Sir, – I found the polling results covered in the April 15th analysis piece "Neutrality a core element of our national identity" rather troubling.
Maybe it’s not utter moral ambiguity on the matter of one nation invading another just to take land and kill people, but it’s not far off.
Yes, you can say humanitarian support has been fully behind Ukraine – I’m here doing just that here in Ukraine – but let’s be absolutely clear: Ukraine is only in this humanitarian crisis because we lacked ample perceived military deterrence prior to February 24th. That’s it. People are dying by the tens of thousands and being displaced by the millions because it was perceived Ukraine was incapable of defending itself.
The only reason we’re not defenceless here – in addition to the will to fight – is because nations like the US and UK know what matters to the tens of millions of people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves the target of conquest.
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Similarly, many of our small neighbours know exactly what it’s like to be in this situation, so the Baltics and the Visegrad nations (Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia, but not Hungary) have been some of our most vocal and vehement supporters. These are not war-mongering peoples. They’re just intimately familiar with what happens to the defenceless in this expanse of Europe.
To all those Irish who are afraid that a non-neutral Ireland would get caught up in some highly unlikely protracted fight, I ask, aren’t some things in life worth fighting for? Independence, dignity, freedom, a chance at a prosperous future? If the Irish have lost sight of that, I’m not so sure the core elements of this national identity mean much to anyone anyway. – Yours, etc,
THOMAS J GALLAGHER,
Lviv,
Ukraine.