Madam, - Congratulations to Desmond Fennell on his excellent piece (Opinion, May 28th) about the current socio-political obsession of Irish "modernity". His implicit conclusion that we are nothing more a self-loathing nation in pursuit of a society that makes us indistinguishable from our nearest neighbours to the East and West ("Ameranglian", as he put it) was perfectly typified by the very notion, not to mention location, of the recent "Re-imagining Ireland" conference held in the Virginia, where the coup de grace in support of such a hypothesis was offered by our very own "modern" President. - Yours, etc.,
KEVIN BARRINS,
Woodstown Gardens,
Knocklyon,
Dublin 16.
Madam, - Desmond Fennell (Opinion, May 28th) surprises me. Referring to changes in religious outlook in the 1970s and 1980s, he declares: "England wasn't rural or Catholic, nor was America, so those Paddy marks. . .were disposed of".
He clearly implies that traditional religious beliefs were rejected in recent decades because of a certain middle-class embarrassment about the image of old Ireland. Like many commentators, he neglects another explanation: that a great many people shook them off because they had ceased to believe in them.
As someone who is often described as a "humanist" by his admirers, he should know better. This portion of his account is not history, it is simply crude invective against the very many Irish people (and by no means all of them from a Catholic or middle-class background) who have chosen to live without religion. It feeds the attitude that the views of the non-religious need not be taken into account in discussing religion and ethics in public forums, and prevents the mature discussion of alternatives to religion.
I, as a non-believer, am a member of a group that is bigger than all the non-Catholic religious denominations combined, and I am tired of watching my view being lampooned as a form of post-modern treachery against my culture, or ignored as unworthy of serious examination. - Yours, etc.,
JAIME HYLAND,
Heinrich-Mann-Strasse,
Berlin,
Germany.