Sir, – Donald Clarke’s article (“Clubs where women aren’t welcome to join”, March 29th) is fine as far as it goes, but this subject has been discussed so many times before and one of the points clearly established is that both men and women are entitled to join clubs catering for their own sexes (and indeed do so). When Mr Clarke attacks men-only clubs as “reactionary” but ignores women-only clubs (of whose existence he must also surely be aware) he just ends up sounding reactionary himself.
As Mr Justice O’Higgins famously said in the course of the High Court case involving Portmarnock Golf Club in 2005: “it is permissible to have – exclusively – a bridge club for Bulgarians, a chess club for Catholics, a wine club for women and a golf club for gentlemen”. Perhaps it is Mr Clarke rather than the clubs who needs to be dragged “kicking and screaming into the 19th century”? Yours, etc,
WILLIAM MONGEY,
Ard Haven,
Waterford