Sir, – I believe that Caroline Morse of the Huffington Post website (report, April 17th), and the many Irish commentators in agreement with her, are only thinking about Temple Bar Square rather than the entire Temple Bar area.
Temple Bar Square is certainly guilty of being a ripoff tourist trap, but the wider area of Temple Bar is still not without character. Meeting House Square, the outdoor room complete with foldaway stage and cinema screen, is a marvelous piece of urban planning, and has a fantastic Saturday food market.
Temple Bar Square aside, you cannot throw a stone without hitting some sort of cultural institution, all of which create a vibe in the area that is not centred around binge drinking.
I must concede to Ms Morse, however, that any tourists who are here to sample our famous pub culture will have a more authentic experience in almost any other part of this island. Yours, etc,
DARREN KELLY,
Racehill,
Ashbourne,
Co Meath
Sir – Temple Bar is accurately described by Frank McDonald as a collection of sordid gin palaces connected by vomit-carpeted streets, shoe box apartments ill-suited to any sort of stable human habitation, and the constant screech of amplified oirish muzak; the creation of all of which has been facilitated by the transfer of large sums of public money to private individuals. But come on Frank, what planet are you living on? Far from being a failure, such a development is, in an Irish context, a howling success. Yours, etc,
ALAN O’BRIEN,
Barnhill Avenue,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin