Sir, - W. Murphy's letter of June 2nd was, in its quiet way, one of the most worrying letters so far published on the so-called asylum-seekers controversy.
The writer points out that the Irish were reluctantly accepted and suffered discrimination when they emigrated. This has been well documented and was a disgraceful way to treat human beings. My own parents have described to me how it was, but it all happened 40 and 50 years ago and I wonder how enlightened other countries were at that time, including Ireland. Are we now, half-a-century later, to behave in the same way?
The discrimination did die away and the majority of Irish people, settled, worked, married, (often to English and other non-Irish people), raised families and are still living happily in England.
He/she describes living in a London suburb, which was overrun by "former `Empire' " immigrants. For "former `Empire' ", read non-white. This correspondent obviously does not consider himself part of a wave of immigrants, which overran other London suburbs at about the same time and caused disquiet among some members of the host communities. He seems to be implying that we were acceptable because we were white but the others, being black/brown, were unacceptable. Hitting the nasty nail on its nasty head, maybe.
I was born and brought up in one of those London suburbs and I did read in the newspapers of problems elsewhere, but in my own experience most people just lived, settled, worked, married and raised families side by side with people of different origins.
Interestingly enough, those who shouted loudest about problems with non-white immigrants were often those who never knew any but made sure, instead, that they continued to live in their own self-made physical or psychological ghettoes. - Yours, etc.,
N.F. O'Connor, Killerisk, Tralee, Co Kerry.