KILLIAN FORDE,
Madam, - The past week has seen two Irish women in their early twenties receive extensive media coverage in response to being directly affected by wider political events in the country they were working in.
The contrast in the reaction by Lynda Duffy, the current "Miss Ireland", caught up in the political storm and subsequent civil strife sparked by differing attitudes to a beauty contest with that of the peace activist, Caoimhe Butterly, shot for the second time in the Middle East was disappointing.
Unfortunately, and leaving aside the very valid debate about the Miss World pageant, the comments of Miss Duffy on the quality of her food and her hotel while citizens of the host country were being murdered, displays brutal insensitivity.
Ms Duffy has made her case clear why she did not decide to boycott the competition, and her argument had points of validity. However now more than 200 people are confirmed dead and the competition has been relocated to London, is it not time for Ms Duffy to display some sort of decency and respect for those killed and boycott the London event?
Ms Duffy supposedly represents Ireland and I would think that most Irish people would rather she did not soil the name of our country, by bleating on about the "children of the world" while the victims of the violence in Nigeria are buried.
Ms Duffy is free to do what she feels appropriate, but Miss Ireland.....? Under whose authority? - Yours, etc.,
KILLIAN FORDE, 41 Tuscany Park, Dublin 13.