Madam, – Can we afford the visit of Queen Elizabeth? We cannot go to the markets for the money. I cannot imagine it has been factored in to our bailout terms. So which sector is going to be compromised to pay for this visit? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – David Power (April 19th) is correct when he reassures Nigel Smith (April 15th) that he would only be expected to curtsey to Queen Elizabeth if he were a British subject. I can further reassure him that, whatever his citizenship, he would also need a sex change. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Dermot Sweeney states that Sinn Féin “won over 70 per cent of the Irish vote” in the 1918 general election. He is quite wrong, it actually received just under 47 per cent. The UK first past the post system gave them a large majority of Irish seats on this minority of the vote. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Brenda O’Hanrahan (April 18th) misses the point. For years the Roman Catholic church insisted that children of a mixed marriage must be brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. Should the heir to the English throne, therefore, or anyone in the line of succession who could conceivably inherit the throne, marry a Roman Catholic then all their descendants would inevitably also be Roman Catholic.
On the one hand Roman Catholics would rejoice; on the other they would be appalled, since the English sovereign is head of the Church of England, fiercely independent of Rome ever since the days of Henry VIII, and highly unlikely to relinquish that position, or permit any change in its governance. Mind you, after reading The Irish Timesone sometimes feels that the Irish people are equally determined to be fiercely independent of Rome, but that's another matter. – Yours, etc,