Sir, - My wife and I have just returned from our first visit to your country. Having read with great interest your European Supplement on June 29th, I thought you might be interested in an outsider's comments.
Of course I am not able to say whether or not the Irish people themselves actually feel European, but I can, as a visitor, feel what kind of impact your country had. As an Englishman, it seems I must choose to be a "Europhile" at one end of the scale, a "Europhobe" at the other, or a "Eurosceptic" somewhere in the middle. Such is the muddled thinking in the UK about Europe, and our tendency to dislike anything "foreign".
Being personally enthusiastic about the European concept (though I am more than ready to admit that many reforms are necessary), it was an enjoyable experience to visit Ireland, to find that there was a kind of European feel to it as soon as I arrived. In only a short visit, the feeling was limited to visual impact rather than any deep understanding about the Irish thought processes, but surely to be "visibly" European indicates a certain willingness to be European in spirit.
Your road signs and road markings are vaguely reminiscent of France. They are certainly quite different in character to those in England. On some of your newer roads, the left right arrow pillars which divide a slip road entrance from the main carriageway are lifted straight from French autoroutes. Your traffic lights, God help us, jump straight from red to green, which is an alien experience to us "Brits" but common on the Continent.
Your car number plates are distinctly German in appearance, and most of them have the EU flag at one end. A British car displaying an EU flag is either owned by an eccentric or someone employed by the European Commission!
By the way, on the subject of traffic lights, judging by the number of Irish motorists we observed deliberately driving through red lights, I wonder whether there might be some merit in dispensing, with them altogether? You would then just have green for "every man for himself" and amber for "stop if you feel like it".
By the end of our short week, we had become so used to this phenomenon that on one occasion when we were waiting at a red light, a lady in an adjacent car to our right started hooting and gesticulating in my direction, and I began to think she was encouraging me to get on with things and drive on through. I realised after a while that she was very kindly trying to tell me that she had finished up in the wrong lane, and that when the lights turned to green she was going to cut across me to turn left. That was a relief.
I believe your attitude to Europe is correct, and you appear to have the ability to get things done to your advantage within the European system. The British have a lot to learn about integration and tolerance towards others. They say that travel broadens the mind. One can only assume that the journalists employed by the British tabloid press have never been further than their own dirty little backyards.
I hope you continue to be Irish and European. I hope you continue to display the same kindness and the same friendliness that we experienced during our visit. Here comes the sting in the tail . . . I also hope that you do something effective about Dublin's litter. I had thought that British cities were bad, but I was quite taken aback by the rubbish blowing around our feet as we walked along O'Connell Street. Yours, etc.,
Thornton-le-Dale,
East Pickering,
North Yorkshire,
England.