Sir, - Visiting Ireland to see places associated with W. B. Yeats, we were astonished to find that to reach Thoor Ballylee by public transport meant relying on the kindness of Bus Eireann drivers and on their willingness to break the company's rules by stopping the Galway-Cork bus at the lane end for us and picking us up at the same place for the return journey.
In fact tourism in Ireland is not easy by public transport, apart from main-line train journeys. The turmoil endured by passengers of all ages and nationalities, including many impressionable and heavily laden Europeans, trying to board buses on the narrow strip of pavement supposed to be the Galway bus station, needs to be experienced by both the director of Bus Eireann and the manager of Ireland West Tourism. Only the good-humour and resourcefulness of the drivers themselves made the experience tolerable.
Shouldn't Galway wake up to the potential of the four sites in its area associated with the great poet and the Irish Revival - the Kiltartan Museum, Coole Park, the cathedral of Loughrea, where altar cloths were worked by Yeats's sisters, and the Tower itself, whose resonant image produced some of his finest poetry? And realise that some quite normal people, who prefer not to bring cars with them on holiday, nor drive hired vehicles, would like to be able to visit these sites? - Yours, etc.,
K. and P. Lowe,
Burn Bridge,
Harrogate,
England.
