Sir, - On St Patrick's Day a sizeable proportion of our citizens chose to mark the occasion with appalling acts of drunken thuggery. The emergency services - gardai and ambulance personnel - were stretched to their limits and beyond. No other civilised Western country engages in such an orgy of destruction on their national feast-day.
What is interesting and unique about this Irish brand of savagery is its collective spontaneity. The Irish drunken thugs rose up in unison on the day - almost as though they were spiritually directed - and caused havoc in almost all centres of population. This is in stark contrast to other hooligans, for example the English football variety, who appear to require complex strategies developed from elements within the National Front and Combat 18 before engaging in battle (recall the Lansdowne Road riot). Seemingly, the Irish drunken thug has no need to develop such organisational skills - it all comes to him naturally.
Now that billboards are being erected asking foreign visitors to excuse our litter problem, perhaps others could be erected apologising for our drunken savagery. - Yours, etc.,
Kieran Doherty, Raheny, Dublin 5.