Sir, - In his Irishman's Diary (February 8th) Kevin Myers wrote: "Three years ago the Sisters of Mercy sold three acres to St Andrew's School for €7.6 million."
I think your readers should know that there are two factual inaccuracies in this statement. The name of our school is St Andrew's College and the acres in question were sold to us by the Sisters of Mercy for £500,000, a figure which, at the time, represented about one third of its commercial value. Mr Myers did not ask us for this information, and we have no idea how he came by the inflated figure given in his article. I wonder if the other figures he quotes are any more reliable.
May I say that the true figure reflects the kind and generous attitude shown to us by the Sisters of Mercy who provided us with the opportunity to move to our present Booterstown location in 1971 and were happy to assist us when we needed to expand. I should also mention that, when all the formalities of the recent purchase had been completed and construction work was well under way, it became apparent that we would require an additional piece of land to improve access to the site.
We approached the Sisters with a request to purchase the land we needed for this purpose. Their response was to present it to us, as a gift, free of charge, as a way of expressing their ongoing support for the work of our school, and I am happy to publicise this fact if it serves, in some small way, to counter the overall impression Mr Myers was trying to create.
Mr Myers concluded his article by urging the church to refrain from preaching sermons about social injustice on the grounds that he might end up having to pay more tax . "Please, please," he wrote, "no more sermons," paraphrasing, I think, the last message received by Archbishop Romero, but I imagine the church will be no more obliging in Ireland than it was in El Salvador. However, I do agree that sermonising is not always the most agreeable form of public discourse as it sometimes contains things we don't want to hear. Nevertheless, it is a good deal less objectionable than pontificating on the basis of factual inaccuracies. - Yours, etc.,
Headmaster,
St Andrew's College,
Booterstown,
Co Dublin.
I am more than happy to accept Headmaster Godsil's correction. The error, for which I sincerely apologise, initially occurred in the Property section computer, which omitted a vital decimal point which turned £0.5 million to £5 million.
Kevin Myers