IT is not clear how Malachy Scott (Letters, July 5) separates out a section of the population in Northern Ireland which he designates “Irish”.
Not clear because most of the people inhabiting Northern Ireland are similar to each other in DNA and in that similarity, one might add, they are also similar to most other people across the Britannic islands.
Further not clear because for the most part people in Northern Ireland are surely Irish by virtue of birth and upbringing, much as by birth and upbringing are most inhabitants of England, Scotland and Wales, respectively English, Scottish and Welsh.
I suspect that neither DNA nor place of birth and upbringing figure in Malachy Scott’s thinking. He appears, instead, to be confused and bent on confusing others by equating “Irish” with “Irish citizenship”.
The two are distinct. The one does not follow from the other.
As for his further point: the “denial of freedom” going back to the 1920s. No freedom is denied.
If he is, as I assume, a citizen of the Irish Republic, his passport is no longer green but, like that of the United Kingdom, the wine red of the European Union, the ultimate court of which his freedom is subject to and protected by.
W A Miller
Belfast
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