The People’s Letters Page

Here is this week’s People’s Letters Page…

Dear Editor,

We talk of homeless today but the biggest mass evictions in Irish history was the year’s of An Gorta Mor and the decades after but not a word in the NMI or the death’s of over a million just airbrushed out of the NMI.

This story is one of many The Perfect Silence.

A cemetery with victim’s of An Gorta Mor their headstones and honour bulldozed into oblivion in Canada, their memory and history a sad attempt to erase and expunge the history of An Gorta Mor from being marked and told.

As with the article, the purging and suppression by omission of An Gorta Mor from the National Museum of Ireland continues today, the bulldozer of inertia and silence.

33 Governments policy have collectively and strenuously purged any recognition or acknowledgement of The Great Hunger from the NMI since the States foundation.

Who fears to speak of the Holocaust of Humanity their history being told in the NMI.

An exhibition to the victim’s and exiles of The Great Famine in the NMI will lift the century of shame and and abandonment of the innocents, the greatest loss of life in Irish history.

We all have a part to play individually and collectively, the Irish people home and abroad.

Kindest regards,

Michael CCIFV.

Dear Editor,
The planned felling of 24 trees on Griffith Avenue proves once again that it is not only our big, ancient forest trees that are under threat.

Our city trees too, and the green spaces within them, which are home to essential canopies of magnificent trees, many well over 100 years old, are equally threatened.

One of the reasons for urban tree clearing is the policy of insurance companies who want to escape the cost of remedial work on properties with subsidence by blaming it on the root systems of long-established trees nearby.

They demand felling, and the essential green cover and all the beneficial ecosystems are lost for ever.

If the landowner, normally a local authority, is determined to retain its trees then the insurers pursue them for every cost.

Few have sufficient resources.

The insurance industry needs to realise that such a policy not only destroys the irreplaceable mature greenery of our cities, but also contributes to the extreme weather events that are generating more insurance claims.

Yours sincerely,

James Carney, Ashtown,
Dublin 15.

Dear Editor,

The present coalition has referred to itself as one of the most eco-aware governments ever; partly I presume because the Greens are included in the three-party arrangement.

But there‘s nothing green or eco-friendly about the Heritage Minister’s decision to license another season of live hare coursing.

This practise involves the snatching of thousands of wild hares from our countryside by coursing clubs. These timid creatures are held in captivity for weeks prior to being forced to run from dogs, all for a laugh and a gamble.

A percentage of hares used will be mauled or otherwise injured by the muzzled greyhounds.

The hare is a brittle-boned animal and most breakages don’t heal.

And hares that escape seemingly unscathed may die following release back into the wild from stress-related aliments brought on by the unnatural period of captivity and/or the contrived chases within a wired enclosure.

We are the only part of Europe, excepting Iberia; that permits this so-called country sport. In Britain, posters proclaim it to be a serious criminal offence punishable by heavy fines or jail terms. Northern Ireland banned it in 2011.

Animal welfare aside, coursing stands condemned on conservation grounds. The Irish Hare, a sub-species of the Mountain Hare that is unique to Ireland, has been in decline for decades due to loss of habitat resulting from urbanisation and the downside of modern farming.

This threat is compounded by the spectre of the RHD2 virus, which has been present in the Irish countryside for the past two years. It is fatal to hares and rabbits and highly contagious.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has confirmed that the disease can be spread by the use of nets to trap hares, which ought to be a concern given that over seventy coursing clubs engage in this activity.

Yet, the government has given the green light to five more months of hare coursing. A considerable portion of this period will be marked by severe weather conditions, adding to the hare’s plight. Running for its life, it will twist and turn and dodge in mud-caked, ice-covered or water logged fields, or be lashed by the elements.

How anyone, politician or otherwise, purporting to be eco-aware could support such a practise is completely beyond me. It makes an absolute mockery of what the Green movement/ideology supposedly stands for.

One might as well support the pollution of our rivers and lakes, rampant forest fires, or the Hole in the Ozone Layer.

Thanking you,
John Fitzgerald