Sir, - RTE got it quite wrong when it made a statement to the television viewing public that a shift in the earth's axis over the past 5,000 years prevented the shaft of sunlight from penetrating the actual Newgrange burial chamber.
I have worked as a guide at Newgrange and this is not what the public are told when they visit this spectacular site.
On December 23rd last, myself and 28 other lucky people witnessed the solstice at Newgrange for the final time in the 20th century. On that occasion the golden sunlight most definitely illuminated the chamber at the end, as it has done ever year since 1967, when this marvellous phenomenon was first discovered by Michael O'Kelly; and as it did on December 21st 1999, the golden opportunity that RTE so clumsily, so unashamedly and so unapologetically missed. What a disaster. - Yours, etc.,
Noirin R. Clarke, Forest Hill, Drogheda, Co Louth.