Sir, – I quite agree with Seán Mooney – sport utility vehicles (SUVs) are awesome (Letters, August 18th). I drive one too, but it is fully electric and perhaps a little smaller than his (Seán, I say this so you don’t feel threatened lest you feel that size is important – oh, alright, I admit it – mine’s only a medium-size one).
But I too have that smug feeling as he describes, in the luxurious interior and wonderful tech that surrounds me.
I am even more smug as I drive past petrol stations without stopping, small children, pedestrians, and even cyclists (who incidentally have the temerity to pay no motor tax), smug in the knowledge that I am no longer contributing to air pollution causing respiratory illnesses, stroke, lung cancer, exacerbating cardiovascular-vascular disease, asthma, COPD – all because my car is emission free.
I too look forward to many more years of happy driving. Did you know 17 per cent of all new car registrations in the first six months of this year were electric vehicles (EVs)? The Central Statistics Office published this fact last week – “a 64 per cent increase in the number of electric cars licensed for the first time in July 2025 (3,973) when compared with the same month in 2024 (2,421).”
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Gosh, I think I might be on the right side of motoring history. I couldn’t love it more here on the high moral ground. I recommend it.
Would anyone else consider it? – Yours, etc,
CAROLINE FARRELL,
Marino,
Dublin 3.
Deflated results
Sir, – In future, whenever my children catch a glimpse of my 1978 Leaving Cert results, I will just explain that grade inflation was running at minus 25.7 per cent that year.
My results are carefully filed in the folder with other once-a-year events like dog vaccines. – Yours, etc,
DERMOT O’ROURKE,
Lucan,
Dublin.
Return to work in the office
Sir, – Regarding return to office mandates seen recently: leaving aside concerns around work-life balance, increased commutes, underutilised empty office space (adapt for housing, perhaps?), or the unfairness of others having to be present at their workplace, I’d like to address the topics of productivity and creativity much listed as major benefits from being in the office.
On the eve of Covid lockdown, I left my dedicated desk with its PC desktop behind. I had no work phone or work laptop to remote access my work tools and data.
Conference calls were landline phone numbers where we could talk to our team colleagues but not share information or see their faces.
Quickly this improved. Laptops were issued, remote access rolled out, and embryonic video conferencing started. At this point, comparison to the in-office experience would certainly favour the return.
However, tools have advanced at pace. My work laptop allows me access my work from anywhere in the world.
I have a work phone when away from my laptop to respond to colleagues’ mails and queries at any time. Video-conferencing tools now allow “whiteboards” for brainstorming, allow multiple participants to work on documents together, and to quickly share each other’s screens.
Now, compare this to the prior in- office where I sat in meeting rooms at a prescribed time to share a real whiteboard taking turns with the marker, to still have to phone-conference in our colleagues (who couldn’t see the whiteboard), and rely on printouts of documents to discuss and then return to the desk to make the relevant updates agreed in the meeting.
Of course, even returning to the office now we did not return to old ways of working – but saying being in the office makes meetings better for collaboration or brainstorming does not stack up for me.
We will all have our laptops in front of us to read the material, headsets on for the few colleagues who cannot be in person, and we work on the documents together in real time on a videocall – just as we would from our home office.
Instead, have senior management fully embraced the new ways of working as they sit in their boardrooms reviewing PowerPoint decks and financial dashboards and issuing instructions to someone to make updates to the slide after the meeting?
And as for the “water-cooler moments’’, well I’m not sure what senior management think is happening at the water cooler, but believe me, the weekend’s Premiership results or the Strictly Come Dancing vote-off is far more likely to be the topic than some new idea that will increase profit for the company. – Yours, etc,
ALAN LENIHAN,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 14.
A new use for office buildings
Sir, – Your article on Dublin’s distressed office market (“Dublin’s office market remains distressed and it’s too early to call a recovery in rents,” August 18th) makes one thing clear: we are awash with vacant office buildings even as we face a national housing emergency. It should be obvious what to do.
Dublin doesn’t have a housing crisis and an office vacancy crisis – we have one simple problem with one simple solution: turn empty offices into sustainable homes and community hubs.
Instead of leaving valuable city centre space underused, we should retrofit offices into climate resilient, intergenerational housing. This avoids the carbon cost of demolition and creates vibrant communities with space for young adults, families, and older people, along with sport, food, health and co-working facilities.
Rooftops can grow food, facades can generate solar power, and city blocks can become true urban hubs.
Just thinking about it fills me with hope for the future. – Yours, etc,
LOUISA MOSS,
Cabra,
Dublin 7.
Fintan the shape-shifter
Sir, – In his article in Tuesday’s Irish Times, Fintan O’Toole refers to the fact that his name is 100 per cent Irish. I wonder does he know that one of the first of three men to come to Ireland was called none other than Fintan.
An Leabhar Gabhála (The Book of Invasions), one of our old manuscripts, tells the story of the first inhabitants to come to Ireland. The story goes that Cesair, Noah’s granddaughter, was not allowed on the ark so she decided to build her own ark and with 49 other women and three men, Fintan, Ladra and her father Bith, they set out from Miro in Sudan and travelled all the known world until they reached the virgin shores of Ireland where they settled.
In time all were lost because of floods but for Fintan Mac Bóchra. He was a shape-shifter and he changed into a salmon and all the different animals of Ireland, and witnessed all the changes, all the new peoples who came to Ireland down through the centuries.
I wonder if Fintan O’Toole has inherited this skill? – Yours, etc,
ELLEN O’MALLEY DUNLOP,
Adjunct professor
UL Law School,
Dublin 6W.
Oasis of rubbish
Sir, – I agree with Kate Hogan (Letters, August 21st) in respect of rubbish strewn about the canal after the recent Oasis Croke Park gig.
I ran through the Phoenix Park last Monday evening and was dismayed to see hundreds of discarded energy gel packets along Chesterfield Avenue and Wellington Road.
These are the leftovers from the previous Saturday’s 10 mile road race.
If people are going to insist on littering, then these money-making event organisers should be required to pick up afterwards. – Yours, etc,
PÁDRAIG LOOBY,
Dublin 12.
Switching out men and women
Sir, – I am writing in response to “Mankeeping: why it’s bad for women and men,” August 16th.
This article made me wonder about the implications such statements could have if this was written in a similar context, but switching it to a man discussing women?
In fact, I believe feminism and female empowerment was born from such dismissive and derogatory opinions relating to the female species stretching back for hundreds of years.
As a female, I felt ashamed reading this. We women have fought many years for equality, but there is no equality here. What we have is toxic femininity and men that are terrified to stand up to being wrongfully labelled.
The internet is awash with female influencers “empowering” women against male influence, and this is fine by all accounts, but men cannot have male influencers “empowering” them against female influence.
The arts is flooded with bitterness born from concept of the male gaze, coined by Laura Mulvey in 1975, but matters relating to females that gaze are perfectly acceptable?
No, sir, this is not equality, quite simply this is oppression of the male species. – Yours, etc,
SARAH ROBERTS,
Youghal,
Co Cork.
Climate change holidaymakers
Sir, – I see a new flurry of articles and letters berating people for choosing air travel for leisure and entertainment purposes. At least our highly principled and ambitious young adults-in-waiting will all be back at school shortly and will no doubt remind us, via school strikes for climate, of our folly and irresponsibility in our use of air travel.
They’ll be well up to the task, revitalised and refreshed after the family holiday in Spain and the Canary Islands, or Florida, or further afield.
Unless, of course, all those young people seen in the airport departure lounges throughout the summer are not part of this principled cohort of climate-aware individuals. – Yours, etc,
JOHN DUNNE,
Enniscorthy,
Co Wexford.
100 per cent right
Sir, – I have noticed that the use of “100 per cent’’ as an affirmative response is becoming widespread. Am I alone in my preference for a simple yes ? – Yours, etc
DYMPNA CONSIDINE,
Waterville,
Co Kerry.
Weather warning
Sir, – Is there any particular reason why you continue to fill up your Weather Watch section with unnecessary and outmoded Fahrenheit figures?
Apart from a few Americans, is there anyone under the age of 90 whose mental thermometer is still tuned into the era of coal-fired trains and hand-turned mangles? – Yours, etc,
RODNEY DEVITT,
Sandymount,
Dublin 4.
Angelus faux pas
Sir, – In 1972, I was a novice technical operator in the control room/continuity area of RTÉ radio in the GPO. Synchronised to the master clock for the studios, in those days the Angelus was broadcast live from the Pro Cathedral at precisely midday and 6pm.
For one technical reason or another, very occasionally the live signal might fail and in that situation the continuity operator would play a taped recording of the Angelus.
A few minutes before it was due the operator would be sure to load this standby tape on to one of the two tape machines there.
Afterwards, whether required or not, it would be replaced in its little five-inch box and returned to its place on a shelf beside another similar box that held a recording of the national anthem, which was broadcast every night after the closedown announcement at about 11.50pm.
On one particular occasion I was the evening/night operator on continuity. That duty commenced at 4pm, with a meal break an hour later of about 30-45 minutes.
On that day the operator who relieved me at 5pm had a habit of leaving things to the last minute.
For some reason I was delayed getting a meal and afterwards as I rushed back late for what would be a busy sequence of operations, I had it firmly (too firmly as it would later emerge) in my mind that I would need to first of all load the Angelus standby tape.
Then I could concentrate on lining up the weather forecast broadcast, the news headlines from the studio in Donnybrook, and the programme after that whether on tape or live.
On getting back I was pleasantly surprised to discover that not only had my colleague loaded the standby tape but had also checked the link to the Met Office. The rest of the evening went swimmingly.
At 10 to midnight the continuity announcer read the standard bilingual closedown announcement and I rolled what should have been the tape of the national anthem, only to hear ... BONG, BONG, BONG ... I sat there stunned, unable to rationalise why this was happening.
My control room colleague reacted first, removed the Angelus tape, loaded the tape I should have played, the announcer apologised and the anthem was played.
Then followed the indignity of trying to explain myself in the log. Afterwards, as the announcer and l sat into a taxi on Henry Street to take us to our homes, the driver greeted us with: “who was the eejit in there who played the Angelus instead of the national anthem?”
I sank down in the seat, my shame complete. – Yours, etc,
MICK BOURKE,
Co Kildare.
Sir, – Apropos the Angelus: alas, times change. Some years ago, my wife was walking through Wexford with our granddaughter when the local church bell sounded the Angelus.
“Oh, Nana,” said the child, “it’s the News.” – Yours, etc,
EOIN Ó MURCHÚ,
Cluain Dolcáin,
Baile Átha Cliath 22.
Taking the paper
Sir, – Similar to your letter writer Tony Corcoran (Letters, August 19th), I too always avoided the top copy of The Irish Times stacked at my local newsagent.
Then, in the latter year of Covid, I noticed, on consecutive days, a “free reader” replace the copy he had perused back into the middle of the pile. I have since, more subconsciously than consciously, always taken from the top of the pile. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL GANNON,
Kilkenny.
Sir, – Could you ask The Irish Times reader who regularly takes my Tuesday paper from my doorstep to please return it? Tuesdays aren’t the same without it. – Yours, etc,
NIAMH COLLINS,
Dublin 7.
Sir, – Diverging slightly from recent correspondence on selecting a newspaper, I was reminded of an incident when a student friend of my brother’s, a Kuwaiti, was visiting for Christmas.
He was fascinated by our splendid turfstack. Wishing to be of help, he went outside and pulled some turf from the middle of the stack, which resulted in half of it collapsing.
He apologised profusely and explained that he wanted to “pick some fresh ones”. – Yours, etc,
EITHNE MacFADDEN,
Co Donegal.
Is this a record?
Sir, – Last weekend saw record fairs in the Bernard Shaw, Drumcondra on Saturday, and Volume Records and Books, Dún Laoghaire on Sunday. Next weekend there shall be another in Good Counsel GAA in Drimnagh. One can imagine the sales of vinyl in the capital must be off the charts.
Whereas the charts record the volumes of new music, and doesn’t distinguish between streams and physical formats, perhaps the paper of record can verify if we are seeing sales of a record number of records? – Yours, etc,
NIALL MURPHY,
Co Dublin.
