Sir, - For some time now - since attending the Parnell Summer School on the Famine in August, 1995 - I have intended writing to compliment Brendan O Cathaoir on his outstanding research on the Famine. His column is horrific, harrowing and, indeed, macabre, as was his most recent "Diary" on Skibbereen.
It was also Brendan O Cathaoir who quoted (on January 1st) Dom Bernard O'Dea in 1966 on the 1916 Commemorations - "the thinking youth . . . will not submit to an emotional unreality fostered by people they no longer believe in", prescient words indeed - and still applicable today. We do miss the opinion of BOD! - Yours, etc.,
17 Sycamore Road,
Carlow.