THOOR BALLYLEE

Sir, How sad but inevitable that Thoor Ballylee should have fallen under the dead hand of semi state ownership and is now not…

Sir, How sad but inevitable that Thoor Ballylee should have fallen under the dead hand of semi state ownership and is now not much more than a well stocked tourist trap.

Two things are particularly regrettable

(1) That there is not a word about the past 70 years since W.B. Yeats vacated it, including the splendid local initiatives which saved it for posterity.

(2) That the swathe of ivy up one corner which figured in so many photographs has recently been destroyed. Yours, etc., The Rectory, Taylor's Hill, Galway.