Sir, - Remembering Sir Ernest Shackleton and Colonel James Fitzmaurice, Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, May 18th) suggests that heroism has been forgotten in the land of their birth. Not quite. The feats of both are recorded amongst Dub- lin's Famous People, by John Cowell published by The O'Brien Press as recently as 1996. There is a photograph of Shackleton's boyhood home on Marlborough Road, Donnybrook, where he dug a shaft in the back garden as the shortest way from Ireland to Australia.
In April 1928, James Fitzmaurice, with two Germans, made the first non-stop east-west (not west-east) transatlantic flight from Baldonnel to Newfoundland. - Yours, etc.,
Michael O'Brien, The O'Brien Press Ltd, Victoria Road, Dublin 6