Madam, – I read your 150th anniversary special commemorative magazine (March 27th) with great interest and pleasure. It is a historic document in many ways, recalling many events and great people associated with your paper. However, there was one glaring omission, that of Kevin Myers. For well over 20 years this man gave us many great moments in his Irishman’s Diary. Sometimes he pleased us, more times he taxed us, but at all times he was interesting and provocative. He was, and still is, a gifted wordsmith.
One of his biggest attributes, however, was, through his column, the awakening in the soul of Irish people interest in those forgotten Irish who served in the first and second World Wars. That was done by Mr Myers at a time when it was not popular, and when official Ireland would not be even seen in St Patrick’s Cathedral on Remembrance Day. The culmination of Mr Myers’s work was the reversal of all that, and eventually President McAleese and Queen Elizabeth together opened the peace tower at Messines in memory of all those Irish who gave their lives for freedom. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Denis O’Shaughnessy (March 31st) rightly highlights the lack of mention or tribute to the compositors and printers whose esoteric skills produced The Irish Times for most of its 150 years. The following text adorned the wall of the composing room in Bolton Street’s School of Printing where Roddy Doyle’s father, Rory, among others, taught a generation of apprentice compositors their trade: “Pause stranger: you stand in a composing room. Here metal stamps called types are assembled by skilful hands into the master-patterns from which the visible world is multiplied. Five centuries ago the invention of moveable type opened a new epoch in human history by releasing the common people from the thraldom of illiteracy and setting their feet upon the road to self-government. You who travel that high road touch not without reverence these leaden symbols of your freedom. Remember your incalculable debt to the compositor whose patient, nimble fingers built for you letter upon letter a thousand stairways to the stars.” – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Shame too on Tom Lawlor (March 31st) for misspelling my uncle George Leitch’s name. – Yours, etc,