Sir, - Kevin Myers has written some fine things, so that one feels sad when he descends to mocking, as he did at T na G and Michael D. Higgins.
Language teachers know the astonishing effect of French or German TV in improving comprehension and fluency of students, because of the visual cues, interest holding storylines and colloquial dialogue. There are those like myself, with poor Irish, who had longed for Irish language television for just those reasons. We now view it avidly, and my friends and I are already experiencing remarkable improvement in our Irish. I believe there are others like us, and we are just one further category of those who benefit from T na G.
Ireland owes much to Michael D. Higgins. To mention just two matters, the ancestral language and the Irish film industry - where his predecessors timidity, rigidity or stupidity had almost killed hope. Higgins dreamed dreams and said: why not?
History will more likely remember what Higgins wrought than what Myers wrote. And Myers might well recall the poet's warning against "the witty man and his joke, aimed at the commonest ear". - Yours, etc.,
Belgard,
Dublin 24.