Madam, - I refer to the letters by Professors Donnchadh Ó Corráin of Cork (May 3rd) and Stefan Zimmer of Bonn (May 19the) concerning the lamentable delay or unwillingness in filling certain university chairs in departments that teach and study Irish historical, literary and linguistic heritage.
Stefan Zimmer's European intervention recalls Kuno Meyer's arrival exactly 100 years ago to remind the Irish people of this heritage and teach them how to research it. Almost every scholar in Irish today is a pupil of a pupil (say, Osborn Bergin) of Kuno Meyer's School of Irish Learning.
It is, of course, not only in Ireland that nowadays statistics of course attendance in universities and ephemeral utilitarian gains overshadow the exploration of the country's cultural heritage. - Yours, etc.,
Prof ROLF BAUMGARTEN, Templeogue, Dublin 16.