Madam, - Frank McNally's Irishman's Diary of December 1st had me laughing as I munched my muesli. Indeed, I was still laughing as I pulled my goloshes on over my sandals and jumped on my bicycle.
Your excellent Diarist brought us on an hilarious "tour" of the history of Irish aviation. However there was one glaring omission - the father of Irish aviation, Richard Crosbie, who created a sensation and drew a huge crowd when he made the first flight by an Irishman on January 19th, 1785, taking off from the Ranelagh Gardens and landing in Clontarf.
I quote from Deirdre Kelly's book Four Roads to Dublin: "Resplendently dressed in white quilted satin lined with fur, an oiled silk loose-coat, lined with the same, red Morocco leather boots and a superb cap of leopard skin, Crosbie stepped into his balloon. The balloon was beautifully ornamented with paintings of Minerva and Mercury supporting the Arms of Ireland and emblematic figures of the winds. He took off to the cheers of at least 20,000 spectators. . ."
Frank McNally mentions plans to commemorate The flight of one Feliksas Vaitkus,a Lithuanian who crash-landed his plane in the plains of Mayo in 1934 and thus became the sixth pilot to cross the Atlantic.
Now if this brave Lithuanian is to be commemorated in Mayo, won't the shame be all the more on the city of Dublin that the great Crosbie and his magnificent achievement is not commemorated at or near where his extraordinary flight took place.
Surely it is time for Dublin City Council, perhaps in conjunction with one of our new aviation moguls, to take suitable action. - Yours, etc,
TERRY CONNAUGHTON,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.