Letters to the editor

N3 works are lunacy Madam, Are you aware that the N3 closed on Monday for nearly a month and traffic south is being diverted up the winding Mullagh road while traffic north is to go around Lough Ramor? This is lunacy. Have you ever tried to turn right at the Ramor Inn, Munterconnaught? Difficult and dangerous in a car, so far worse for trucks and buses. It will be chaotic at that junction and also when the traffic has to negotiate its way back on to the Virginia - Oldcastle road. This is the designated diversion. It simply will not cope with the traffic volume. Any work of this nature should be carried out in the summer while schools are on holiday, traffic is light and there is a lot more daylight. This is the same stupidity as used when building the bus lane in Dunshaughlin a couple of years ago (No longer required either with the toll way). Can The Anglo-Celt put some pressure on Minister Noel Dempsey for comment and also Minister Brendan Smith, who is supposed to be representing us here in Cavan? I suggest that the works be postponed until summer. Failing this, work should not force the closure of the main N3. It is nuts that we pay two tolls to speed up the journey time and now we will be held up for minimum 30 minutes negotiating around Lough Ramor. The lunatics are running the asylum. Thanks and regards, Conor Hickey Riverview, Virginia Nobel winner Dear editor, The awarding of the Nobel Peace prize to a brave Chinese human rights campaigner will hopefully aid the process of ridding China of the cruel and bloody dictatorship that has ruled the country for decades. This man is serving a lengthy jail term for drawing up a manifesto calling for much-need political reform in his homeland. Such democratic sentiment is deemed “subversion” in China. The reaction of the regime to the award offers a further insight into how it seeks to suppress not only any hint of resistance to its oppressive rule, but also any objective reporting of such opposition or dissent. Liu Xiaobo’s stance is one that deserves the admiration and support of all democratically-minded people. It is easy for us in the West to speak out against injustice elsewhere. Doing it from within the “People’s Republic” takes real courage. Liu reminds me of the small band of would-be reformers in Germany who formed the “White Rose” movement during World War Two and distributed leaflets in Munich University. The Nazis immediately crushed the group and made an example of its members, killing or imprisoning them. But their protest stood as a proud contrast to the silence of so many other Germans in the face of enormous injustice and State repression. The Chinese dictatorship, apart from keeping down its own people via draconian laws and mind-control techniques, continues to occupy neighbouring Tibet, brutally suppressing its culture and imprisoning countless thousands of Tibetans who dare to question the legitimacy of the occupation or who take part in protests demanding independence or the withdrawal of the occupying forces. Thousands more Tibetans have been tortured or killed by the occupiers for their political or religious views. The regime presents Tibet to the rest of the world as a mere province of China, just as Germany once incorporated Czechoslovakia into the Greater German Reich. Yet Western governments, mindful of China’s economic importance; maintain a shameful silence about the regime’s horrendous human rights record. It takes a person of Liu Xiaobo’s stature and valour to rouse the indignation of people in this part of the world at what is happening behind the “Bamboo Curtain”. I like to think that others will be inspired by his example and maybe some day we can witness the collapse of the Chinese autocracy. That great event will dwarf even the fall of the Berlin Wall and the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe because it will set free more than a billion human beings from the chains of a manipulative and murderous tyranny. Sincerely, John Fitzgerald Lower Coyne Street, Callan, Co. Kilkenny Monaghan to Rhode Island Madame, McKenna/Duggan Emigration from Monaghan to Rhode Island: in preparation for a visit to Errigal Truagh and Clogher, I am hoping to find a connection with my ancestors, Peter McKenna (b. 1830, son of Bernard and Bridget) and James (b. 1795) and Ellen (b. 1800) Duggan. They came to Rhode Island in the late 1840s. Their Catherine Duggan (b. 1832) married Peter. I would love to hear from family. I can be reached at federalhillirish@gmail.com. Yours, Ray McKenna. 7 Island Lane. Tolland, CT, USA 06084