Sir, – Kitty Holland's article on corporal punishment hit a nerve with me ("Beaten: The Irish childhoods ruined by corporal punishment", News Review, September 29th). To this day I hate the sound of church bells on Sunday because they had the sentence of Monday hanging over them. Thank you for opening a debate about that cruelty. – Yours, etc,
DEREK TYRRELL,
Walkinstown,
Dublin 12.
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Sir, – Congratulations to Kitty Holland on her superb investigation into corporal punishment in Irish schools. It is indeed high time to explore the barbarity inflicted on schoolchildren in Ireland. I speak as one who was very rarely punished in this way but who witnessed, several times each day, the routine and casual torture of small girls who were poor and slow to learn. My classmates were beaten and punched systematically throughout the school day. The atmosphere was gladiatorial, charged with frenzied menace and wholly distressing. Their cries and sobs echo down the decades and shame their tormentors. – Yours, etc,
MARGARET GALVIN,
Wexford.