PETER COSTELLO,
Sir, - During the ongoing renovation of the pavements around St Stephen's Green, the Corporation removed (temporarily, we thought) the memorial bench to John Stanislaus Joyce that stood facing Newman House.
The work on this side of the Green has now been completed, but there is no sign of the bench, which carried a plaque in memory of both John Stanislaus and his son James, being returned.
As the biographers of John Joyce we wish to protest at this casual act of municipal vandalism - or is it merely thoughtless indifference? When Joyce died his son hoped to have a bench erected at Whitworth Road, near to his father's last home in Claude Road. The Corporation authorities of the day baulked at this idea. It was only in more broad-minded days that the bench was eventually erected after efforts by James Joyce's admirers here and abroad.
We hope that, alerted by this protest, the Corporation will see to it that the memorial to one of the city's more colourful characters is restored at once to its rightful place. - Yours, etc.,
Peter Costello,
Dublin 4;
JOHN WYSE-JACKSON,
London SW.