Here is this week’s People’s Letters Page…
A chara,
I can assure Tony Sheehan (Letters, 22/12/21) that The Cobblestone Pub is not only well known but well visited by tens of thousands of people from Dublin and worldwide over many years.
It is indeed a centre of Irish music and culture as Tony correctly quoted me.
That was shown by the huge support for the campaign to save it which was vindicated by the recent decision of Dublin City Council planners to refuse permission for a hotel development that would destroy The Cobblestone.
A similar long-running campaign to save the Moore Street battlefield site is ongoing and deserves full public support.
Is mise
Cllr Janice Boylan
Sinn Féin
North-West Inner City.
Dear Editor,
Why didn’t the government spend the two weeks of the Christmas Holidays making sure that our schools could safely reopen?
They should have ensured that every class had a HEPA filter, they should have made free antigen tests available to schools so parents could monitor their children.
They could have rolled out a vacination programme for school children.
These things were very doable but obviously beyond the capabilities of our government.
Yours etc,
Kevin Murray,
Tallaght
Dear Editor,
As most of us celebrated Christmas, life was far from fun for the hares and foxes that grace our winter wonderland.
Hunts were out in force to chase those wild dogs of the countryside.
For all its famed craftiness, the wily creature can only hold off a pack of baying hounds for so long.
And then, if caught, it has the skin ripped off its bones.
An ugly spectacle to some of us but to others a perfect display of equestrianism.
Coursing clubs were in action too, and the gentlest animal in Ireland, one of our few truly native species, was harassed for human amusement.
It has been said that the cry of a distressed hare is similar to that of the mythical Banshee.
It can pierce the brain or tear at the heartstrings.
Unfortunately, a significant number of humans are unmoved by the sight of this animal being struck by dogs, or having its bones crushed, or being tossed into the air like a sloither on a hurling pitch.
Political moves to protect wildlife are in the pipeline, but will they succeed?
In the New Year, a Bill to ban hare coursing will come before the Dail.
A government that contains the Green Party will have to decide whether to back the Bill. I hope the Greens will take a principled stand on this occasion and vote for the Bill, even if this entails defying the government whip.
The Greens have suffered a lot, credibility-wise, as a result of having to compromise on a range of issues that they had declared to be of paramount importance. However, for the Greens to oppose the abolition of hare coursing would be on a par with them saying “yes” to Climate Change, or expressing support for the Hole in the Ozone Layer. It would amount to a betrayal of fundamental principles as it would go against the very essence of what it means to be Green.
2022 could be the year when the Irish Greens prove that they not just a very light shade of that colour. By backing a ban on hare coursing they would recover much of the ground they’ve lost by conceding so much to their conservative coalition partners.
More importantly, they’d be standing up for their true values and helping to end the plight of our persecuted Irish Hare, an animal whose only “crime” was to have been born in a country that permits blood sports.
Thanking you,
John Fitzgerald
Dear Editor,
To all those people: Doing ‘dry January’, taking up running 5k/10k/marathons for 2022, taking up ‘sea swimming’, going vegan, the ‘New Year New Me’ types…nobody cares!
Seriously.
Nobody gives a rats behind about what you’re planning to do, how you’re going to be ‘the best version of myself’ etc.
Please do us all a favour and keep your nonsense to yourself this year because as I said, nobody cares!
This constant need for attention and narcissistic craving for praise is a truly horrible character trait.
If one has a New Years resolution go and do it for the positive effect it will have on your life or the lives of others.
Stop doing things for attention or because you think it will make people admire you.
We’re all going through a tough time at the moment, the last thing most of us want to see or hear is some smug person showing off how brilliant they are.
Or how brilliant they think they are.
This year why not keep your nonsense to yourself because the rest of us don’t care.
Yours sincerely,
James Carney, Cabra