Sir, - Contractual obligations, not to say a certain natural restraint, usually prevent me responding to comments in your columns, but your reporting of RTE's television coverage of the winter sunrise at Newgrange, in which I participated, compels me to make an exception. For many years The Irish Times and other newspapers have enjoyed privileged access to the burial chamber at Newgrange. This year, for the first time, live television cameras were admitted. The result, according to Eileen Battersby, described as a "regular visitor" to Newgrange, was that "parking became an issue". So sorry, Ms Battersby.
Eileen Battersby may have found the presence of "television cameras, outdoor broadcast units and a busy RTE ground staff" intrusive, but without that "military operation" there would have been no pictures. To the scribes of D'Olier Street television may still be an uncouth, upstart medium, but for the tens of thousands of people who watched our live coverage from Newgrange it allowed them to experience something that previously had been confined to a very small number of people - including, of course, Irish Times reporters judged sensitive enough to write about the event for Irish Times readers.
Yes, there could have been less talk, including less from the present writer. Yes, the pictures should have been allowed more time to tell the story. But none of this takes from the fact that RTE did the viewing public a service and, from comments made to me personally, one that was enjoyed and appreciated by very many people.
I, for one, was captivated and moved by the television pictures from inside Newgrange and proud to have been part of a production which brought these extraordinary images to a wider audience than ever before. - Yours, etc.,
Bryan Dobson, RTE, Donnybrook, Dublin 4.