I LAUGHED and I laughed.

Geoff Wallis's '50 things I hate about Ireland' (Tribune Review 21 May) was hilarious! I was getting strange looks from passers by as I walked down Kylemore Road, Dublin, laughing my head off on Tuesday morning. (I was still recovering from the Munster match, so had just got around to the Sundies. ) As a Scotsman living in Ireland, I found myself smiling and nodding in agreement at his article. As a Glasgow boy, born and bred, I have to admit living in Ireland is a joy for me, although sometimes it leaves me scratching my head. A great country, overwhelmingly great people and hand-onpatriotic-tartan-heart, a better quality of life. I love it, but sometimes I have a friendly gentle rib at things Irish, that I find amusing, only to be taken as a treacherous back-stabber, an ungrateful blow-in and a BRIT to boot, living off the fruits of this "Dear Green Place." It was good to see, in print, the words of someone else from beyond these shores who loves this country and can poke fun at its eccentricities.

Thanks for cheering up a Scotsman gone native.

Charles Mc William Sarsfield Road Inchicore Dublin 8

Campaign gives the illegal Irish a voice From Tom Reddy

THE uncertainty over the future of the Ulster senior hurling final has brought home the urgent problems of the 50,000 undocumented Irish people in the USA.

At the heart of the undocumented Irish in the US is their fear that if they travel home they may not be allowed to return to their jobs, homes and families in the USA.

The Irish Voices campaign is putting together a comprehensive catalogue of individual stories that will help to explain to, and lobby, senior US politicians in the months ahead as new immigration laws are finalised. The Irish Voices campaign asks you to put pen to paper, or finger to keyboard, and write briefly what it means to you to have an undocumented, son, daughter, family member or friend in the USA. Specific details are not required and anonymous stories will be accepted because of the genuine fears of many families.

Please take a few minutes now, to write to Irish Voices, 19 Montague Street, Dublin 2 or email them to me directly. I would urge everyone affected to write as this may be the only opportunity for change and hope. This campaign has been endorsed by the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform and the Friends of the Undocumented Irish.

Tom Reddy tom@reddycommunications. ie

Remove costs from Ireland's energy bill

From Robin Greer MICHAEL O'Reilly's article (Tribune Business, 21 May), unleashed a few red herrings.

On a global basis electricity prices have been rising sharply as a result of jumps in the price of gas and oil.

In Ireland, this effect has been exaggerated by incomplete market liberalisation in some European markets which are currently the subject of EU investigation and dawn raids on energy businesses.

O'Reilly's statement that "price rises can't be put down to rising fuel prices" is just plain wrong. If the cost of the fuel needed to burn in Ireland's power stations is not covered by the price of electricity, there is only one other way that it can be paid for . . . in the tax bill!

O'Reilly states that in "most other counties" governments fund investment in the national grid. That is also wrong. In many liberalised markets private funding, stringent cost-efficiency measures and regulatory regimes ensure adequate finance and improving reliability standards. Over the last decade it has been commonplace for the cost of running electricity grids to actually fall.

O'Reilly is right to question the Public Service Obligation levy that provides a subsidy for uneconomic operations and prevents progress and infrastructure investment by new market entrants. In the face of high international fuel costs, Ireland should take every opportunity to remove costs from the energy bill and promote competition in order to stimulate efficiency gains and drive down costs.

Robin Greer Northern Ireland Electricity More balanced views of Opus Dei available From Ken Gordon

YOUR Opus Dei article (News, 14 May) gave very prominent coverage to the website run by a couple of former members.

In the interests of giving your readers an opportunity to know that other, more balanced views are available, it was surprising that no mention was made of the recent book by an impartial observer and well-respected international journalist, John Allen (Penguin Press), which puts this website and other socalled "controversial" issues concerning Opus Dei in perspective.

Ken Gordon Ballyhooley Road Cork God only speaks through the poor From John O'Connell

THE Da Vinci Code is much more than an attack on the Catholic church. It is an attempt to portray the ancient Masonic traditions as the true guardians of Christianity.

It is simply unenlightened nonsense in the sense that God has never given anything worthwhile to these particular sects. God has always been with the poor in their struggle and his apparitions and messages in places like Lourdes, Fatima, and Knock, to mention but a few places, have always come through the poor. There is not the slightest possibility that God would place his . . . in my opinion . . .non-existent bloodline in the care of the rich and powerful Anglo-Saxon Masonic-style orders in Britain, the Knights Templar in Britain and France, or in any such organisations anywhere else, whether they be the Knights of Columbanus here in Ireland or not.

Those organisations simply reflect the privilege and wealth of their participants and can never, therefore, be given an advantage over the poor in their knowledge of God.

In any case how could God love them? They have rejected his kingdom for man-made kingdoms of their own. Thus they are in competition with God, not in compliance with his son's teachings. Their God is simply not our God.

John O'Connell, Maybrook Park Derry Crossing the line from distortion to vitriol

I WOULD like to express great disappointment at the tone and content of the article on the Tipperary hurling manager by Kieran Shannon (Sport, 14 May). While we are conditioned to expect exaggerated and hysterical reaction, not to say gross distortion and misrepresentation, from an easily excited media in relation to every utterance from Babs Keating, Shannon's article flagrantly crossed a line from what might be considered fair hard-hitting comment into the arena of personal agenda-driven vitriol.

It was curious to see a journalist using comments made by Keating in a journalistic context in evidence against him. Are all journalists, including Shannon, now willing to have previous comments publicly held up to ridicule? Similarly, Shannon would do well to consider the point of citing the equally agendadriven views of Ger Loughnane, a man who recently acknowledged that he watches no National League hurling, yet, without any trace of irony, purports to be an up-to-date expert on the current teams and players in his newspaper column and on television.

Some of the references to the Tipperary manager, particularly an indirect reference to him as a 'hapless coach, ' expressed through the conduit of a predictable but pointless reference to a North American sports coach, and the gratuitously nasty and unsubstantiated allegation that, "he's lost the trust of his players, " were not only beneath contempt, but glaringly at variance with the evidence of last Sunday in Thurles, and of Keating's entire career.

The ridiculing of Keating's post-match comments during the league flies in the face of Shannon's often expressed concerns regarding an increasing blandness in managerial interviews. What manager in his right mind would not turn a post-match interview into a celebration of blandness if this opprobrium potentially awaits down the road?

Martin Ryan Premierview . . . Tipperary Supporters' Website mairtinoriain@hotmail. com