Madam, - The promiscuous spray of commentary generated by last Saturday's vicious unrest has been remarkably empty of both insight and prescription.
Beyond the preparedness, or otherwise, of the Garda, coverage has focused almost exclusively on three points: the wisdom of allowing a provocative unionist march through the city centre; the vile debasement of "republicanism" by the rioters; and the resultant defacement of secular, tolerant Ireland.
The three points are intertwined. The argument runs that, having basked for long in the sheen of European modernity, the Republic could now retire the tattered colours of old and live fully up to its own promises: civil rights for all, and open debate between all points of view. Saturday's violence put the lie to such optimism.
As such, the premises of the argument lead naturally to designate the rioters as far beyond the pale of contemporary Ireland, and below contempt: they are "green fascists", given over to "feral tribalism" and sprung from the rank "undergrowth of our housing estates", where politics takes on "feral forms".
What sustains such blanket rhetoric, taken from both ends of The Irish Times spectrum - Fintan O'Toole and Kevin Myers - is a palpable undertow of class resentment. What every Dubliner knows, and what was brought vividly to international television screens at the weekend, was that "thug" and "rioter" is code for "knacker" and "scumbag". Those undoing the masonry of O'Connell Street were not from the leafy precincts of Foxrock or Malahide. They were from those fearful housing estates passed over by the exuberance of the boom: Jobstown, Ballymun, Darndale.
Saturday's riots were not about sectarianism: they were about the class tensions that produced the upsurge in urban republicanism. The historic decline of Dublin's working class, against the backdrop of unprecedented prosperity, has created a lost generation of young people without access to most of the luxuries of modern Ireland, and with little to give meaning to their lives.
The popularity of Sinn Féin's brand of nationalism in areas such as the north inner city or great swathes of west Dublin, bespeaks a wider sense of cultural dislocation. Nationalism - in the guise of meaningless support for a defunct IRA, or wearing the Celtic strip, or in votes cast for Gerry Adams's cynical and corrupt politburo - gives force and shape to lives otherwise disconnected from the mainstream of David McWilliams's Ireland. It reclaims a sense of belonging, a vestige of "Irishness", that has long been disdained as useless by the flux and speed of Hibernian modernity.
What we saw last Saturday was not an anti-Protestant protest or an attempt to claim the legacy of the insurgents of 1916. Beyond a vague scattering of obligatory Tricolours, it was remarkably vacant of ideology.
In essence it was a brief revolt against the placid shopfronts of tourist Dublin. Such actions deserve not the slightest tincture of romance: they were despicable in their callous disregard for human life (I speak as a first-hand witness).
It would be a grave error, however, to dismiss the rioters as people who are somehow irrelevant in modern Irish society - the mere remnant of a long-dead creed. For they are the truest product of social forces that are still now drastically transforming, for better and worse, the constitution of the State. - Yours, etc,
SEAN COLEMAN, Brian Avenue, Marino, Dublin 3.
Madam, - I would like to call on Bertie Ahern to now abandon his plan for a 1916 Easter parade. How could he possibly hope to compete with last Saturday's blockbuster event: weapon-wielding Republicans (an unrepresentative minority - perfect casting!); crown-affiliated detachments (some even wearing red uniforms - again, spot on!); violent assaults on unarmed police; burnings; destruction of public and private property; ordinary Dubliners looting!
If all that doesn't amount to a recreation of Easter 1916 then I don't know what would! Certainly not the predictable charade that Bertie & Co have in mind. As they'd say in Hollywood, "It's already been done, and better. Forget it." - Yours, etc,
Dr MARK CLINTON, Sutton, Co Dublin.
Madam, I am indebted to Kevin Myers for the information that my friend and colleague, Charlie Bird of RTÉ, is a Protestant (The Irish Times, February 28th). I have known Charlie for 34 years and until now this information had escaped me, largely because I never thought to enquire. Kevin obviously pays closer attention to such fine details than I do. But how fiendishly clever of the Dublin lumpenproletariat to have uncovered this same information.
Now that he has raised the issue of a sectarian headcount, perhaps Kevin would use his investigative skills to give us a religious breakdown of the injured gardaí? - Yours, etc,
EUGENE McELDOWNEY, Howth, Co Dublin.
Madam, - I can only assume that, due to limitations of space, you were unable to publish the undoubtedly well-thought out contextualisation that must surely have accompanied Simon O'Donnell's contention (March 1st) that "the vast majority of people rioting on O'Connell Street last Saturday were members of the growing sub-class that has been abandoned by the present Government's neo-liberal economic policies".
I eagerly look forward to you publishing the rest of that letter which, I am hoping, will argue that the rioters were something other than morons whose sectarian instincts over-rode their alleged "republicanism".
In the meantime I remain unconvinced, and indeed embarrassed as an Irishman at the scenes broadcast around the world. - Yours, etc,
COLIN COOPER, London SW19.
Madam, - Joe Lynch's letter of March 1st contained a massive amount of nonsense. He claimed your paper's coverage of "the angry reaction of people" to the Love Ulster march showed that "a display of Union Jacks and British flags" outside the GPO is "opposed by the Irish people".
Mr Lynch must have been reading a different paper; and he was obviously not there. I was, having decided to take a look at the march; and the only "angry reaction" I saw came from a small number of political extremists and thugs whose violence disgraced our country and our national flag.
Also, how does Mr Lynch know that displays of British flags are opposed by the Irish people? Does he have the capacity to conduct an instant opinion poll of all the population? Last weekend I saw plenty of flags displayed around town, flags of a part of the United Kingdom called Wales, and could see no protests against them. - Yours, etc,
MURRAY SMITH, Palmerston Grove, Dublin 6.