Sir, - Ralph Kenna (December 15th) calls for the return of two Sheela na Gig figures from the British Museum to their places of origin in Westmeath. During many centuries of British exploration and conquest, it was inevitably that a large number of artefacts would find their way back to museums and private collections.
It would be unfair, however, to suggest that the British only took things away. They also brought things with them: law, the conventions of civilised conduct and, perhaps most importantly, the language in which Mr Kenna expresses his opinions, in which Pearse phrased his Proclamation, and without which it is hard to imagine the prosperous, modern nation we know today. Let us hope they do not come looking for these things back. - Yours, etc.,
Paul Griffin, Glyncoed, Glogue, Pembrokeshire, Wales.