Sir - I am not sure if Mary Hannigan's column (Sports, April 17th) was intended to raise serious issues or was merely an attempt at humour or ridicule. Either way, I feel it missed the point.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with Irish football fans following clubs in England or elsewhere, but it's certainly difficult to understand how football fans can "follow" a club with which they have no connection and who the vast majority of them will see only when they are on television, in preference to their local League of Ireland club.
Being a football fan, unfortunately, has nothing to do with success but everything to do with identity; identity with a club that represents your local community, that you can be a part of and be proud to call your own and that you can watch live, enjoying the communal euphoria of success or the despair of failure.
The League of Ireland may never be able to compete with the Premiership but why should it have to? If we could overcome our inferiority complex and if a fraction of the Irish support were given to local clubs we could have a League of Ireland all Irish football fans would be proud of.
Surely we owe it to ourselves and to future generations of Irish football fans to support our own clubs first. - Yours, etc.,
James Murphy
Mount Avenue,
Dundalk,
Co. Louth.