Madam, - It is good that the proposed rally in support of Padraic Nally has been called off, because of the organisers' fears that it would turn into an anti-traveller event and further inflame the situation.
There is no escaping the reality that there is deep anti-traveller prejudice and fear within the rural Irish psyche. Yet there was a time, certainly in my grandfather's day, when "tinkers" were welcomed on to the farmsteads of Ireland to repair pots, pans, churns and other objects and were paid for their services. One effect of the plastic revolution has been that travellers and farmers have lost this mutually advantageous interaction.
Petty larceny and the taking of life are obviously wrong but to place the value of land and possessions over the value of a human life is a gross distortion of any moral order.
There is an urgent need for rural organisations and traveller representatives to meet regularly to try to resolve this hostility lest further blood-letting occurs. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN BUTLER, Pennock Hill, Swords, Co Dublin.