Madam, - It has been said that fact is stranger than fiction and this cliché is borne out by the recent controversial claims by South Tipperary Fine Gael councillor Michael Fitzgerald in relation to drinking three or four pints before driving home.
Is it not ironic that Councillor Fitzgerald's home was once the home of Fr Theobald Mathew, the Apostle of Temperance?
The much-travelled Capuchin friar, the fourth son of nine boys and three girls, was born in Thomastown Castle on October 10th, 1790, close to Rathcloheen House where the Mathew family moved in 1795 and which is now the home of Cllr Michael Fitzgerald.
As we are about to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Fr Mathew's death on December 8th, we may wonder what the Capuchin Franciscan would make of Cllr Fitzgerald's recent remarks. - Yours, etc,
FRANK BURKE, Terenure, Dublin 6w.