LETTERS

Letters from Irish Voice readers

LETTERS

March 12, 2008

A Fascist Fool

JOHN Rogers called me a foreigner and a moron in his letter “What a Moron” in last week’s issue. I love it. He figured that out all by himself, I’ll bet. He strikes me as a gun-toting, no nonsense bully, which is no surprise. He probably calls himself “American” too — a fine Spanish name.

Scratch a redneck like John and immediately the fascist springs forth. All the slaughter and murder carried out by the U.S. Air Force and ground troops in Vietnam was fine, he contends, because they were merely “carrying out orders.” Where have we heard this before?

The U.S., a nation of immigrants without valid “reasons” to trawl the world looking for perceived enemies and then setting out to destroy them, does not prove America is the most powerful country. It only proves it the most dangerous and homicidal.

Mr. Rogers epitomizes all that is bad about America. He is a racist bigot and surely deranged, and not otherwise worthy of a response from my good self.

I do so solely to laugh at him and his likes.

Robert O’Sullivan
Bantry, Co. Cork

A Tara Wish

IN his first broadcast for 2008, on March 1 Irish Poet Laureate and Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney said the plan to build a freeway through the Hill of Tara is a “ruthless desecration.” Heaney said that under British rule in Ireland, Tara appeared to have more protection than in today’s Irish Republic. Heaney often refers to his “country of the mind.” The Hill of Tara belongs to all people of Irish heritage.

This is why Irish people cannot rest while Tara is being desecrated by speculators hell-bent of expanding Ireland’s “industrial estate” with no regard for the people. They have forgotten the policy of cultural tourism, which launched the Celtic Tiger in the late 1980s — a policy directed toward promoting business through showcasing cultural heritage and supporting the arts.

March is the month when the Irish government sends out diplomats to all corners of the world in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. This year a large number of representatives from Meath, Trim and Navan councils, surrounding the Hill of Tara, will travel abroad to promote flagging tourism and, no doubt, to ease tensions caused by the international outcry over their continuing illegal desecration of Irish heritage at Tara.

This is a call to Irish people abroad to go out of their way to greet these diplomats with the cry “Save Tara!” Let the words “Save Tara!” resound!

Performing artists can call out the words “Save Tara” from the stage. Traditional Irish dances can place the words “Save Tara” on their sashes. It is our cultural duty and our privilege to raise our voices to save Tara!

Learn more from the Save Tara campaign at www.savetara.com.

Maireid Sullivan
Sydney, Australia

Say No to Lisbon

I AM an Irish American, first generation, with my Co. Clare father and Co. Mayo mother having immigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s. My parents related many stories to me of the hardships they and my ancestors endured in Ireland’s struggle for independence. I see that long-fought-for independence is now in jeopardy by the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty.

The 1916 Proclamation of Independence, signed by Pearse, Connolly, MacDonagh and others on behalf of past generations of Irishmen and Irish women, envisaged a new dawn for a proud people when it asserted the sovereign and unfettered control of Irish destinies.

Now in 2008, having thrown off the yoke of the British crown and finally ushering in a new era of peace in Northern Ireland, this unfettered control of Irish destinies is under grave threat.

The European Union Lisbon Treaty is a hastily reworked repackaging of the European Constitution that was rejected by the people of France and the Netherlands in 2004. Having carefully altered the document in order both to make it unreadable and avoid the constitutional necessity for putting the treaty to the people of Europe, it has now been presented to Ireland alone to vote on in a referendum which will take place this summer.

The Lisbon Treaty cuts Ireland’s vote on the European Council by 60%, while Germany’s would double and France’s increase by 50%. It would remove our right to an Irish commissioner for years at a time. Commissioners sit in the unelected body that has the exclusive right to propose legislation which now generates 80% of Ireland’s new laws.

Ireland would surrender more than 60 key areas of sovereignty and vetoes (vital trump cards in negotiations) to Brussels in areas including immigration policy, common commercial policy (including foreign direct investment), culture and even sports.

This would also be a huge transfer of influence from the Dail (Parliament) to the European Parliament where Ireland stands to lose a member of the European Parliament. European law is made supreme over Irish law.

The Lisbon Treaty also provides for an unelected president and foreign affairs minister for Europe. These are powerful positions for officials who will be neither elected by the citizens of Europe nor accountable to them for their actions.

The Charter on Fundamental Rights would be enshrined in European law, but it will be the European Court of Justice, not the Irish Supreme Court that will have the final say in many cases on matters of vital national interest. In fact Irish constitutional lawyer Gerard Hogan has said that the charter and its interpretation by the European Court would “surpass” the Irish Constitution.

There is no doubt that the European Union has been very good for Ireland, and indeed Ireland has been very good for it, but people realize that democracy must be at the heart of Europe.

The Irish fishing industry and the west of Ireland have been decimated by the EU’s fisheries policy. Irish farmers are seriously questioning whether the benefits they have enjoyed will continue, and within the next few years Ireland will become a net contributor to the EU for ****500 million per annum.

At a time when Ireland faces new economic challenges, the Lisbon Treaty endangers Irish jobs through the transfer of lawmaking on foreign direct investment to Brussels, which is instead committed to shoring up economies elsewhere in Europe.

Many people are coming to the inescapable conclusion that Brussels rule without democratic mandate has power enough already, that the control of our destinies is being steadily eroded, and that what we need is more democracy, not more rules and regulations.

I go to our home in Ireland several times a year. Given the extraordinary importance of this subject, it is surprising how little information is available, particularly since I understand the vote is scheduled for May 29. I have found one website helpful, namely, www.libertas.org.

As an Irish citizen, I have also come to the conclusion that enough is enough, and I appeal to my fellow Irish citizens to campaign for a No vote in the forthcoming referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland, and to support Libertas in that campaign.

John J. Kelly
New Orleans, Louisiana
Mountshannon, Co. Clare

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