I joined the company in 1979, when Henry Street in Dublin was the flagship. In 2007, it remains the flagship, albeit a much bigger and brighter one.

Truly a transformation to be proud of.

However, what was missing from Frawley's article was the human element in the Dunne family.

During my time with the company, I met the majority of the family members. Facing Mrs Heffernan across the table was not for the faint-hearted, I can assure you. But underlying the undoubted hardline business approach was a genuine caring side.

I was working in Dunnes Ballyvolane (Cork) store one night, when at about 9.30pm, I was called to the manager's office to be told that my father had died unexpectedly. Within 30 minutes, I was in a taxi from Cork to Enniscorthy at Dunnes' expense. Telegrams and wreaths from the family followed, and I was given a generous amount of time off with full pay.

This was what the Dunne family did for me, a mere management trainee many years ago. It meant a lot at that time.

I write this merely to show that alongside undoubted business acumen, there was a very human side to the Dunne family.

Patrick Jordan, Monksfield Heights, Clondalkin, Dublin 22 From Tom Cooper To lay the blame entirely on the Irish Rugby Football Union for the considered insult of replacing our national flag and anthem during the Rugby World Cup is somewhat unfair. There are other elements who must accept their part in this reprehensible, unpatriotic act.

Firstly, the government should have made it quite clear that our anthem and flag should not be compromised under any circumstances.

Secondly, those players honoured by being selected to represent this nation in any sport and who feel unable to respect our anthem and flag should do the honourable thing and refuse to play.

Furthermore, those players who represented Ireland at the World Cup and stood to attention for 'Ireland 's Call' must accept some of the blame for the ridicule and odium heaped on this nation. They had an obligation, as Irish citizens, to defend the honour and sovereignty of Ireland.

To play our part in the peace process, the voters of the republic voted overwhelmingly to delete Articles 2 and 3 of Bunreacht na hEireann as our contribution to the Belfast Agreement. It appears that our magnanimous gesture just whetted the appetite of unionism for more unreciprocated change. Why any rugby player from a unionist background would feel threatened by showing respect to the tricolour is beyond my comprehension.

An alternative anthem and flag would be acceptable to most nationalists, following a negotiated political settlement which would bring about a united Ireland. To change our anthem and flag in advance of a united Ireland is out of the question.

Tom Cooper, Delaford Lawn, Knocklyon, Dublin 16

Alternative anthem needed for rugby

It is right that politics migrates north
From Darren Ma can Phriora
THE announcement that Fianna Fail are going to look at becoming an all-island party is to be welcomed. Northern Ireland is a small place and nationalist voters should be able to vote for several all-island parties.

As a member of Fine Gael, I urge my party to also be allisland. Currently, Young Fine Gael have a committee in Northern Ireland. We should go further, though, and assist in ensuring that voters in Northern Ireland have a broad choice of candidates and parties to vote for. Standing in the North is the right thing to do.

Currently Sinn Fein is the only all-island party Nationalists can vote for in the North. The Sinn Fein march has been reversed in the South. Through widening the choice of parties to vote for in the North I believe the position Sinn Fein currently holds in electoral strength will eventually shrink and then dissolve.

Darren Mac an Phriora, Corran Chaislean Cnucha, Caislean Cnucha, Baile Atha Cliath 15 Gogarty celebrations to begin sooner From Aidan Heavey WEHAVE learned (Tribune Magazine, 23 September) that the start of proceedings marking the death of Oliver St John Gogarty will be a Gogarty Literary Weekend from 8-11 November. This is not correct.

Earlier, during the weekend of 19-21 October, the authentic Oliver St John Gogarty Society will be marking the anniversary.

Our society was launched at the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, in July 1994 when both Noll Gogarty (son) and Guy St John Williams (grandson) attended.

Guy is the chairman, and during October every year since we have held a conversazione at various venues throughout the country. This year we meet at the Abbeyglen Castle Hotel, Connemara.

Aidan Heavey (committee member), Eastmoreland Court, Dublin 4 Gaeilgeoiri need to speak up more often From Noel Mac Canna WHEN I read the interview of Una Mullally with Micheal O Rinn TD (News, 23 September), I knew it would ignite the Irishlanguage enthusiasts to your letters page. And rightly so, as I feel it is unacceptable that Mr Ring is not an Irish speaker.

However, I have a simple question to the so-called thousands of Irish speakers.

Why don't you all just speak Irish? Why is it a secret? Why do you confine it to specific clubs and festivals?

In my working life, dealing with the public, I doubt if ever one person started a conversation with me in Irish.

So come on you Irish speakers, put your opinons where your mouth is.

Noel Mac Canna, 'Tir Bhugha', Red Lane, Baile Coimin, Co Chill Mhantain Going bareknuckle is the right thing to do From Oliver McGrane THE combined opposition are absolutely right to go bareknuckle on the issue of Bertie's finances. Success in the endeavour would be twofold: the early replacement of a stillpopular Fianna Fail leader by a warlord of limited appeal beyond the tribe!

Oliver McGrane Marley Avenue, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16 'Tiny Israel' is far from innocent From Michael Breen RATHER than merely deploring events in Burma, John Lalor (Letters, 3 October) seeks instead to use them to show "tiny Israel" as relatively benign. In fact, it has been reliably reported (Jane's Intelligence Review, March 2000) that, along with China, Israel has given direct military assistance to the Burmese junta, despite an arms embargo observed by most western countries.

In this respect, Israel has form: in contravention of a UN arms embargo which became mandatory in 1977, Israel secretly traded arms with apartheid South Africa, including nuclear weapons technology. This is worth recalling for another reason . . . even when human-rights abuses caused more deaths elsewhere in the world, could anyone have decently used those to deflect criticism of the South Africa regime?

Since 1967, around 60% of the West Bank has been ethnically cleansed of Palestinians, including almost all the Jordan Valley: typically, Palestinian land is declared a closed military zone for "security purposes" and later given to Israeli settlers, who now number in the hundreds of thousands. Maps from sources such as the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Israeli human rights group B'Tselem make clear the grim geographical realities of the Israeli occupation.

The conditions imposed on the Palestinians have been likened by Desmond Tutu (Guardian, April 2002) and other prominent South Africans to apartheid: in a speech to the South African parliament in June, minister Ronnie Kasrils described the occupation as "far worse than anything our people faced during the most dreadful days of apartheid".

Conscientious Israelis such as former education minister Shulamit Aloni have also strongly defended Jimmy Carter's use of the word 'apartheid' in relation to Israel.

The calls for a boycott of Israel by the ICTU, churches, academics and many other organisations are not merely justified, they are overdue.

Europe does have shameful commercial links with Burma, notably in oil, which give the junta foreign currency to buy arms elsewhere. Every effort should be made to pressure our government to end these ties and to support the peoples of Burma. However, no such support derives from cynically attempting to use Burma as a rhetorical shield for Israel's slow, grinding dispossesion of the Palestinian people.

Michael Breen, Knocknagree, Mallow, Co Cork