We all speak and ply our trade through the medium of English, and long may it last

Does the ancient language need the supporting crutch of legislation to save it from total extinction?

Or is it Sinn Fein’s long term goal to replace our mother tongue (north and south) with a language that was last spoken, at a viable level, more than 200 years ago?

Is it Sinn Fein’s contention that a language should be unilaterally imposed on a people by means of revolution rather than the hitherto evolutionary process that, through good fortune, made English our freely chosen means of daily communication.

It is, after all, the global language of choice for most of western society.

Or perhaps there is another reason why Sinn Fein finds it so difficult to accept that English is, and will be for the foreseeable future, our language of choice? — though hopefully not xenophobic intolerance?

We should be thankful for one enduring area of cross border cooperation that will never require legislative support to make it work.

We all speak and ply our trade through the medium of English, and long may it last!

Niall Ginty, Dublin 5