Sir, – Eddie Naughton (October 20th) is right to chastise a tour guide's imperfect knowledge of Dublin's cultural landscape.
The fault, however, is not in ignoring the cultural icons surrounding Temple Bar – but in disregarding those within the district itself.
It is not the “70 bars and restaurants” that make Temple Bar a cultural quarter. It is the artists, arts workers and audiences that thread its well-worn cobbles on a daily basis and who weave between the hen and stag parties.
Temple Bar is the Project Arts Centre, the Gallery of Photography, The Ark, the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, the Irish Film Institute and Smock Alley Theatre, the Dublin Theatre Festival, Filmbase, the Dublin Fringe Festival, the Black Church Print Studio, the Pan Pan Theatre and 50 other arts organisations that call the area home. – Yours, etc,
KATE HEFFERNAN,
Dublin 8.