Sir, - As a 60-year-old woman I do not worry myself about people's relationships, even those of family members. I am not censorious, because in my parent's time and mine I have known individuals who had to live totally hypocritical lives, lonely and embittered, just to satisfy a society cowed by the Catholic Church's crozier.
However, I do not know of any other head of state who is accompanied on official visits by a person who is not a spouse, except perhaps the president of Brazil who was accompanied on a recent visit to England by his daughter. The silence (maybe embarrassment) of the Irish people and the silence of the Catholic Church, which does not hesitate to interfere with people's family planning methods and other private matters, fills me with the usual despair. But as always in Ireland we expect nothing but hypocrisy. - Yours, etc., Gwen Woods,
Clyde Lane, Dublin 4.