Sir, - Kevin Myers's despair about our road-signs (August 9th) is understandable. I believe the system is based on how we would have it if a foreign military invasion was imminent. No signs at all at many vital points, yet sufficient to create maximum confusion and exasperation.
The offices of those responsible must be staffed by people who live in sublime ignorance of the mayhem they cause. To letters of complaint I've made over the years all I've got has been evasion and indifference. The world of Franz Kafka is a living, dynamic reality for these people.
I believe tourists or strangers in Ireland are engaged in the equivalent of a country-wide treasure hunt. The Challenge being to find the way to your destination despite the handicap presented by the road signs you discover. Still, we have a new Minister responsible for this area. Maybe he will take on the Herculean task, the supreme intellectual challenge, of having road signs placed where they're needed. Then the whole nation will rejoice, and the builders of Newgrange can rest easy knowing that their successors, more than 5,000 years later, have mastered the much more difficult task of signposting the way there. - Yours, etc., PATRICK J. COYLE,
Laytown, Co Meath.