Sir, – Further to "Cork is no 'real capital' but it could be great" (People, August 19th), while holding a firm view that Cork is absolutely unreal, I would accept the broad premise of Darragh Murphy's view that the city hasn't lived up to its vast potential. We should not, however, kid ourselves into thinking that a directly elected mayor is some sort of panacea to the city's challenges, and the focus instead ought to be on materially addressing the absence of adequate planning, infrastructural investment and strategic vision that are hampering development.
In any case, can you imagine the sort of character that would prevail among their peers in a mayoral contest in what Darragh Murphy describes as a county with the collective mentality of an “overexcited chimpanzee”? No doubt one promising cans of Tanora for all and spouting a mantra along the lines of “Make Cork great again, boy”, when, despite the headline’s insinuation, Cork never stopped being great in the first instance. – Yours, etc,
JOE LYNCH,
Ballincollig, Co Cork.