During the golden age of rock’n’roll from 1956-1978, a band who didn’t play instruments would’ve been laughed into oblivion.

Is it not sad that some people believe alcoholic drinks should be sold on Good Friday. I cannot understand why some people cannot accept two dry days a year.

In the name of rational commonsense and honesty, what exactly does Niall Horan, of One Direction, mean when he states that the band’s new album will be “more edgy”?

Let’s be brutally honest please, and face the fact that if the USA had been in Russia’s position, and had its recent past, they would have sent troops and armour into Crimea, also.

The late, great Luke Kelly was the Neil Diamond of folk singing.

What is all the fuss and hype about Garth Brooks?

Jerry Daly (Letters, Nov 7) criticised the recent World Boxing Championships in Kazakhstan, for the non-use of safety headgear.

It is very hard to believe, shocking, shameful and totally unacceptable that no safety helmets were worn at the World Boxing Championships in Kazakhstan.

Back in the glorious 60s days of beautiful, magical pop music, a band whose members did not play their own instruments would have been treated with contempt and laughed into oblivion.

The fact that Richie Boucher refuses to lessen his obscene grotesque enormous salary is sick and stinks to high heaven.

The brutal, merciless, iron-fisted way that the property tax will be collected will vaporise Fine Gael in the same way Fianna Fáil was vaporised in the last election.

The absurd assertion by the Government that it will create 100,000 jobs by 2016 is as anomalous as saying that Kilkenny will win the Sam Maguire Cup or that a donkey will win the Epsom Derby.

Considering that the first commandment of God is “I am the Lord they God, thou shalt not have false gods before me”, one wonders about the sinfulness of people who regard Alex Ferguson as a God.

Vis-à-vis the James Bond films scenario, Sean Connery had more style, class and gravitas than all the other Bond actors put together.

Midfield duo Davie Pyne and Seán Finn were the two outstanding performers for Glanworth in their Avondhu U21AFC final triumph over Fermoy in Ballyhooly on Saturday.

The investigation by the Vatican into clerical child abuse is a whitewash as it should have been carried out by non-Catholic secular lawyers of the highest integrity and not by senior Catholic clergymen.

IN light of the fact that many people existing below the poverty line have to decide between spending money on food or heating — the only way they can pay the household charge is by paying €2 every week.

MICHAEL D: his integrity is his armoury.

SEEING that Martin McGuinness is now making himself out to be a man of 100% peace, conciliation and dialogue, why didn’t he join the SDLP or Alliance Party in the early 70s and not Sinn Féin/IRA?

THE glaring similarities between the Vatican “whitewash” letter to the Government and Richard Nixon’s denial during Watergate and Willie Whitelaw’s stance on Bloody Sunday are typical of what cynics expected.

NOBLE and honourable Padraig Pearse and James Connolly, who were au fait with constructive pragmatic and positive violence as a vehicle to effect regime change must be turning in their graves at the stupid, blind, senseless violence of IRA dissidents at present.

SEEING that the Catholic Church teaches that “anger” is one of the seven deadly sins, what is one to make of the Vatican reacting with “anger” at the Murphy Report probing into their information on clerical abuse of minors.

BY supporting the proposed pay rises in Anglo-Irish Bank, Alan Dukes has gone from hero to zero in my estimations.

IN his letter (March 12), Jerry Daly says public sector unions should get the “Thatcher treatment”.

PUBLIC sector unions are hell-bent on bulldozing the economy into oblivion.

CAN anything be done to ensure criminals cannot hide their faces from the cameras after they have been convicted?

THANKS to the arguments presented by the politicians of all our major parties I decided to vote yes to Lisbon.

IF Germany or France could have voted no, the Lisbon Treaty would be beyond resurrection.

IN view of the international forces that are helping to drive our small economy into recession, Taoiseach Brian Cowen must think global and act local.

IN view of the barriers that must be overcome to get a medical card, I wonder if applicants must be dressed in rags and searching waste bins for food scraps in order to qualify.

TOM COOPER’S vitriolic letter about Ian Paisley (‘What was Paisley doing in Rebel County?’, April 29) filled me with disgust.

BARACK OBAMA’S irrational comments about Americans who lose their jobs clinging to guns and religion revealed an ugly character flaw and were totally at odds with the utopian, holier-than-thou persona he has been trying to project.

WITH a combination of Jack Lynch’s pure goodness, Charlie Haughey’s intelligence and Bertie Ahern’s ruthlessness, Brian Cowen seems to have the potential to be the best Taoiseach since Sean Lemass.

ARE there not some nasty similarities between the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 and Beijing 2008?

AS voters are divided 50/50 on the question of the Taoiseach’s credibility, one wonders whether he is half innocent or half guilty.

Reading pro-abortion letters makes my blood boil.

MATT BUSBY’S Man Utd was magnificent and honourable in itspursuit of football greatness.

WILL the wording of the Lisbon Treaty referendum be the usual gobbledegook that we get in these European plebiscites, or will it make plain sense to ordinary people?

SOME gimmicky innovations in electric shavers are as unnecessary as pyramid-shaped tea-bags.

WHILE the Beatles and Elvis had a far greater number of high quality songs, some touches by Led Zeppelin were magic from heaven. They were to music what George Best was to ball-dribbling and the Rolls Royce and Ferrari are to motoring.

IS Finance Minister Brian Cowen trying to say the Celtic Tiger is going on a starvation diet?

IS there any chance some Fianna Fail politician might admit the truth about the decentralisation fiasco?

HAVE the new plans for Dublin airport been drawn up in the interests of Government expediency or those of the travelling public?

HEALTH Minister Mary Harney’s recent proposal that, in effect, BUPA should subsidise the VHI is... sick.