Sir, - Kevin Myers suggests (An Irishman's Diary, July 30th) that "most of us intuitively understand the connection between four harmless men being denied drinks in Waterford and 100 not-so-harmless people in Galway, but we will not say it." Mr Myers, fearless and outspoken man that he is, is happy to help us understand the connection: that members of the travelling community who break the law provide a useful excuse for the settled community to use as their justification for discrimination against all members of the travelling community, law-abiding or not.
Mr Myers goes on to remind us of the various laws that we might find members of the travelling community flouting: "traffic laws, insurance laws, road tax laws, litter laws, dole laws, PRSI laws, tax laws and public health laws". Most ungracious of them to break all of these laws, given all that the settled community do for them: "The relationship. . .is almost totally one way. No Traveller-subsidised state exists for Untravellers to draw dole from." Mr Myers is adamant that the making of such statements is not racist.
I would like to suggest to Mr Myers that to make hostile statements, as he does, against all members of a cultural grouping on the basis of the actions of some of its individual members is racist. So is his suggestion that travellers are subsidised by the State. All citizens of the State are legally entitled to State benefits to alleviate poverty. There are many people in our society who are not members of the travelling community who are equally dependent upon State benefits. For Mr Myers to point out that a particular community is socially marginalised and to attack its members for welfare dependency rather than asking how it is that this marginalisation has come about is, again, simply racist.
I am not surprised that Mr Myers holds the views that he does. But is your newspaper proud of having printed them? - Yours, etc.,
Conor McCarthy, Churchfield, Lower Salthill, Galway.