Madam, - Brian Ó Daimhín's most informative letter of August 16th concerning the history of the "baile" and its role in shaping uniquely Irish population patterns has prompted some interesting, measured responses.
However when Charles Bagwell writes (August 18th) that "no such sense of common identity exists now among rural dwellers as may have existed in the time of clans and septs", it is important to bear in mind that in many parts of rural Ireland, the link between families and the "baile" remains strong - much stronger than in England, which lost much of this link at the time of its land enclosures, and stronger, I suspect, than in the commuter-land of Co Kildare, from whence Mr Bagwell writes.
Prof J. Peter Clinch writes (same date) from the Department of Planning and Environmental Policy at UCD, to inform us that there are three schools of planning in Ireland and that his Department does not base its teaching on "alien models" and its graduates hail mostly from the Irish rural countryside.
Perhaps he could tell us why the bedrock of our planning systems, the county development plans, pay such scant regard to the "baile" as a settlement entity, and seem intent on converting large parts of the west of Ireland into a gaudy version of Gloucestershire.
In my own county of Galway, the Gaeltacht area is subjected to the planners' "settlement zone" strategy, which has the intent of funnelling young people out of their bailtí and into apartments and townhouses. I have never heard a solitary focal from an Irish planner on the importance of the native language to the social fabric of a community, though it is frequently mentioned in Wales (which supposedly labours under the Saxon yoke).
I am not an apologist for the bleating councillors who abuse the rural planning process with their sham tears for "local young couples" - often their builder chums - and latch onto the "baile" as an excuse to ruin the countryside with holiday homes or commuter pads. But Ireland's unique population settlement deserves to be recognised as the planning process reforms and moves forward. - Is mise,
PÁID Ó DONNCHÚ,
An tSaoirsin,
Na Forbacha,
An Spidéal,
Co na Gaillimhe.