Sir, - How nice - but incongruous - to read a Frenchwoman Annie Reffay's letter of concern about litter in Ireland (August 17th).
One memory I have from my first visit to Ireland many years ago was of watching French tourists throw the remains of their picnic lunches from a tour bus in Killarney as we followed behind in our car ducking the Evian and Perrier bottles. Then, on another visit, I observed French students camping in Sligo during the CCE Fleadh. Sligonians may still be finding bits and pieces and the odd cheese tin from that campsite, now blown all over the countryside.
Nothing, however, beats emerging from Skeff's in Galway one morning to see French youths - so identified by patches proudly worn on their backpacks - defecating in the bushes alongside Eyre Square. They must have thought Galway was like Paris. - Yours, etc.,
Cambridge,
MA 02139, USA.