Madam, – As someone born in Belfast and proud of my British/Irish nationality, I wish to object strongly to your indulgence of letter writers who wish to insult or diminish Queen Elizabeth II by such descriptions as “Mrs Windsor” as in one letter in last Friday’s edition. I doubt if you would tolerate the publication of similar antipathic remarks concerning President Obama or Prince Albert II.
In addition, I find it very annoying that your copy-editors appear, on an ongoing basis, to believe the use of lower case lettering to describe the Head of State of a kingdom encompassing some of the land mass of this island is a correct use of grammar. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – It would appear from the coverage of the impending visits of both the US president and the British queen that the opportunity to promote Ireland abroad is topping the list of why the visits are timely and important.
However, particularly in the case of the British queen, if we are simply trying to use these “historic” visits to our own (financial) advantage, should we not simply say so? Have we learned anything from our past, particularly the last five years? We should not use hundreds of years’ history and years of diplomacy to try to get more tourists to help improve our economy.
The downfall of the Celtic tiger was smoke and mirrors while we tried to make money. Why are we continuing to use smoke and mirrors to finance our way back out of oblivion? The “maturity” in extending an invitation to the British queen would seem to be a contradiction when all we want to do is make money and create jobs out of it. – Yours, etc,