Pope Leo XIV
Sir, – I can think of no better name for Pope Leo XIV to have chosen. The selection of a name by a pope is his first duty and signifies to the world what kind of papacy he will seek to have.
Leo, from the warrior-king of Sparta, Leonidas, who faced an empire almost single-handedly at the pass of Thermopylae; Leo the Great, a pope who faced down the “Scourge of God” himself, Atilla the Hun, and saved Rome from destruction; and Leo the Wise, Byzantine emperor noted for his good counsel.
I hope at this tumultuous time in the world this pope cane be a beacon of peace and charity, and brave like his namesakes. – Yours, etc,
LEO E SHARKEY,
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Bratislava,
Slovakia.
Sir, – Many are quick to assert how Pope Leo XIII – the new pontiff’s namesake – developed the idea of Catholic social justice, and indeed he did. Let’s not forget, however, that his ideas were predicated on the belief that countries had the duty to profess the true faith and enact laws in accordance with it.
Those who are excited by the prospect of a pope continuing a focus on social justice who choose to ignore this key detail serve to undermine the truly great legacy of our new Pope’s namesake, who was so much greater than a mere social justice warrior. – Yours, etc.
PORTIA BERRY-KILBY,
Cootehill,
Co Cavan.
Sir, – America, and the world, has a new pope. Although he was an unexpected choice, he appears to be a very good choice.
From what is being reported, Pope Leo XIV will follow in the footsteps of Pope Francis. The church needs to be all encompassing as its members are more diverse than they used to be.
My own Catholic childhood, in the 1960s, of old Irish priests with accents so broad I had trouble following what they were saying are so long gone. Now we have priests from many countries, although in my parish, not from America yet. – Yours, etc,
DENNIS FITZGERALD,
Melbourne,
Australia.
Sir, – I am happy to add my welcome to Pope Leo XIV. His first interaction with us was well received. Working through the wholesome messages he articulated, I hope the key word, repeated a number of times, was peace – surely that is what Jesus preached., If he can contribute to this objective he will truly walk in his footsteps. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK HOWLIN,
Milltown,
Dublin 14.
Sir, – Pope Leo XIV has a degree in mathematics. So he understands sin (and cos and tan) – Yours, etc,
AUSTIN CORBETT,
Blanchardstown,
Dublin 15.
Retirement
of Joe Duffy
Sir, – Few countries have undergone such rapid transformation as Ireland in the last three decades. No one has given a better insight into this process than Joe Duffy. Credit to him and his team for work which should provide future historians with an abundance of material. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN O’BRIEN,
Kinsale,
Co Cork.
Sir, – Mick Heaney captured the ability of Joe Duffy’s Lifeline to shift public opinion (“Duffy presided over Ireland’s courts of public opinion on RTÉ’s Liveline”, Home News, May 9tg). One powerful example dates back to Thursday, September 18th, 2008.
An employee of An Post called Liveline to extol the virtues of its security options for savers. This call only served to panic the swathes of listenership tuned into the programme.
The public called the show in droves to express their lack of confidence in the banking system. The then minister for finance, Brian Lenihan, called RTÉ’s director general to express his outrage that the Liveline show might lead to a run on the banks.
Two days later, the minister for finance raised the bank deposit guarantee to €100,000 from the previous €20,000 limit. A powerful example of Duffy’s everyman style giving a voice to the person on the street. Joe will be missed. – Yours, etc,
JOHN NAUGHTON,
The Gallops,
Leopardstown,
Dublin 18.
Sir, – It’s hard to believe that Joe Duffy presented Liveline for 27 years. It was liberating to find that people felt that they could pick up the phone and ring Liveline. People felt safe with Joe in sharing their lives, problems and stories. I have to say that Joe Duffy’s Liveline was an embodiment of public service. I would put this man under the rubric of being a national treasure. I want to wish Joe every joy and contentment in his retirement. – Yours, etc
JOHN O’BRIEN,
Clonmel,
Co Tipperary.
Life in Australia versus life in Ireland
Sir, – Laura Kennedy (“Emigrating shows you are resilient and capable of change”, Life, May 7th) struck a chord – not because of her new found gym habits in Australia, but because of what the piece actually reveals: the toxic normalisation of overwork in our lives back home.
In Ireland and across much of the so-called developed world, we’ve internalised a damaging belief that our worth is measured by how much we produce. Long hours, availability at all times, and self-sacrifice have become badges of honour. The fact that Kennedy had to leave the country simply to experience guilt-free evenings is as depressing as it is familiar. That should have been the headline.
Anthropologist James Suzman, who has written about the San people of southern Africa and the evolution of human labour, reminds us that modern work culture is not inevitable – it’s a product of neoliberal values that prize profit and productivity over wellbeing. In societies with far less material wealth, people work less, rest more, and experience greater social cohesion. It’s a damning reflection on how far we’ve drifted.
Kennedy’s piece is not really about gyms or lifestyle upgrades – it’s about the quiet, radical act of stepping outside a system that convinces us exhaustion is normal. Sometimes it takes leaving to realise just how much of ourselves we’ve handed over to work – and how much we stand to reclaim. – Yours, etc,
GAVIN REDDIN,
Swords,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – For some time now The Irish Times has given us a simple message. Ireland bad, Australia good. You even have two columnists attesting to the merits of Oz plus several other pieces by ex-pats. Okay, message received. There must be a war somewhere you could send one of these correspondents to instead of this endless repetition. – Yours, etc,
SHEA CARROLL,
Emmet Rd,
Dublin 8.
VE Day remberance
Sir, – Your editorial (“Europe must not forget”, Comment, May 8th) makes a very pertinent point. You write that “the country’s absence from the fight against fascism remains an ambiguous and sometimes contested part of the State’s history”.
It certainly does. The basis for this in part has its origins in the bloody defeat of the Spanish Republican government in 1939, by the fascist forces of Franco’s Falange movement.
No assistance by the West was given to the democratically elected government. In fact, all aid was obstructed from going to help the Republican cause.
The defeat of the republic taught Nazi Germany many lessons. One of which was that the West was more predisposed to deal with fascist institutions than governments which, in their eyes, were tainted with socialist ideals.
The latitude given to Nazi Germany by the West in the early years of its aggrandisement, and the exploitation of Spain’s mineral resources, speaks volumes.
The difficulty with Ireland was that the Vatican had come to an agreement with Mussolini and his Italian fascists. It espoused certain aspects of the Italian fascism which married with its own beliefs; in particular on the nature of the state, society and the family.
The Irish Free State was, essentially, in all but name, a quasi-fascist state. There can be no question about that as it evolved a combination of shared power between the church and the state. The central core doctrine of the Catholic Church in Ireland then was “corporatism”, which had two principal objectives: one was to curb the power of the trade unions and, by extension, recruit the leadership of the Labour Party to its ideology; the second was to prevent the spread of communism. It succeeded in all this.
The principles of Catholic social practice was taught in all secondary schools up to the mid 60s. It was a compulsory subject for any student attending those schools. The much later national social agreements between the trade union movement and the state echoed the elements of catholic corporatism.
The neutral position taken by the Irish Free State during the second World War cannot be solely put down to its predisposition to fascist ideologies, but at the same time it was a factor. – Yours, etc,
DAVID LYONS,
Bridgefoot Street,
Dublin.
Sir, – Your editorial correctly notes the vast number of deaths and the terrible destruction inflicted by the second World War. However, it is beyond comprehension how the editorial writer could reference all this death and destruction without noting how much of it was borne by the people of the Soviet Union.
At least 27 million citizens of the Soviet Union died as a result of that war. Over 900,000 inhabitants of Leningrad alone died – mostly from starvation and disease – as a consequence of the besieging of that city by the German army.
The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome in the European Theatre of operations, eventually serving as the main reason for the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Axis nations.
It is noted by the eminent historian Prof Geoffrey Roberts that “more than 80 per cent of all combat during the second World War took place on the Eastern Front”. It is not a narrative offered by the Hollywood movie industry or by western media today.
In total, the Soviet Union lost 25 per cent of its national wealth and 14 per cent of its population as a direct result of the war. It is surely a correct observation to make that nearly every family today in Russia was affected by the horror of the second World War and that this has hugely affected Russian opinion on Nato to this day. – Yours, etc
MICHAEL WADDELL,
Kilmainham,
Dublin 2.
Ruminations on gimp
Sir, – Frank McNally’s ruminations on the word “gimp” and how it is sometimes used to describe a person’s demeanour or bearing (Irishman’s Diary, May 9th) bring to mind an occasion when I was exhorted to “put a busy gimp on yourself.”
For a period, back in the early 70s, I was a greenhorn “navvy” struggling with the unfamiliarity of hard physical work on a Manchester building site. One day, an empathetic, fellow Monaghan man leaned on his shovel and explained how the best way to avoid the foreman’s attention was to always project an unambiguously industrious demeanour. To this end, a claw hammer or length of two-by-four were the type of props one should never be seen without when moving (swiftly) about on-site.
I’m not ashamed to say that from that day forward I adopted the recommended “gimp” of the preoccupied labourer, thus managing, more often than not, to avoid the gaffer’s unwanted gaze. – Yours, etc,
KIERAN FLYNN,
Ballinasloe,
Co Galway.
Religion in the classroom
Sir, – It struck me reading John Boyle’s comments (Letters, April 9th) that the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation which he leads has much in common with the Camogie Association: answering to a congress that is out of touch with and overrules the views of its members despite overwhelming evidence that it has itself gathered. When will teachers be allowed to cease having to act as missionaries for the faith in our primary schools? – Yours, etc,
AOIFE CASSIDY,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6.
Public toilets
Sir, – Dublin City Council (DCC) officers want to close the public toilets in Grafton Street (“Dublin city centre’s only public toilets to be closed”, Home News, May 9th).
How typical of Ireland that the solution to difficulties in the operation and administration of a public realm facility is to close it. Public toilets, like libraries, are part of the basic service provision of local authorities. The alternative is to require us to seek alternatives in shops and restaurants – often requiring us to purchase something first – and is a form of privatisation.
It is to be hoped that councillors reject this idea and tell their officers to find an alternative plan to keep the facility. – Yours, etc.
KENNETH HARPER,
Burtonport,
Co Donegal.
