Right of access to natural landmarks
Sir, – I enjoyed Enda O’Dowd’s front-page photo for your weekend edition, of the beautiful Old Head of Kinsale in Cork featuring two passersby also taking photos.
I remember taking the same photo and standing in the same place – because that’s as far as you are allowed to go. Visitors who approach the boundary fence, just visible on the margin of Mr O’Dowd’s photo, are curtly informed the entire peninsula is private property. Only paying members and guests of the prestigious Old Head Golf Links may enter.
Surely there should be some public right of access for one of Ireland’s most stunning natural landmarks? At least for locals. After all, the reason it is so expensive to play golf there is presumably because the scenery is so beautiful – scenery created not by man but nature.
The long-running Free the Old Head of Kinsale campaign has advanced the same argument, as far as the Supreme Court.
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As I drove away from the Old Head, my revolutionary instincts were kindled. If we ever get around to abolishing private property, I suggest we start there. – Yours, etc,
DOMHNALL McGLACKEN-BYRNE,
Inchicore,
Dublin.
AI risk to artists and creators
A chara, – Many young (and not so young) Irish songwriters and musicians will be surprised that Finn McRedmond has taken such umbrage at 8,000 authors calling for artificial intelligence (AI) companies to stop using writers’ words to train their models (“AI panic: Artists angry that a machine is learning from their work should relax”, Opinion, April 10th).
AI can be a powerful tool in supporting creativity and enhancing the music experience for artists and audiences alike. But it also poses risks from bad actors and those who seek to exploit the rights of creators and rights holders.
Ms McRedmond says she does not want to read novels made by a bot. I can presume she does not want to listen to music generated by a machine trained with the unauthorised work of musicians.
We are increasingly seeing the unauthorised scraping and replication of copyrighted musical works. If not regulated adequately, the victims will be the artists who created the original music. The copyright regime exists to grant creators of original works, like books and music, rights to control how their creations are used and distributed.
Such rights must apply equally to the behemoth that is the artificial intelligence industry. – Yours, etc,
WILLIE KAVANAGH,
Chairman,
Irish Recorded Music Association.
‘Hell on Earth’ of Gaza
Sir, – May I congratulate your columnist Mark O’Connell on his step by step description of the killing of 15 paramedics by Israel last week (“I’ve never thought of myself as a natural born opinion columnist, I just say what I see”, Opinion, April 12th).
As he rightly points out, it is difficult to keep describing and witnessing these horrors. Yet the alternative, staying silent, is to allow horrific war crimes to be normalised and become part of the background as we continue our lives.
Genocide is a big word, but there is no other for what the International Red Cross president, Mirjana Spoljaric, describes as the “ hell on earth” of Gaza. Most importantly, as your columnist describes, Israel’s explicit aim is now “the destruction of all possibility for civil life in Gaza”.
How is this being achieved? The consistent bombing of a trapped civilian population. The bombing of all 36 hospitals in Gaza, including this weekend, the last, the Anglican Baptist hospital. The targeted killing of doctors and paramedics. The assassination of more than 200 journalists. The stoppage of all food and medical aid, and destruction of water purifying plants. The systematic destruction of 80 per cent of civilian housing. The bombing of UN facilities, schools, mosques and churches, anywhere people could seek refuge. The constant displacement of refugee families, now crammed into coastal areas as Israel places 66 per cent of Gaza under military control.
How is this being allowed? Despite the world’s population being vocally opposed to this destruction, the West’s political leaders are silent or complicit. Ireland, which had been vocal in the past 18 months, is now silent. Our airspace is used to transport bombs and artillery, our Central Bank is selling war bonds for Israel, and the Occupied Territories Bill has been sidelined. History will judge us by what we do in this moment. – Yours, etc,
BETTY PURCELL,
Dublin 6W.
Life and death of David Joyce
Sir, – Mark Paul wrote an excellent, sad article about the life and death of David Joyce, a gay man from a Traveller background (“Who was David Joyce, the Galway man shot dead by UK police at a busy train station?”, News, April 12th).
As someone working in the field of homelessness for 50 years, gay men continue to live sad and lonely lives, often estranged from family, friends and the county or land of their birth. In that number now, are men who have come to Ireland from miles afar to survive.
As well-publicised debates about the lack of mental health services for people of all ages, especially for young people, continue, endless reports gather dust. Journalists should be complimented for shedding a light on issues that remain hidden until a tragic end, like that of the life and death of David Joyce. May he now rest in peace. – Yours, etc,
ALICE LEAHY,
Director of services,
Alice Leahy Trust,
Dublin 8.
Ugly buildings in the capital
Sir, – Una Mullally is entirely correct to lament the woeful architecture and design standards characterising the response to the housing crisis (“Why are most new housing schemes in Dublin city so terrible”, Opinion, April 14th).
It is an incontrovertible fact that Dublin (and Ireland generally) has long been poorly served by its urban planners, architects and the relevant State agencies. Design and planning mistakes have blighted the city’s development, causing all manner of problems. Planning consultants and architects have been thriving economically in recent years, but are citizens happy with their efforts?
Irish people sometimes like to boast that we helped build some of the great cities of the world. Those boasts soon dry up, however, when we are asked about what we have built in our own cities.
Could anyone say that Dublin’s sprawling housing estates and identikit apartment blocks are brilliant examples of 21st century urban design? Or that those with power in this area demonstrate an ambition to create beautiful neighbourhoods that will long be attractive places to live?
Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chamber’s recent implied suggestion that we should not be overly concerned with what a building looks like, is entirely typical of the deep-seated philistinism that has plagued planning and building in Ireland.
While acres of newsprint, over many years, are spent bemoaning the poor quality of life in our capital, the consequences of dereliction, and general urban decay, many of our politicians and public servants still cannot see the connection between the dreadful state of our capital city and their long-standing indifference (or even hostility) towards design, architecture and planning.
Future newspaper articles will no doubt bemoan how the pressure to hit target numbers in housing contributed to ugly buildings, unsuccessful neighbourhoods that suffer from ghettoisation, and many other entirely predictable problems. – Yours, etc,
ANDREW QUINN,
Clongriffin,
Dublin 13.
Gatsby’s mythology
Sir, – Keith Duggan marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Great Gatsby with an elegiac elegance worthy of F Scott Fitzgerald himself (“Dazzling tragedy of The Great Gatsby still stalks American imagination,” America Letter, April 12th). Jay Gatsby’s tragedy is indeed “a key to all mythologies of whatever the ‘American dream’ is supposed to be”. Nevertheless, can we not draw comfort from the story’s narrator, Nick Carraway?
Nick understands the “vast carelessness” of West and East Egg; is moved by the suffering he witnesses in the valley of ashes; and recognises that Tom Buchanan had come to “nibble at the edge of stale ideas”.
His ability to believe in people as people would like to believe in themselves enables him to communicate with every other character in the story, not least Gatsby, whose longing for a future “that year by year recedes before us” is like the longing of Rome’s founder Aeneas for the Ausonian fields. Might we not dare to join Nick in finding in Gatsby the seeds of an effective spiritual imagination, a “romantic readiness” such as can yet save us all? Like Duggan in his article, I end by turning to the truth-laden cadences of the novel itself: “So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line, I decided to come back home.” – Yours, etc,
PHILIP McDONAGH,
Director, Centre for Religion,
Human Values, and International
Relations,
Dublin City University.
Lives past and present
A chara, – Kieran Connell’s essay provided an intriguing insight into the complexity of history at a personal level (“My grandfather died by suicide. I work in the same Irish university where he taught history”, Weekend, April 12th).
Here was a young historian, based in Queen’s University Belfast, reflecting on the legacy of his grandfather, who had also taught history at Queen’s more than 50 years previously. Kieran is a historian of modern multicultural Britain while his grandfather, Kenneth (KH) Connell, had been a pioneering historian of Irish rural history in the 18th and 19th centuries. What they had in common was their interest in the lives and experiences of ordinary people.
History is always a dialogue between the past and the present and it becomes even more interesting when it is intertwined with past and present personal lives. Kieran Connell’s essay underlines the relevance of social history to our understanding of the past and the present in our own lives. In doing so, it affirms the continuing relevance of history as a subject in our education system. – Is mise,
JOHN GLENNON,
Co Wicklow.
School lunch scheme
Sir, – I worked for almost 37 years in Deis Band 1 schools. In the latter part of my career, I oversaw the introduction of hot school meals in the school in which I worked. I welcomed this new venture and despite reservations about nutritional value and waste, this initiative in Deis schools has been worthwhile and of social value. For many children, the provision of a hot meal may not have been something they were assured of at home.
Last week came the announcement of the expansion of the scheme (“Hot school meals programme expanded with 900 more locations joining scheme”, News, April 15th).
The issues of processed food ingredients, additives and nutritional value have been aired by experts such as Donal O’Shea. It is also estimated that 15 per cent of all school meals are binned. This presents a huge waste issue.
On the eve of teacher union conferences, I would urge the Ministers of Social Welfare and Education to commission a detailed evaluation of the current scheme so that the roll out to other schools can be done with all relevant information and shared knowledge. A school principal may have oversight on best practice in matters educational but may not be an expert on what is by and large a catering issue. They are in need of guidance and a commissioned research piece may be a start. – Yours, etc,
AIDAN BOYLE,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
Dreams of an afterlife
Sir, – Reading of philosopher David Berman’s efforts to find evidence for life after death, I found myself oddly comforted (“Is there good reason to believe in life after death?” Unthinkable, April 14th). He posits that our dream selves might carry on without us, which seems a bit unfair – mine never gets all the garden work done, and now he’s going to outlive me?
Still, I cling to hope. Not for celestial mansions or reincarnation as a jazz pianist but because I have a sneaking suspicion that Armagh are going to win more All-Irelands, and I’d like to be around to savour the moment.
If that requires an afterlife, then so be it. I’ll even settle for a dream world version, so long as they’re showing the matches. – Yours, etc,
ENDA CULLEN,
Armagh.
