Sir, - I could not agree more with Kevin Myers's Irishman's Diary of August 4th, and that is an uncommon event. His criticism of the despoliation of our landscape and culture by tasteless development and mass tourism ties in with your recent report on the CSO list of the most popular first names given to children in Ireland last year. Irish names are nothing like as popular as they were, and are being replaced by names drawn from television soap operas and other areas of popular culture. Prof Brewer of Queen's University Belfast commented that "because people have more confidence in their ethnic identity, there is not the same need to express it in an Irish name."
It seems to me more likely that Irish people are rushing to abandon their ethnic identify and accepting as a replacement whatever the Anglo-American entertainment industry serves up to them. Rupert Murdoch will turn out to have had more impact on the Irish identity than Davis, Hyde and Pearse put together.
Just after reading Kevin Myers's article, I was startled to read the following piece, from In Dublin's Fair City by G. Ivan Morris, published in 1947:
"Should Ireland become `money-minded' she will be ruined. The temperament of her people makes her susceptible to this chaotic lust, and she may have the misfortune to discover at some later time that the famous Irish hospitality can be made to pay, and pay handsomely in cash rather than in dividends of goodwill and friendship, and that cash has a greater purchasing power than either of these attributes. Should this occur, then the charm of Ireland will be lost forever. She will slip down to the bottom of the scale and take her place as just another money-grubbing holiday resort."
Prescient, or what? - Yours, etc.,
Terry Moylan, Merton Avenue, Dublin 8.