DARIUS BARTLETT,
Madam, - Paul Hegarty (January 23rd) berates the Allen family for their "too public support" of a husband and father. Leaving aside the simple wrongness of punishing the children for the sins of the father, which is what Mr Hegarty appears to suggest we do, I wonder where he believes the boundaries of family commitment should lie.
When my wife and I married, many years ago, we exchanged vows to stand by each other through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, for the rest of our days. So do most couples on their wedding days.
Sadly, through a variety of reasons, some perhaps valid, some less so, not all of these good intentions survive the test of time. The divorce courts stand testimony to the fragility of some marriages.
I do not know what particular variation of these pledges Tim and Darina Allen made when they married. I do know that, thankfully, very few of us are ever called to demonstrate our commitment to our partners in such awful and public circumstances as Darina Allen has had to face recently. Very few children have to demonstrate their love and support for their father, despite his abundant fallibility, which must have shaken their faith to the quick, before the cameras of the world's media.
I suspect that, if we did, even fewer among us would manage to do so with dignity and grace.
"It is possible to love the sinner while hating the sin", Mrs Allen has said. With these words, and through their support, I suspect Darina Allen and her children may have punished - and salvaged - their husband and father more effectively than any judge or tabloid journalist could ever do. - Yours, etc.,
DARIUS BARTLETT,
Midleton,
Co Cork.