Sir, - The trebling of Dublin in the course of sixty odd years has been phenomenal, and a little disturbing. In 1930 this city was quite compact, with a population of half a million and farms at the end of the tramlines. Now it's a sprawl with a million and a half people, and the green belt has burst wide open under the strain of the expanding corporation.
It started with clearing the slums and chivvying the dwellers to hell or to Crumlin and points between there and Ballymun. Housing schemes attracted workers from all parts and they remained, closely followed by merchants, traders, professionals, the lot.
Most of them have to travel to and fro resulting, as O'Casey put it, in a state of chassis, chassis to chassis. At any hour, pique or volley, there can be scores of vehicles outside my gate, held up by a complex of traffic lights, their occupants being choked and throttled by my cigarette smoke!
Yours, etc.,
Bird Avenue,
Dublin 14.