I write to thank you on behalf of my three friends (history buffs) and myself from the United States who have been on holidays this past week in this wonderful part of Ireland called Cork City and county.

I am normally a fan of Victoria White’s excellent and perceptive column. But her article on Nellie Organ (Irish Examiner, 27 August) displays a profound lack of insight into the central mysteries of Christianity, whether of Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant variety.

Wars bring out the worst and the best in people. We read recently how it can bring out the best in the most dark of situations like what happened to Dr Aidan MacCarthy during World War II, when in the RAF in Singapore he, along with thousands of others, was captured and held as a Prisoner of War for four years in Japanese camps. 

The irony of Conor Power paying Microsoft for the privilege of getting access to Windows 10 is that he is locking himself in to that system in ways that will both cost him money and be entirely determined by Microsoft rather than himself.

If a proxy for the public sector’s engagement, efficacy and the adaptability was to be measured by their promptness in using Eircode smart postal codes in the ‘contact us’ section of their websites, the impression conveyed would be that citizen relations and customer-focused culture are low priority.

Ending the lifesaving mission of the Naval Service at a time when thousands of people continue to make the desperate journey across the Mediterranean would be short-sighted and certainly cause greater tragedy (‘Call for naval service humanitarian work in Med to be extended to winter’, 27th August).

Michael Clifford is right when he says that ‘the recession that this country endured was wasted’ to the extent that there has been ‘little change’ in the ‘negative features that landed the country in the mire’ (Irish Examiner, August 26).

It seems extraordinary that a Catholic parish council would offer an invitation to an individual who has taken positions fundamentally at odds with core teachings of that Church.

With reference to Kinsale Environment Watch’s concerns (Letters, August 25) regarding a directive from Ministers Alan Kelly and Paudie Coffey.

Seeing that Unionists in Northern Ireland are making a really big deal about their enthusiastic embrace of democracy, one must ask what was democratic about the Plantation of Ulster?