Sir, - Limerick people are well-accustomed to television and radio reports referring to "Dublin, Cork, Galway and other urban centres." It now appears that Limerick-blindness has spread beyond the confines of the RTE studios. Your correspondent Lorna Siggins recently wrote of the citizens of Galway as the "indigenous population in the Republic's third largest city." In relation to the "choochoo flu," the Mayor of Galway spoke on radio about the problem in "Ireland's third city".
I am at a loss as to how this misapprehension has arisen. The Central Statistics Office website includes a league table of city populations drawn from the 1996 census. Limerick is listed in third place with 79,137 people and Galway fourth with 57,363.
Helen Lucy Burke has said that many Limerick people seem to have inferiority complexes. In light of the hard statistical evidence, perhaps "invisibility complex" would be more accurate. - Yours, etc., David McCormack,
Ballyowen Lane, Lucan, Co Dublin.