Sir, - It is ironic that the authorities chose to name their crackdown on foreigners illegally making their home in Ireland Operation Hyphen. In the US alone there are 43 million hyphenated Americans of Irish origin - i.e., Irish-Americans. As recently as 10 years ago as many as 130,000 of them were illegal immigrants.
It seems that our Government is determined that in future our society will have as few as possible African-Irish, Romanian-Irish or other hyphenated Irish. If we let them succeed it will allow our destiny to betray our history. - Yours, etc.,
OISÍN COGHLAN, Neville Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6.