Sir, - Ernest F. Crossen (December 6th) suggests that lines from Francis Ledwidge should replace those of Rupert Brooke in the War Memorial Gardens, Islandbridge, Dublin.
Brooke was a Cambridge-educated English literary icon. In contrast, Ledwidge was a road worker and trade unionist from the fields of Meath. Poetry, however, is universal and should transcend social, racial and political prejudices.
Brooke and Ledwidge served in Greece during the first World War. Brooke died there. Alice Curtayne, in her biography of Ledwidge (1972), referred to that poet's probable excitement when following in Brooke's footsteps.
At Olympia in Greece last year, explaining to European writers that we in Ireland are overcoming inherited prejudices about the first World War, I specifically linked Ledwidge and Brooke. Both soldier-poets died young, leaving many songs unsung. They should be both remembered at the War Memorial Gardens, Dublin.
There, the Inchicore Ledwidge Society commemorated the Meath poet last summer on the 80th anniversary of his death on Flanders fields. Let Ledwidge's lines sing at Islandbridge, but please do not obliterate Brooke. - Yours, etc.,
Dalkey, Co Dublin.