Sir, - Dun Laoghaire harbour, as is less well known than it should be, was built as the result of an unprecedentedly powerful movement of public opinion right round Dublin Bay for something to be done to prevent the continual loss of life at sea in the bay - resulting, incidentally, in Dublin becoming notorious as one of the world's most perilous ports to enter or leave.
The arrival of the steam-ship greatly reduced the loss of life among seafarers, but largely through the genius of the first harbourmaster of the new asylum harbour at Dun Laoghaire, it found a new function as the busiest passenger port on the west coast of the Irish Sea.
Whether as asylum harbour or passenger port, the harbour continued down the years to be considered as the port of the people whose demand got it built, and the board of works which managed it till recently respected popular feeling.
It would be an unnatural and profoundly reactionary move if the new harbour authority signalled the change of management of the port by ignoring, without the courtesy of consultation, the more than 150-year-old right of ordinary citizens with a small boat to use the boatyard and the coal harbour, presumably in the sole interests of a small but rich minority contemptuous of the rights and traditions of the ordinary local people. - Yours, etc.,
John de Courcy Ireland, Grosvenor Terrace, Dalkey, Co Dublin.