "An Irishman's Diary", that Kevin Myers appears to recognise that, to quote him, "Words. They are such dangerous things in Irish life, and we use them so freely, without regard for consequence. Yet words heaped with enough obloquy, larded with sufficient double meaning, spiced with incomprehension, can cause doubt, hatred, murder. . . We should be careful of words, but we are not."
It is a great pity that he did not recognise this simple fact before he made his outrageous remark about the Germans in his column (March 27th) on BSE. Perhaps either he or you will now publish, as I requested in a letter of April 2nd, an apology to both the German people and to all your readers who were offended by the remark? Or will you respond with, to quote him again, "the same contemptuous indifference of which he accuses a distinguished Government Department? - Yours, etc.,
Rue Gachard
Brussels, Belgium.