Sir, - Since 1957, the Irish Government has participated in the Fulbright Scholarship exchange programme with the universities of the United States. Over these years some 860 of our brightest young scholars from both Irish business and academe have been funded to study in an American university with the provision that they must return to Ireland on completion of their studies.
Until 1992, when a new Educational Exchange Act was passed, the programme was known as An Bord Scolaireactai Comhalairte, so that before that date many of these scholars were not aware that they were part of the international scholarship exchange programme known throughout the rest of the world as the Fulbright Programme.
It has been a great programme for Ireland and its scholars and many of the leaders in our society have been enthusiastic participants in it in these past years. Whilst we have traced a number of these past scholars, there is a great number whom we have been unable to find. May I therefore through your letter columns invite past scholars to contact this address so that we may invite them to a major reunion dinner in Dublin Castle on June 13 next? - Yours, etc., Professor John Kelly,
c/o School of Engineering, University College Dublin, Dublin 4.