What’s so wrong with love of one’s country?

GWYNNE DYER (Irish Examiner, October 8) uses the jubilant words of the first pilot of a privately-built spaceship, to launch an astonishing tirade against nationalism.

The SpaceShipOne pilot, Brian Binnie, drew Ms Dyer’s ire for daring to say in his celebratory speech: “Let me say that I thank God that I live in a country (the USA) where this is possible.”

Ms Dyer compared this to a Japanese unfurling the Rising Sun and thanking his ancestral gods in a comparable situation, and wondered darkly what we would think of that. Well, in both cases, I would think: “Best of luck to them.”