Double-think in Eire
Sir: From time to time you print accounts of curious national mental processes. What do you think of this one?
Some months ago an advertisement (spon- sored by an Eire government agency) appeared in American newspapers detailing the advantages of opening factories in this country. One of the advantages detailed was the fact that English is spoken. Recently another government agency issued a questionnaire to the lowest-paid civil servants, e.g., postmen, some of whom earn less than £10 a week, asking them what books they had read in Gaelic, what Gaelic-speaking classes they had attended, what part of their holidays (sic!) they had spent in Gaelic-speaking areas, and, more sinisterly, what officers in their department speak Gaelic and to what extent!
Omitting the unpleasant innuendo which this questionnaire implies, that these civil servants should act as informers on each other, there is the other, namely that. in Eire, you can apparently have your cake and also eat it, provided you keep both hands well apart!
Wynne Jones Knockancy Rectory, Hospital, Co. Limerick, Eire
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