Madam, - Andrew Byrne believes a second vote on Lisbon is inevitable (September 5th). It "has always been the logical conclusion", he argues. Mr Byrne is wrong on two counts.
Firstly, the Irish people's democratic choice has been ignored and the public would be irritated by the arrogance of being told to vote again. This means a second referendum would at best be foolish for our beleaguered Taoiseach and at worst fatal, as he would most likely lose it.
More importantly, I believe our rejection of Lisbon will be eclipsed when David Cameron and the Conservatives are elected to power in Britain. Mr Cameron has already said he will hold a referendum on Lisbon and most likely renegotiate the UK's position within the EU.
This will fundamentally change the nature of the European Union and put our membership into question, making Irish ratification of Lisbon a footnote.
This, along with the fact that Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic have all put ratification on hold, makes a second referendum seem more irrelevant than inevitable. - Yours, etc,
CEARBHALL MAGUIRE,
Paris,
France.
Madam, - Last Friday I watched a TV documentary on the Battle for Rome (1943-44). It dwelt in some detail upon the Fosse Ardeatine - which I have visited twice - where 335 Romans, picked almost at random in most cases, were executed by drunken, frightened conscripts "acting on orders".
One would not want to become obsessive about certain matters but the inability of Anglo-Saxon (and, regrettably, Hibernian), No-Noes to understand the European project is due in part to the fact that they did not share that kind of experience, even in a grandfather's memories. Or the Katyn Woods, or Lidice, or jails in Franco's Spain or the colonels' Greece.
I once had the eerie experience, one truly beautiful summer's evening in 1998, of passing through sunlit forests in a slow train past a station platform marked "Oswiecim" (Auschwitz).
I do not know how people, even under 50, felt in places such as Budapest, Prague, Warsaw, Bucharest, Talinn, Riga and Vilnius, even Helsinki, in recent weeks when they saw Russian tanks on their television screens.
All I know is that there has to be a better way in which this benighted species of ours can run what is left of this planet.
The European project is far from perfect. It is open to all manner of exploitation by sectional interests and is fraught with mere technical inadequacies. But it is at least a reasonable and sincere effort to manage our humanity in a humane and civilised way.
I have been intensely proud, as somebody more than peripherally interested in the story of the Irish nation, of how we, the Irish, have gone to the very heart of this project and tried to make it work. For us. For all Europeans. Maybe, one day, for all men, women and children. - Yours, etc,
MAURICE O'CONNELL,
Fenit,
Tralee,
Co Kerry.
Madam, - I agree with Stephen Lane (September 2nd) regarding the extensive correspondence in your columns on the Lisbon Treaty.
Many interesting letters have been published - on both sides of the debate - and no doubt it was a godsend to the paper to receive them all. However, by now, I imagine, others besides myself might like a little break from the subject - at least until it is clear what happens next.
As the late Clement Attlee once famously remarked, "A period of silence would be appreciated". - Yours, etc,
BRENDA O'HANRAHAN,
Park Lane,
Sandymount,
Dublin 4.