Sir, - My wife and I are here on an extended visit from America. Iread your Editorial "Crime and the Election" (May 4th) while waitingfor the 9.18 p.m. DART to depart from Connolly Station last Saturdaynight. The piece left me bemused. Crime in Ireland: an authentic issueor an electoral concoction?
At Pearse Station a drunken young man hurled himself over the seatacross from us. By Lansdowne Road he was face-first in the aisle. Wemoved.
Worse luck. Around Dun Laoghaire, two lager-swilling, chain-smoking,obscenity-spewing young louts sprawled on the seats across the aisle.
A bizarre dialogue ensued. An unseen conductor's amplified voicedemanded that the No Smoking rules be obeyed. Predictably, the boysscreamed filthy rejoinders, accompanied by much spitting andash-flicking, inches from me.
That particular torment ceased around Dalkey. In its stead we weregraced by the company of Eric, so identified in the course of apathological mobile phone rant. Eric, it seems, knew who stole hisbike. On Tuesday morning Eric planned to kill him. Variations on thistheme were screamed all the way to Greystones, when my terrified wifeand I were at last released from this DART purgatory.
No crime was committed during that hour-and-fifteen-minute ordeal.But somehow we felt like victims. In 15 years of enduring the subwaysof New York City, I never was so happy to get off a train. I say thatnot with self-righteousness, but with sorrow. I love Ireland. Safejourney. - Yours, etc.,
Kilbride,
Dunganstown,
Co Wicklow.
P.S. It is now 5 p.m. on Monday May 6th. Within the past twohours in the car park of Ballygannon Woods near Rathdrum, someone brokeinto the locked boot of our rented car and stole my wife's purse.We arenow officially victims, and the point is taken: Crime in Ireland isindeed an authentic issue.