A chara, - We are now only a few weeks away from St Patrick's Day. Is it too much to ask that the parades, especially the one in Dublin, represent a celebration of our Irish traditions, music and history? If I wanted to watch groups of people shuffling along in weird costumes and banging drums I'd go to London's Notting Hill Carnival, upon which our parade now appears to be modelled. - Yours, etc,
DAVID BARNWELL, Serpentine Avenue, Dublin 4.