Madam, - George H. Briscoe (April 8th) shows himself to be a most honourable man by deploring the action of his grandfather in allowing the desecration by non-nationals of the Hill of Tara in the early years of the 20th century. It is surely a matter of the greatest perversity that institutions of the Irish State have now progressively and deliberately contrived to produce a desecration that will be greater in degree and extent.
It now requires only the signature of one man, the Minister of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, to irreversibly damage Tara Hill and its integral landscape.
There are many situations in which the following excerpt from Omar Khayyam's celebrated Rubaiyat would apply. For the Minister, is there any situation in which it would be more pertinent? I quote: "The moving finger writes and having writ moves on, nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out one word of it". - Yours, etc.,
TOMMY HAMILL, Ballinter, Navan, Co Meath.