Sir, - The entry of the sun's light into the chamber at Newgrange is a rare example of an event which is (a) purely visual, (b) accessible to only very few people and (c) interesting and meaningful to very, very many people.
It was made for television - but not RTE television. All their choices, from the hack presentation and the airport music to the silly interviews, showed that no one at Montrose had thought about what they were doing, much less felt it. They didn't bestir themselves to find the right presenter. They didn't even show a simple diagram of where the cameras were in relation to the streak of light. They didn't do anything they wouldn't do for, say, the opening of a rather boring community centre.
The things RTE get wrong usually don't matter. But I think they strangled at birth a language of wonder we might all have used, when they blandly reduced the winter solstice miracle to the banal. And their petulance in response to heartfelt criticism indicates that they still don't know what it was they ruined, which means they'll do it again. - Yours, etc.,
Nuala O`Faolain, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.