Madam, - So the last international international match has been played at the oldest international rugby ground of them all, Lansdowne Road. As the islanders, both Irish and Pacific, departed the field of play on Sunday, the crowd began an impromptu rendition of The Fields of Athenry, singing it softly and reverently as a funeral hymn to the ground we knew and loved so well. It was a lovely and lasting moment, fit to send off any old friend - but it was destroyed by the PA announcer's decision to blast it out of existence with a banal stream of "interesting" facts about the stadium.
This attempt to educate the masses, public spirited though it undoubtedly was, could and should have waited. Our old friend deserved better. - Yours, etc,
Yours, etc,
A.P. McGEADY, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.
Madam, - As the last surviving son of the founder of the Lansdowne Road Sports Ground, I wish to place it on record that my father's name was Henry Wallace Doveton Dunlop and not Henry William Dunlop as was stated in Saturday's Sports section.
Wallace is a family name which reflects the fact that my father was descended from William Wallace, the Scottish patriot. - Yours, etc,
ERIC W. DUNLOP, Woodside Drive, Dublin 14.