Madam, - It is unfortunate that any individual or group might feel circumscribed in their ability to voice their true feelings about their own identity or about the society that they inhabit.
Ian Beamish (Nov 2nd) clearly feels that "the formation, definition and national identity of this State was based on a Roman Catholic and Gaelic tradition". He adds, in the name of his Protestant religion, that "our old and honourable traditions declined markedly since independence from the UK". However, in eliding the terms "Roman Catholic" and "Gaelic", Ian Beamish is permitting the elision of "Protestant" and "pro-British". Surely, if his aim is the promotion of diversity, Ian Beamish should exclude a sectarian identifying of religious and national identity? Is it not an example of a "narrow nationalist mindset", of the type he accuses Senator Mansergh (also a Protestant) of expressing?
For the record, I agree that sections of this State's ruling elite did attempt to foster the lie that Roman Catholic and Irish were one and the same thing. At one time it appeared as if two sectarian states were in formation in Ireland.
But this was appearance only, since the population in this part of the island had the capacity to burst through that ideological straitjacket. They did so while maintaining their national identity and did not do so as members of a church, but simply as citizens of a republic.
It required political effort, campaigns for secular freedoms in the right to contraception and divorce, abortion even, and an end to censorship. Since the demands were in tune with the sentiments of the majority, they have been largely successful.
In consequence, the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is in permanent retreat from the role it once played in the name of a spurious and invented Irish "tradition".
Many Roman Catholic "old and honourable traditions" fell rapidly into disuse because they were no longer regarded as appropriate or relevant to the lives of those who once practised them.
Can it be that the same fate befell so-called Protestant "traditions", whose passing Ian Beamish laments? If Mr Beamish wishes to make an identification of religious and national identity, he is free to do so (has done so?). I suggest he will be confronted with a combination of bemused indifference from the majority (including Protestants) and disagreement from people like me who sometimes write letters to newspapers. - Yours, etc,
NIALL MEEHAN, Cabra, Dublin 7.