IRELAND seems to be getting a bit of well deserved good news for a change with the very successful visit of the Queen Elizabeth II and President Barack Obama.

THERE is a high level of commercialisation attached to the royal and presidential visits with many brand names seizing the opportunity to use high profile people to sell and give credence their brands.

IT was very encouraging to see on television the uprising of tens of thousands of people in Spain, most of whom seem to be young people.

SWAYED by feelings of mixed emotions viewing the moving historic symbolism of the queen’s visit to our shores, I was put in mind of lines from the ballad The Mountains of Mourne by Percy French describing his own feelings while watching crowds cheer the then-English monarch in London:

WHATEVER one thought of the Queen’s visit to Ireland, it was a resounding success from Bord Fáilte’s point of view.

I HAVE just returned to my parish near Southampton after a vacation in my native Cork city.

OUR forefathers, who fought among the many that gave up their lives for Irish freedom, seem to me to be stronger now than ever before, especially after Queen Elizabeth II at the Garden of Remembrance, showed remarkable respect for what they had achieved.

DO Sinn Féin really not realise how comically their attitude to the Queen’s visit paraphrases the mother watching her son in a parade who said, “Unfortunately, they’re all out of step except my Johnny”?

AS Matt Cooper said in his column about taxis (May 20), the public have a right to feel safe when using a taxi — they want a clean vehicle driven by a trustworthy individual who knows where they’ve asked him to take them.

THE biggest victims of the NCT shake-up will be the ordinary motorist.