Letters: D-Day heroes weren’t asked for their passports to liberate France

I was surprised to see serving uniformed British soldiers (paratroopers) all lined up in front of a makeshift table, where two French immigration officials were examining the passports of military personnel recently landed in France.

The scene reminded me of a story from the 50th anniversary of D-Day, circa June 6, 1994, about an American veteran of World War II, aged in his 70s, who was on his second visit to France. After he had landed in Paris, the man had been asked to produce his passport for inspection by a haughty immigration official.

As the former soldier searched his bag, the impatient French immigration off­icial said to him, “Don’t you know all US people must show their passports when arriving in France?”

“Well, sir,” replied the veteran, “I wasn’t asked for my passport when I landed in France the last time, as there were no French people like you around at that time back on June 6, 1944.

“Nor were my 2,500 American colleagues who gave their lives on French beaches to liberate your country on that memorable day.”

Tom Baldwin, Midleton, Co Cork

Politicians sometimes need our protection

Sir — The uncomfortable scenes from Mayo last weekend of our Taoiseach being chased and jostled down the pathways wasn’t a good look.

Simon Harris had quickness of feet reminiscent of a referee trying his best to escape the clutches of not-so-enthusiastic GAA supporters.

Joking aside, we are not far away from a serious incident involving one of our political representatives.

Democracy needs protection. While the Burke family may not have intended any harm, the commotion caused could have resulted in an accident of sorts.

Seán Burke was asking questions about his son’s incarceration in jail — and questions are valid to ask — but it seems the Burke family are not that good at listening to other people’s voices, from our judiciary down to the least of God’s brethren.

Aidan Roddy, Cabinteely, Dublin 18

What has changed for trans people?

Sir — Trans people have always existed, but are now facing a hostile environment, says Bernie Linnane (Letters, June 2).

If this is true, one has to ask what has changed in recent times for trans people to feel such hostility?

In order to help trans people overcome this hostility, we need to understand the real issues facing them. It is time for us to listen to the words of trans people and fully understand the meaning of these words.

I believe the most important step is to understand what rights trans people have been denied. We can then act as expediently as possible to get these rights re­instated. How can we, as a society, help this minority when we do not know what rights are being denied? What is it that they can no longer do?

What has changed recently that would cause people to feel hostility towards trans people? It can’t be trans women entering single-sex spaces or female-only sports. Nor can it be the erosion of sex-based language, or the medicalisation of gender-questioning children.

It has to be something else, and we owe it to all trans people to look within ourselves to find the answer.

Kate Flannery, Limerick

These men should let women be women

Sir — A “luxury belief” has been described as “an idea that confers social status on people who hold it, but injures others in its practical consequences”.

Bernie Linnane’s assertion that the existence of trans women does not disturb “our” existence is an excellent example of a luxury belief. This may be true for Ms Linnane, but many other women might disagree.

Women and girls now cannot be sure they won’t encounter a man who says he is a woman in toilets, changing rooms, hostel dormitories, rape crisis services and other situations where they are vulnerable.

What about the women forced to share domestic violence refu­ges or prison cells with violent men, even convicted sex offenders, who say they are women?

Or disabled, elderly or sick women needing intimate treatment who want same-sex care, but are assigned a man who says he is a woman?

Or women and girls who lose prizes in sport and are put in physical danger on pitches from men who say they are women?

Or lesbians who are told they are bigots if they won’t date men who say they are women? (Yes, all of this is happening.)

If being concerned about any of the above constitutes being “obsessed with denying the rights of trans women”, then it demonstrates how “trans rights” are in conflict with women’s rights.

Quite what “trans rights” are is never properly explained. We can’t redefine “women” to include men and pretend there is no impact.

If these men “just want to live their lives in peace”, how about they just let us women be?

E Bolger, Dublin 9

Keep them coming, Tom, you’re a tonic

Sir — I always enjoy Tom Gilsenan’s amusing letters in your paper. They are a breath of fresh air. Keep up the writing, Tom.

Angela Hayes, Bennettsbridge, Co Kilkenny

Trump or Biden? The US has a bleak choice

Sir — Donald Trump has continually sabotaged the cornerstone values of decency, respect and honesty to the extent that his shenanigans before, during and after his recent criminal convection caused relatively scant revulsion.

Regrettably and contemporaneously, the sane world’s great hope in the upcoming US presidential election, Joe Biden, doesn’t seem to value or indeed recognise the moral high ground.

A few weeks ago, we saw the US president offer no evidence-based rebuttal of the International Criminal Court when it applied for arrest warrants for Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders.

Instead, Biden opted to criticise the prosecutor and diminish the court, reminiscent of Trumpian loathing and scorn of the justice system and those who uphold it.

There are numerous other examples of Biden’s “iron-clad” support for Israel and his shifty rhetoric of empathy with Palestinian people.

Voting in the US presidential election on November 5 has all but become a choice of the lesser of two evils. The thunderous wave of this utt­erly bleak reality is just offshore.

Michael Gannon, St Thomas’s Square, Kilkenny

Liberate hearts and minds from racism

Sir — Watching the D-Day 80th anniversary events, I can’t help but be saddened by the fact that large swathes of Europe liberated by brave Allied troops are once again falling under the spell of a toxic racism and xenophobia that seeks to displace democracy and common human decency.

A revamped fascist ideology has re-emerged from the shadows and the rubble of a crushing defeat in that most horrific of all wars.

In the months following D-Day, the advancing liberators encountered crimes against humanity that left them numb, despite all the horrors they had witnessed on the battlefield.

Let’s be clear about this: what they found at the camps was the result of racism unchecked.

It ought to have been a lesson to us all that humankind could not possibly forget. But the passage of time has eroded the searing truth that the Nazi camps taught us.

We’ve all seen it in documentaries, or re-enacted in movies such as Schind­ler’s List, and we still have those precious survivors of that dark time to attest that it really did happen.

Conspiracy theorists can’t sil­ence the witnesses, yet it seems that hatred of our fellow human beings because of their skin colour or ethnicity is still with us. Worse still, it is thriving in certain districts and communities, though it never calls itself publicly what it is.

We need another D-Day — this time a large-scale peaceful offensive to liberate hearts and minds from the tyranny of racism.

John Fitzgerald, Callan, Co Kilkenny

Biddy’s back, and with John B to boot

Sir — It was with great joy that I opened last week’s Sunday Independent to find the wonder­ful Brighid McLaughlin had returned. Her witty warblings made my day. John B was beautifully captured, as always, with a warm, humorous slant unique to McLaughlin.

Welcome back, Biddy.

Chianna McCormack, Dublin 5

• Sir — It’s nice to see Brighid McLaughlin back in the paper. She is always witty and wise.

Susan Bevan, John’s Lane West, Dublin 8

Sacred Heart didn’t need clothes of Pride

Sir — On opening your fine publication on June 2, I was greatly disappointed but not surprised by the image used on the front of Life magazine.

The month of June has traditionally been dedicated to the Sacred Heart. Your image, which superimposed the Pride colours on what is a widely recognised representation of the Sacred Heart, was needless.

And the really saddening thing is that I’ll be cast as the villain because I flagged it.

Leo Ó Seanáin, An Droichead Nua, Co Chill Dara

Keep politics out of the classrooms

Sir — In John Boyle’s letter (‘Teach your children about a fairer world’, May 26) he argues how essential it is to teach children the important work that unions do in “fighting for a more just and fairer world”.

During Covid, many schoolchildren experienced first-hand the work that unions do. The INTO, of which Mr Boyle is secretary general, successfully campaigned for the masking of children and prolonged school closures with little regard for children’s well-being or right to education.

Boyle and other teachers are free to engage in political activism outside the classroom setting, among adults where their views may be robustly challenged.

Desisting from political activism within the classroom guarantees a fairer world for children.

Ann Gillanders, Maynooth, Co Kildare

A poem about when the UK was ‘full’ for us

Sir — I enjoyed reading Colin Murphy’s opinion piece recently (‘Ireland isn’t full, but we lack capacity for common sense’, May 26).

I wrote the little poem below based on stories I heard my Dad tell about the time when he worked in England in the mid-1940s.

Keep up the good work. The Sunday Independent is always a great read.

The signs on the Birmingham boarding house

Back in the days long gone by

Hung in the window and bluntly said

‘No Irish need apply’.

My father moved from door to door

Frightened, lost and alone

Walking the streets in the bitter cold

Wishing he’d stayed back home.

Work was scarce in Ireland then

And a family had to be fed

My father found work in Birmingham

But ’twas harder to find a bed.

As he trudged the streets on that winter night,

The full moon high in the sky

At every house and on every door

‘No Irish need apply’.

It was fast approaching midnight

When a friendly face he found

A sign on the door said ‘Welcome in’

It felt like holy ground.

The landlady said sure you’re welcome here

And I’ll tell you the reason why

My father once met those same cruel signs

‘No Irish need apply’.

Frank Greally, Rialto, Dublin 8

Bloom Festival was a fabulous experience

Sir — We travelled from Cork to visit the Bloom Festival in the resplendent Phoenix Park and it was a day to remember. Arriving was like entering the Garden of Eden, without the forbidden fruit. No longer did I envy Adam and Eve.

It was a fine day and the displays were magnificent. Everywhere there were flowers and greenery to gladden the eye and all the senses.

The stewarding was well organised and most helpful with guidance and information.

Everyone was in good hum­our, friendly and chatty. This was Dublin and Ireland at its hospitable best. It was an education and a joy to be there.

Patrick Reidy, Bishopstown, Co Cork

Great commentators would fill GAA gaps

Sir — Last week (Letters) Paddy Pigott was lamenting the modern-day pace of Gaelic football and how the great commentators of the past would deal with the pedestrian pace of the game as played today.

No doubt the great Michael O’Hehir would fill the space with humorous comments.

“And here comes Cork hurler Alan Lotty — he may be bootless, he may be sockless, he may be stickless, but he’s certainly not ball-less.”

Or the equally talented Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh: “Pat Fox is motoring well now but here comes Joe Rabbitte hot on his tail. I’ve seen it all now — a Rabbitte chasing a Fox around Croke Park.”

These wonderful commentators would find a way with great humour to fill the gaps in the slow pace of the modern game. God be with the days.

Tom Towey, Cloonacool, Co Sligo

Public dentistry system is rotten

Sir — Our public dentistry system has completely collapsed and our Government is telling us repeatedly that they are “working on the problem”.

This rhetoric is of little comfort to thousands of people who are living in pain, sometimes great pain, waiting to be seen and treated by the few remaining dentists still in the medical card system.

Less than 650 medical card dentists remain nationwide. This represents an almost two-thirds drop in 16 years and the waiting lists go on for ever.

Every opposition party across the board has voiced serious concerns about the public dentistry system and their constituents, whose medical cards are worthless for oral health.

Yet, the Government is not making any immediate, effective changes to reverse the situation.

Many families who use the public dentistry system have low incomes and cannot afford extremely expensive dentistry or orthodontic/endodontic treatment.

They are now going into serious debt to pay for what should be paid by general taxation, as it is in the UK.

There seems to be a totally different attitude by our Government when dealing with GPs, one in sharp contrast to those professionals dealing with oral health.

Dentists and related professionals fields play a vital role in people’s healthcare.

They are able to spot mouth cancer as well as relieve pain so it is well worth our Government bringing back public dentistry and placing a greater priority on oral health.

Maurice Fitzgerald, Shanbally, Co Cork

Corcoran’s witty Independents piece

Sir — Jody Corcoran’s article (‘Traditional Ireland is about to declare for Independents’, June 2) was very entertaining and witty.

All that can be said now is, encore.

Leo Gormley, Dundalk, Co Louth