A Chara, - Vincent Browne (Opinion, September 4th) seems to have an obsession with the late Cathal Goulding. In his diatribe against the visit of the Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, Mr Browne scales the heights of fantasy to attack a man who is no longer around to defend himself.
As Vincent Browne should know well, Cathal Goulding was the man who put civil rights - the rights of the citizen in society - on the political agenda in this country more than 30 years ago.
Had Mr Browne listened to what Cathal had to say he might have learned something. Had others listened, we might not have had three decades of sectarian murder, nor indeed the awful sectarian scenes witnessed in Ardoyne in recent days.
As for Mr Browne's snide remarks about the alleged influence that the Workers' Party was supposed to have in the media, including The Irish Times and RT╔, and which he feels we still maintain, could he then explain why neither The Irish Times nor RT╔ carried two very important statements issued by the Workers' Party in the past week? The first was Des O'Hagan's seminal speech at our annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration in Bodenstown last weekend; the other was our reaction to the attempted murder of young schoolchildren on their way to school in North Belfast.
Indeed, the almost daily flow of press statements from the Workers' Party to the Irish Times and RT╔ newsrooms barely ever sees the light of day in print, on radio or on television. It is quite possible that this letter will go the same way into some sub-editor's wastebasket. - Is mise,
Seβn O Cionnaith, The Workers' Party, Hill Street, Dublin 1.