Madam, - Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, May 20th) forecasts terrible things that will happen if we do not tighten our immigration controls. He talks of British towns with large Muslim populations, and of the probability of this being the case in Ireland in 50 years' time.
Some 30 years ago, Enoch Powell forecast "rivers of blood" in Britain if immigration continued, but today I see no rivers of blood in English cities. I see integration happening slowly: young Muslims working next to white English, intermarrying with them and adding new genes and ideas to English society.
Of course there is always a core immigrant community which holds its home values (Little Italy in Boston, Chinatown in Soho, etc.), but over time the majority of immigrants integrate to the benefit of the host society and of themselves.
It is true that 1,000 English Muslims joined the training camps in Afghanistan, but that is not even one tenth of one per cent of the British Muslim population. First-generation Irish immigrants in the US and Britain worked for the IRA, so there is nothing unusual about that.
We should welcome our Muslim brothers and sisters, learn from them, and teach them what is good in our culture. Their women and girls are modest, and we don't see them rolling in their own vomit in a Temple Bar gutter of a Saturday night. Their men, as Mr Myers admits, do work hard, and they pray hard. Their faith is strong, and their religion holds no brief for Al-Qaeda acts. The jihadistas will be there, whether there is a large host population or not. But our welcome to Muslim immigrants will bring richness to both our cultures and to our economy. We can already see this happening. - Yours, etc.,
MUREDACH DOHERTY, Lower Beechwood Avenue, Dublin 6.