TERENCE REEVES-SMYTH,
Madam, - I noted with some bemusement the statement by Kildare County Council's spokesman, A.C. Talbot (October 3rd), that "Kildare County Council has always respected the historical and architectural aspects of Carton". It seems to me that this is a bit like the ESB saying it has always valued the architecture of Georgian Dublin.
I hardly think that anyone at this stage needs reminding that Carton is currently the focus of a massive, ongoing development, involving two large American-style golf courses and hundreds of houses being built through its pleasure grounds, parkland and woodlands. Whereas all other North European countries make great efforts to safeguard their most important designed landscapes, Kildare County Council took it upon itself to both approve and actively encourage this wholesale destruction of Ireland's most important 18th-century landscape. If this is what Kildare County Council means by "respect" for its historical and cultural heritage, then God help Co Kildare. - Yours, etc.,
TERENCE REEVES-SMYTH, Gleno Village, Co Antrim.