Sir, - May I propose a New Year resolution for all those foreign enterprises operating in this country and for the native operations which ape them? No doubt they will soon be planning their decorations for next Christmas. Could they not conform to Irish usage in regard to the seasonal good wishes?
Out here near the edge of the shelf of the continent, we have always wished each other a happy Christmas. On the other side of the Irish Sea they seem quite happy if each other's Christmases are merely merry. Accepting, of course, that happiness may very well include a degree of merriment, is it not obvious that merriment is a rather restricted form of happiness? Indeed, unhappy people can get quite merry.
Surely I am not alone in feeling rather disappointed and even deprived if the best wish someone can muster for me is a merry Christmas? - Yours, etc.,
Frank Farrell, Lakelands Close, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.