Sportswriters and Yeats
Sir, – I refer to my letters December 16th, 2019 (published) and November 5th (unpublished) wherein I expressed concern with your sports reporters’ constant use of Yeats’s phrase “Changed, changed utterly”. I note with dismay the wording has now appeared again, twice, and on the same day, November 17th. This cannot continue, Sir – the centre cannot hold.
For the benefit of your writers and readers, I have forwarded my wife’s cherished copy of the old Leaving Cert poetry anthology Soundings. Could it be sent on to your sports department please? – Yours, etc,
RONAN O’REGAN,
Blackrock,
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Co Dublin.
Uses for old buildings
Sir, – Una Mullally’s article (“Baggot Street Hospital is an amazing asset. Why sell it?” Opinion, November 17th) is not only apposite but it has relevance to other such buildings. One is the former St Finan’s psychiatric hospital in Killarney. This very fine building, magnificently sited, has been lying empty since 2012. Many proposals have been made to the statutory bodies in relation to possible uses, including the development of apartments, but to no avail. Instead it has been left to stand idle as a testament to indifference and disrespect. It is all so sad that a positive public use cannot be found for a structure that has existed since 1852. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL GLEESON,
Clasheen,
Killarney,
Co Kerry.
Heavier vehicles and bridges
Sir, – We are concerned by the Irish Road Haulage Association’s demand on the energy sector with its ever heavier abnormal vehicles (“Proposed new limits on heavy load transport will hit electricity supplies, truckers warn”, Business, November 13th).
Ireland does need to change its energy network to address the challenge of climate change but to suggest that we can transport vehicles of up to 730 tonnes is unrealistic. This needs to be put in context – 730 tonnes is the weight of nearly 16 large semi-trailers, loaded up to their legal limits.
To put the weight of 16 trucks on to a single vehicle is a big risk to both the roads and the bridges, all of which were designed to carry much less weight.
If we are to take heavier vehicles, we need to understand the real cost to the taxpayer in rebuilding and maintaining far stronger roads and bridges. – Yours, etc,
EUGENE O’BRIEN,
Professor of Civil Engineering,
University College Dublin,
ALAN O’CONNOR,
Professor of Structural Engineering,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dr CAITRÍONA DE PAOR,
Lecturer in Civil and Structural Engineering,
Technological University Dublin.
Judgment on Paschal Donohoe
Sir, – At the end of a political career it is the role of journalists to immediately examine the political ledger and assess whether it is in credit or debit to determine whether the career can be judged a success or a failure.
Historians are required to be more measured in their assessment and to reflect on wider issues and place the career within the shifting sands of political ideology.
Paschal Donohoe never sought the highest office the State can offer, presumably on the basis he considered he did not have the qualities and abilities for such a role. I expect there are many who would demur with that assessment.
In his time as minister for finance he had the extraordinary good fortune to benefit from windfall corporation tax receipts, but the minister never sought to claim credit for these windfall receipts which arose from policy decisions made in previous decades.
He can, however, be assessed as to how he used these windfall receipts and arguably the sovereign funds created should have occurred earlier and should have gone deeper.
There are three issues (Brexit, Covid-19 and the housing crisis) where history will judge his performance, although curiously he was not the direct line minister in any of these areas.
It is not by accident we escaped relatively unscathed from the self-imposed fiasco the UK visited upon itself. The outcome we achieved was the result of marshalling our concerns so that our fellow EU members could fully understand how this issue could have a fundamental detrimental effect on our economy. Mr Donohoe was pivotal in achieving this successful outcome.
On Covid-19 every nation in the world was affected by the pandemic where governments sought to save lives while protecting vital economic interests. The speed of the economic recovery, post the pandemic, compared with other economies, is indicative of broadly correct decisions having been taken and again Mr Donohoe, as minister for finance, would have been pivotal in making those decisions.
Housing has, however, been a failure and he has been a part of that.
However Mr Donohoe is assessed, what is undoubtedly true is that he gave his best at all times in the interests of the State and we should wish him well in his new role. – Yours, etc,
PAUL WALSH,
Skerries,
Co Dublin.
Lose a cathedral to gain a cathedral
Sir, – Dublin is unique among the capital cities of the world in that it has three Catholic Church cathedrals. Some people will ask how this is so. The three cathedrals in Dublin are the Church of the Holy Trinity (Christ Church), St Patrick’s and the former Pro Cathedral (St Mary’s). All three were consecrated by Catholic bishops on the authority of the bishop of Rome; ie, the pope.
Under the Act of Supremacy (1533) of Henry VIII, both Christ Church and St Patrick’s cathedrals became part of the Church of England.
The reason why St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral (built in the early 19th century) was established is because under canon law a diocese can have only one cathedral and this was the cathedral of the Holy Trinity (Christ Church). Pro refers to the Latin phrase pro tempore or “for the time being”.
Canon law has now been set aside for ecumenical reasons by Pope Leo XIV and this means the Archdiocese of Dublin can no longer have a claim to its ancient cathedral. – Yours, etc,
HERBERT F EYRE,
North Strand
Dublin.
Ireland’s neutrality debate
Sir, – Seamus McKenna hits on an interesting seam in the neutrality debate, that of the need, nay the obligation, of the neutral state to defend itself (Letters, November 19th). Of course, two other recent neutral countries, Sweden and Finland, that abandoned the policy also realised the impossibility of this maxim.
It is an honourable position to advocate for more support for our Defence Forces in order to fulfil the obligations of self-defence required by a neutral country. However, any basic analysis of what this would require in the modern world after years of neglect would show it to be hopelessly inadequate.
Rebuilding Ireland’s Defence Forces now to meet even half the competence of Sweden and Finland when they were neutral would cost literally billions of additional spending. Regardless of our economic position, this is truly beyond us.
The only other alternative is to pool our efforts with others. Here there are, as Ben Tonra (“Ireland cannot keep straddling both the US and Europe”, Opinion, October 29th) stated, only two options, the flailing transatlantic alliance and an as yet to be determined EU strategic autonomy. To imagine any other choices falls unfortunately hopelessly short of the basic duty of any government to defend its people and territory. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL McLOUGHLIN,
Clonsilla,
Dublin 15.
Geese, planning and the common good
Sir, – I read with interest the Cantillon column (Business, November 18th) about the refusal of planning permission in Clontarf due to the potential impact on Brent geese.
The preamble to our Constitution states it seeks to protect the common good and this philosophy permeates throughout the articles in the Constitution,
Based on the Clontarf planning decision and numerous similar decisions over recent year, it seems the common good of the Brent geese now trumps that of the thousands of houseless and homeless and those condemned to substandard infrastructure and endless commutes. – Yours, etc,
WILLIAM McCARTHY,
Galloping Green,
Dublin.
Sir, – While I appreciate Michael O’Meara’s view that the judicial review process should remain unhindered and that the cost protections that presently exist in relation to environmental cases should continue as they are (Letters, November 19th), I have to take issue with his position.
Mr O’Meara points to the fact that just 5.3 per cent of An Coimisiún Pleanála decisions have become the subject of judicial review applications this year. However, this doesn’t reflect the fact that the majority of such reviews relate to big development and infrastructural proposals and, as a consequence, the percentage of development impacted in this way is significantly greater than 5.3 per cent. Indeed, most of the impacted proposals are of local, regional or national strategic importance, carrying life-changing benefits for individuals, communities and the population in general. Furthermore, the 5.3 per cent rate for this year compares unfavourably with the 2024 rate of 3.75 per cent and the 2023 rate of 3.65 per cent. The use of judicial reviews is escalating, unfortunately.
Many appeals and judicial review challenges are founded on vexatious and Nimby (not in my back yard) orientated motivations, conveniently dressed up as environmental argument with the benefit of cost protection.
In short, the greater good is not being served as a result of a well-meaning process being misused to the detriment of quality of life for all of us. Unless emergency planning legislation of the kind referred to in Mr O’Meara’s letter is introduced, the culture of objection and obstruction which has become so dominant in our system will not be broken. – Yours, etc,
TOM TIERNAN,
Ennis,
Co Clare.
Trump’s attacks on the press
Sir, – I must take issue with Finn McRedmond’s description of Donald Trump likening women to pigs as “discomfiting candour” (“Did Trump’s use of ‘Piggy’ come as any surprise,” Opinion, November 20th).
Candour is the quality of openness or honesty. There is no setting in which it is honest to describe a woman as a pig.
The discomfiture is created by the behaviour of a US president who can fairly be described as an ill-mannered boor – but noted for his truthfulness, he is not. – Yours, etc,
BERNIE LINNANE,
Dromahair,
Co Leitrim.
Sir, – An analysis from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has concluded that the constant attacks and restrictions on the media from Donald Trump pose an existential threat to press freedom. The US has fallen to 57th out of 180 countries on RSF’s world press freedom index and recent events have justified their assessment.
Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey was told to “be quiet, piggy” on Air Force One when asking a question on the Epstein controversy, a comment described by CNN’s Jake Tyler as “disgusting and completely unacceptable”.
The BBC has been described as a “leftist propaganda machine”.
In the White House, ABC’s Mary Bruce posed a legitimate question to the Saudi crown prince in relation to his alleged involvement in the gruesome murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, something the US intelligence agencies have concluded the prince had a role in. The response from Trump was to call Ms Bruce a “terrible reporter”, along with “no more questions from you”.
Earlier this year, a US judge ordered the Trump administration to restore Associated Press access to presidential events. The White House had blocked the news agency in a dispute over AP’s decision to continue to use the term Gulf of Mexico, as it was entitled to do, rather than adopt the administration’s wording, Gulf of America.
The judge ruled the ban was contrary to the constitutional right to free speech but the administration has been able to stay the implementation of the judgment by way of a 2-1 ruling from the US Court of Appeals.
The basic question is why are press associations and the media in general continuing to interact with the Trump administration and participate in what has become a jingoistic and fruitless exercise? Why, in particular, has the White House Correspondents Association limited its comments to mild criticism of the press restrictions imposed by the administration and not vigorously supported individual colleagues and news agencies who have been insulted and subjected to actions which are being challenged in the courts.
If it is the case that access to the White House takes precedence over journalistic solidarity and integrity, then there is a legitimate fear that a contagion effect on freedom of the press worldwide could undermine all our democracies. – Yours, etc,
MARTIN McDONALD,
Terenure,
Dublin 12.
Bacik and unionist alarm
Sir, – Newton Emerson’s (“Bacik’s careless words causing alarm among unionists,” Thursday, November 20th) claims that calls for a Border poll by Sinn Féin and Labour amount to a reckless rewriting of the Belfast Agreement.
This rests on a selective reading of political reality. It presumes that constitutional debate must wait for the British secretary of state’s personal conviction that a unity vote would “likely” pass, yet offers little scrutiny of how that threshold is interpreted or applied.
Moreover, the criticism of Ivana Bacik for failing to follow the exact phrasing of the agreement feels less like substantive analysis and more like procedural nit-picking. Political leaders are entitled – indeed obliged – to articulate their positions and ambitions, even if the specific mechanisms and timelines remain open to negotiation.
The article frames nationalist advocacy as destabilising, but fails to acknowledge a simple fact: discussing constitutional futures is not the same as demanding immediate change. Debate is not dangerous; refusing to permit one is. – Yours, etc,
TOM MORRIS,
Portarlington,
Co Laois.
