Madam, - I was delighted to see Dean Robert McCarthy and the Rev John Crawford voicing their objection to the proposed elimination of St Audoen's Park (formerly St Audoen's Graveyard) as part of Dublin Corporation's "Cathedral Quarter" development (October 14th). It is only right and fitting that the final resting places of generations of Dubliners from the 16th to the 18th centuries should remain undisturbed.
I have always been uneasy about the practice of handing over ancient burial grounds such as St Audoen's to create parks. This usually involves the wholesale removal and stacking of tombstones to one side, thereby destroying their historical context. These monuments were paid for dearly by relatives of the deceased in less affluent times than now.
The final insult to the dead has now been perpetrated by the Corporation by allowing "Wolfe Tone Square" (in reality St Mary's Churchyard) to be desecrated by allowing a third-rate TV quiz show, which looks and sounds like a forth-rate Ibiza nightclub, to be broadcast from it. Shame on everyone involved.
Have we got too sophisticated to respect the dead? - Yours, etc,
DAVID POWER, Grange Manor, Lucan, Co Dublin.