A chara, - I felt I should write to tell you about a love affair that I regretfully brought to a close recently, after 35 years of daily devotion and loyalty. As with many close relationships, there were periods of tension and difficulty; there were times when ideological differences tested the warmth of my feelings for the object of my affection. However, we stuck with it and, through it all, managed to stay together. I felt I could trust my very dear friend to adopt and maintain a healthy, balanced, ethical and (inevitably) robustly articulated point of view.
Sadly, we had a falling out some weeks ago, so serious and emotionally fraught that it led to a period of trial separation. Having found that life goes on and the withdrawal symptoms are not as bad as those endured when I gave up the dreaded fags, I have decided to make the arrangement permanent.
Why am I unburdening myself to you? Because there's not much point in giving someone the old "heave-ho" after 35 years without letting them know you're doing it, is there? There you have it: my erstwhile inseparable friend is The Irish Times.
The cataclysmic event that caused the rift was the ASTI dispute and the coverage thereof, which was, to put it mildly, intemperate and unbalanced beyond belief. (The Letters page was an honourable exception!) Editorials, articles and features vied with each other in their stridency and Messrs O'Toole and Flynn carried their crusade onto the airwaves and television screens with a relish which rivalled the venom of the Amazonian triplets, O'Callaghan, Danaswami and Johnston.
Anyway, I found it all just too much to take. It really is difficult to accept that your "special" daily newspaper isn't so special after all!
I'll miss Dick Walsh, Tom Humphries, even cranky oul' Kevin Myers and Crosaire most of all. . .but I'll get over it!
Oh - I'd better confess myself-interest before I go. I happen to be married to a nuclear weapon-toting terrorist, who has been holding our two teenage sons (one Leaving Cert, one Junior Cert candidate) to ransom, in her insatiable lust for more and more filthy lucre with a cavalier disregard for their precious future as Celtic Tiger cubs, God help us! - Is mise,
Fergus Kelly, The Links, Donabate, Co Dublin.