Letter: Ireland will not be bullied into silence

Ireland will not be bullied into silence

Sir: We represent the silent voices of Ireland, the people that are in search of a better standard of living, an education for their children and the great mystery of a balsamic vinaigrette and mustard. We have left the politics of the Irish civil war far behind us.

You will probably find some of us working in Europe, administering medicine in your hospitals, teaching in your schools, designing your physical environment and making money for your financial institutions. Delights in our life may be as simple as fresh bread, ground coffee and the dream of a safe future to raise the next generation, as well as a return on our own investment of hard work and a refusal to emigrate too far from home, in order to change the history of poverty and emigration that has dogged our country.

We are saddened that so much credence is given to the men of aggression and so little to the boring communities of people who work at the core of society, who also vote in elections and whose entire future is held to ransom by the bullet and the men of politics.

Imagine for a moment the notion of a middle-class revolution. People simply ceasing to do what they do every day to make our society function and prosper until such time as the politicians understand that they should listen more carefully to the people for whom they work and to whom they should defer with a more proactive response to the northern problem.

Imagine for a moment that this generation of voices refuses to be silent and live as our parents have, bullied into silence and intimidated by poverty. Imagine us as a different type of people, Europeans and proud.

ROISIN MURPHY

EMMA KELLY

Dublin