Sir, – Oliver Callan is so right ("Delusional Meryl Streep risked little attacking Trump", Opinion & Analysis, January 13th). Performers who excel in their own discipline really should not stray into lecturing and hectoring us in visual or print media.
It just doesn’t work. – Yours, etc,
PAT NOLAN,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – We read daily of world reaction to the appointments by Donald Trump of various officials to his support team. However, he seems to be keeping us on tenterhooks by delaying the announcement of one very significant appointment. Who is to be his hairdresser? – Yours, etc,
TONY CORCORAN,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 14.
Sir, – Am I alone in finding the establishment’s shock at Donald Trump’s expression of distrust in the American security services both ironic and hypocritical?
It was the FBI under J Edgar Hoover who covertly recorded American political leaders, the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, among many others. These recordings were used to intimidate these politicians and often successfully undermined progressive political projects over a period of decades. The CIA acted similarly, but only outside the United States!
While no fan of the president-elect, I cannot but recall Milton’s comment on Satan: “Sometimes the Devil speaketh the truth”! – Yours, etc,
CATHAL KERRIGAN,
Cork.
Sir, – Having watched Donald Trump’s press conference, I was taken back in time to the 1970s and reminded of the insight of the late and great journalist Con Houlihan.
Con might have advised The Donald, now just days from taking office, that, particularly in relation to the press, you don’t insult the alligator’s mother before you cross the river. – Yours, etc,
PADDY GOGARTY,
Portmarnock,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – That was not a press conference. That was a circus. – Yours, etc,
MARY BYRNE,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.
A chara, – With heavy irony, Adrienne Garvey (January 13th), announcing her conversion to supporting Donald Trump, writes: "We should cast aside all notions of egalitarianism, fraternity, mutual respect, freedom of the press, and all the many other sins that beget democracy, and embrace the virtues of unbridled narcissism."
Can we keep in mind that Donald Trump was democratically elected, please? One would think, from the reaction among many Irish people that he is riding into the White House in a convoy of tanks. – Is mise,
MAOLSHEACHLANN
Ó CEALLAIGH,
Ballymun,
Dublin 11.