Sir, - Being aware of how offended we all are by the fashion in which the BBC portrayed us, I decided to do my patriotic duty and have sent the following letter to the BBC:
"Dear Sir or Madam,
"I am writing to you about Eastenders. I seen it on Sunday, at one o'clock, summer time. I also heard you saying that you were sorry if any of us was vexed the first time you showed it. Aren't youse the right hypocrits? If youse were all that sorry youse would not have showed it the second time. I wouldn't have seen it at all, only the childer heard at school that the Grand-da was the spitting image of Tommy the Rusher, and the Govment complained that it made an awful show of Ireland.
"To tell you the truth I never seen Eastenders before at all. Youse have it on at a very awkward time. I have to do the milking at half-past seven and get it away to the creamery early because the roads has got too dangerous with cars to take the ass and cart out after dark. And you couldn't hear yourself talking in our house on a Sunday with the way the childer be shouting at one another. But this Sunday I made the Missus send the childer down the boreen to get blackberries from the hedge for the dessert and when she was making the dinner I got watching the television in peace. But the whole kitchen got steamed up. I couldn't stand the Missus shouting at the fowl to chase them out so I made her shut the door. (I don't know why she keeps the fowl, for the Common Market won't allow the co-op to take the eggs any more and anyway there is no grant for hens.)
Youse should be ashamed of what youse showed in that programme and it is no wonder the Govment complained. Festy McGeehan's woman keeps a B and B, and she says that most of the English are all right in their place. They are quiet and pays their rent. But for youse to say that any of them could be relations of a respectable Irish family is a thundering disgrace." - Yours, etc.,
Tanderageebane, Monaghan.