Sir, - The National Museum directors should hang their heads in shame at their planned bus park on the graves of the "unknown soldiers" of the 1798 Rising.
The Esplanade or as it is better known, Croppies' Acre (across from the entrance to the museum's new premises at the former Collins
Barracks) is currently a soccer pitch. The site was marked by a memorial column in 1985 by soldiers of the Eastern Command.
It was to this site that many hundreds of soldiers of the Irish
Republic who were defeated at Ballinamuck, Co Longford, were brought, tortured, shot, put to the sword, or hanged. The identity of only 13
is known today, the most famous being Bartholemew Teeling and Wolfe
Tone's brother Matthew.
Instead of demolishing the past and running busloads of tourists over the graves of Ireland's patriot dead, the National Museum should be planning an appropriate memorial to them. The museum and the
Office of Public Works have an opportunity to build a large scale memorial which could emcompass much of the local national history of the area and link it to the Liffey. - Yours etc., AENGUS O SNODAIGH
Dublin 1798 Commemoration Committee, Dublin 8.