Sir, - One of the most significant changes in Western society over the last number of years has been the change in attitude to `authority'. This was well illustrated by the article on the monarchy in Britain (October 12th). Along with this, there has been a willingness to bypass hitherto accepted channels of information or regulation, facilitated by technological advances. The recent and ongoing marches against drug pushers in Dublin are a predictable response to the dismal failure of the legal, social, and financial structures of society to deal with that problem.
It was all the more depressing, then, to read in the same edition, Drapier's column: "The shadow of Lisburn hung over all of us this week".
It is as immoral as it is incomprehensible that the political establishment in Ireland should so willingly allow itself to be distracted by the internecine quarrels of a subsection of the population of Northern Ireland, that they consistently neglect the problems of the people who elected them. I do not believe, Sir, that it is unreasonable to suggest that like the water hammer, the typewriter, and the rotary phone, this perspective is destined for obsolescence. Whether its current proponents wish to join it in that state is entirely their decision. - Yours, etc,
3611 University Drive,
Durham, North Carolina