Sir, – Bobby O'Neill's rebuke to the Taoiseach for wearing the poppy, out of respect, at the commemoration ceremony in Enniskillen, was wrong (Letters, November 17th).
As a child growing up in Dalkey in the 1950s, I can remember being sent a few times by my grandmother, a Berliner, to a shop in Dún Laoghaire in early November to get her a British Legion poppy. She’d stick the poppy in the frame of a certificate signed by Kaiser Wilhelm, hanging on her wall, which commemorated the award of the Iron Cross to her younger brother who had been killed at the battle of the Somme, serving on “the other side” in 1916.
I can assure Mr O’Neill and his ilk that my grandmother’s tears every year at this time were as bitter as those of any grieving relative of a British or Irish soldier lost in that Great War. – Yours, etc,
KLAUS UNGER,
Killiney, Co Dublin.
Sir, – One enters the treacherous waters of poppy wearing and symbolism at one’s peril.
In Enniskillen An Taoiseach actually wore a hybrid “shamrock poppy” which commemorates all those Irish soldiers who fought in the first World War.
Also the wreath laid by An Taoiseach was a laurel wreath without any poppies.
It seems entrenched opinions on lapel wearing symbols remain and it does not auger well for peace and true reconciliation on this island.
– Yours, etc,
MIKE MORAN,
Clontarf, Dublin 3.