Sir, - As a long time resident of Clondalkin, I would like to use your columns to make a point in defence of the good name of the area, which has been getting a lot of bad press in recent times.
A well known radio presenter recently was searching for a word to describe despair, and asked: "How could the youth off Clondalkin have hope when they know there is nothing there for them?" Your columnist, John Waters, was also recently searching for words on a radio programme to indicate hopelessness and despair, and again Clondalkin was mentioned.
Thoughtless remarks like these only serve to stigmatise a very large area of Dublin where there are many thousands of people, working and unemployed, who are striving to better their area. The people of Foxrock would undoubtedly object strenuously if their area was constantly identified with fraud, tax evasion or wife beating. Clondalkin is no more synonymous with despair than Foxrock is synonymous with embezzlement.
Clondalkin is still our lovely village and it is hard to hear an area, of which so many people are so fond, being rubbished so publicly. - Yours, etc.,
Tower Nursing Home,
Cappaghmore,
Clondalkin,
Dublin 22.