Sir, - Comments by Ruth Dudley Edwards, Robert Ballagh and others made me seek out and reread David Trimble's Nobel lecture (The Irish Times, December 11th). It did not alter, but rather reinforced a view formed at first reading that this was a splendid address well worthy of the occasion.
It was also a profound statement of the political philosophy of its author, who is revealed as a man of erudition and wit, quite different from the caricature figure routinely pictured as dancing through Portadown. Indeed, Mr Trimble's speech was intensely revealing, in the most hopeful and positive sense.
Sad, then, that it was greeted with such mean-spirited begrudgery by so many commentators. Evidence, if such were needed, of the dark shadow of the past to which Mr Trimble referred. - Yours, etc., Paul P. Hogan,
Claremont Road, Sandymount, Dublin 4.