Flawed case against accepting honours

TOM COOPER (Letters, June 9) showed a common prejudice when he claimed acceptance of a British title by any Irishman amounted to a direct attack on Irish sovereignty by the British nation.

His argument is either rooted in a xenophobic outlook towards the British state or is based on the misguided notion that any acknowledgment of a non-citizen’s achievements amounts to an invidious encroachment on our right to self-government and on the constitution.

Both arguments are flawed. The first would appear to be that a title or honour granted from Britain alone is unacceptable. This is a form of post-colonial inferiority which one would have thought had long since perished.

Queen Elizabeth grants honours to those most deserving regardless of origin. As the recipients are not under the service of the queen, they cannot refer to themselves as ‘sir’ and so it would appear that rather than trying to elevate one Irishman against another, it is merely an attempt to show respect for what that person achieved. To view this as a particular attack on Ireland is plain silly. The other, even sillier argument is that all foreign acknowledgment is unacceptable. In that case we should castigate Séamus Heaney for accepting the Nobel Prize and string up Glen Hansard for even thinking about accepting an Academy Award.

If Mr Cooper considers the actions of the British state in granting honours as unacceptable, perhaps he should turn his attention to home where Aosdána has, rightly, accepted foreign artists such as Imogen Stuart, Sonja Landweer and Alfonso Monreal Lopez into its ranks. This obvious extension of Mr Cooper’s argument would seem to show just how illogical is his viewpoint.

Cian Martin

Woodland View

Crosshaven

Co Cork