Sir, – Your article detailing the wonderful work done by Dublin’s lamplighters brought to mind two events separated by a thousand years (Dominique Farrell and Kathleen Harris, “Phoenix Park lamplighters keep flame alight for dying tradition”, October 4th).
The more recent was the young Robert Louis Stevenson, gazing out of his bedroom window at dusk, indifferent to his nanny’s exhortations to go to bed.
Looking over his shoulder, she saw a lamplighter making his way down the dark street.
Robert looked up to her and said, “Look at that man. He’s punching holes in the darkness!’”
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The second was a ninth-century Irish monk, illuminating the Reichenau Primer on the shores of Lake Constance, but scribbling in its margin a poem to his beloved cat, Pangur Bán.
It concludes, “Practice every day, makes us perfect in our trade. We get wisdom day and night, turning darkness into light.” – Yours, etc,
Prof BARRY KELLY,
Carrigart,
Co Donegal.
