Sir,– I have been an Irish Times reader since January 4th, 1971. That was the day I started work at the ESB in Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin 2 and I bought the paper for the first time from the then well-known vendor who operated on the corner near Larry Murphy's pub, thinking that the IT under my arm might bestow some gravitas.
Your contributors and writers of opinion pieces down the years have been remarkably insightful. None more so than Michael Harding. I’ve never met the man but he did tell me in an email exchange that he lived for a number of years in the big house in the parish where I was born and reared near Mullingar.
What is a writer if his words do not resonate in the lives of his readers? In his piece on Bernard Loughlin (Life, February 20th) he describes how Bernard taught him to write at the cutting edge of terror. I finished the piece as my alarm reminded me to take my chemotherapy tablets. I live at the cutting edge of terror . . . resonate or what? – Yours, etc,
DES ALLEN,
Ballyboughal, Co Dublin.