Mary Lou McDonald is as entitled to think of Ireland as a single nation as I, an Englishman, am to think of England that way

(The letter can be read in full here: ‘Mary Lou McDonald talking like Trump’).

Such intemperate abuse helps no one on the island of Ireland.

Mary Lou McDonald TD (Dublin Central, 11,223 first preference votes) read English I and II in Trinity College Dublin in the late 1980s. This course was the successor to English Language and Literature.

After the removal of Latin as an entrance requirement for English in Trinity in the early 1970s the Department of English was divided into two departments, English I (Medieval and Renaissance English) and English II (Modern English).

In that way we have preserved in Trinity College Dublin, the great university of All-Ireland (founded by Elizabeth I in 1592) and the equal of Oxford and Cambridge, the study of Old English Literature and particularly Beowulf (and the whole of Beowulf in the original Anglian dialect).

Indeed, as for the ignoramuses at Cambridge, they still seem to think that English literature begins with the Norman Conquest.

Surely Mary Lou McDonald is as entitled to think of Ireland as a single nation as I, an Englishman, think of England as a united nation, even though under British rule from incompetent Tories at Westminster.

Disagree with her by all means in the Belfast News Letter. But she is an eloquent representative of a political opinion shared by a majority of the Irish people, today as at all times in Irish history.

But please treat her with respect.

Dr Gerald Morgan, Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, Leader English Parliamentary Party, 2001