Madam, - Wesley Boyd's centenary tribute to Louis MacNeice (An Irishman's Diary, December 29th) is most timely, but what are those "mountains" he mentions twice?
This misprision of the poet's words mustn't be allowed to stand into 2008. As MacNeice so precisely said of himself, he was born "between the mountain and the gantries" (at no 1, Brookside Avenue, in north Belfast). The gantries are still quite numerous but there has only ever been the one mountain. That is, of course, mighty Cave Hill, which bounds the city's northern edge.
The urge to pluralise MacNeice's mountain is curiously widespread. The city council has chiselled the error into the slab at Writers Square, in Belfast's cathedral quarter, and there it remains, uncorrected, 44 years after the poet fell silent.
- Yours, etc,
ROSEMARY EVANS, Carryduff, Belfast.
Madam, - Wesley Boyd writes that "apart from a few days of activities at Queen's University. . .little has been done to honour [MacNeice's] memory".
Carrickfergus Council organised a highly successful season of events. Helen Rankin, curator of the Carrickfergus museum, mounted an excellent exhibition which was opened by the poet's daughter Corinna.
A commemorative booklet was also produced. We had the pleasure and the privilege of giving a staged reading of MacNeice's masterpiece The Dark Toweras part of the celebrations.
- Yours, etc,
ROMA TOMELTY, Artistic Director, Centre Stage Theatre Company, Hopefield Avenue, Belfast.