Sir, - Kevin Myers deserves a papal knighthood for taking on the lynch-mob which has demonised priests and nuns in recent years. Irish newspapers proclaimed this demonisation even more effectively than the English tabloids. And the chattering classes enjoyed it, rather too much. So let's not blame the Brits, once again, for our woes.
Even a cleric can understand why some people, especially journalists, wanted revenge for notorious abuses of authority by representatives of Holy Mother Church in Ireland: our national proclivity to "get even" antedates the coming of Christianity and still cripples its expression. But does it completely explain the latest outbreak of witch-hunting? A tradition of revenge creates other offensive offspring.
Ireland is infamously a nation with a high proportion of begrudgers, informers and gombeen people who continue to project their failures and guilt onto the nearest convenient group. The Catholic Church has been the scapegoat since the departure of the English. Politicians are fast becoming the next target. How long will it be before lawyers are classified as the quintessential gombeen people?
It may be that the Celtic Tiger has spawned too many barbarian technocrats who appear to be untouched by literature or history. Accountants and computer boffins are among the new high priests. We forget that technical training for many professions, even at third level, is no guarantee of an education. - Yours, etc.,
Fr Denis Egan, Cheney Lane, Headington, Oxford.