Irish Times letters page

Dear Editor,

A thread has been started over on boards.ie about pompous and overwrought letters to your good self. The OP was able to reference excactly zero.

QED

yours etc.

"Perhaps I am underestimating the political engagement and articulacy of children these days, but I don’t think the IT should be publishing correspondence from parents writing in their child’s name."

Why not, once they are reflecting their child's point of view.

That brief moment before the onset of puberty where you are just smart enough to understand how things should work and you haven't been distracted by hormones, self doubt and selfish agenda. When you look at your older siblings and cousins and think "I'll never be like that" but it's inevitable.

Don't know, have never written one until now, I am sure that the copy editors would have made sure that it was sufficiently pompous and overwrought.

The oldest 12 year old. What did he want to watch?

It's "Yours sincerely" if the letter is addressed to a person.

It's "Yours faithfully" if it's addressed to Sir, Madam, Editor etc.

It's "Yours etc. for anyone who doesn't know the first two rules.

It's generally "Dear Sir ( madam when geraldine Kennedy was editor) or "A Chara

Letters end with "Yours etc."

I think you missed the jape there, refers to David Frost

I suppose immediate capitulation to your adversaries does still count as "anti-war".

Russia is a bit of a divisive topic for both left and right from what I see.

"The left" in parts like Russia on the basis that they're so hostile to the west, and those who hate the west must be good in their eyes. There's also a bit of a hangover from Soviet days, like in Germany where the political parties who were most open to cooperation with the USSR in the Cold War are still the most enthusiastic for appeasing Russia now. Others take an opposite view and dislike Russia because of their human rights record, lack of freedoms, support for right wing groups abroad etc.

On "the right" you have the traditionalists who hate Russia because of the threat they pose to US dominance and to a lesser extent for their disregard for rules and the international order. While others on the right love Russia because they see it as the last bastion of Christendom and non-PCness compared to the west. The idea of having a strongman leader and carving other nations up into "spheres of influence" resonates with many of the Fox News set.

It's as if they had this big bit of white space on the page due to some sort of glitch that they needed to fill and a few in the office came up with this and stuck it in with a fictitious name.

I have 2 gripes (at least for starters)

1. Some people have letters publiched practically every week, and they are not necessarily all that good. Whats the record for the number in a week from one individual?
2. Letters signed by anything from 5 to 55 of the "great and the good", usually of a leftish persuasion. The last dreadful one was a call of a ceasfire in Ukraine, with very little appreciation of the grom realities attaching to this.

Nobody really knows. The IT used to sell about 100K copies a day back about ten years ago. It was struggling to sell around 50K a day before COVID. The IT is just a provincial viewspaper with delusions of grandeur. Fewer people buy a daily newspaper these days. As for the Letters page, it is just people trying to get the equivalent of a pat on the head from the mediocrity.

Regards...jmcc