Sir, – As a collector of John Hinde’s Irish postcards of the 1960s, I was sorry to learn of the death of Paddy “Red” Lydon who, with his sister, featured on the iconic card, Collecting Turf from the Bog in Connemara (Front page, April 12th).
When it was first produced, Hinde said there was a certain resistance to that kind of image of Ireland. In the brochure Hindesight, published to accompany the Imma exhibition in 1993, he said that Bord Fáilte discouraged the use of pictures of cottages or donkeys because the government regarded them as symbols of a backward country. They wanted pictures of skyscrapers! Plus plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose . – Yours, etc,
CHRISTIE COLHOUN,
Cennick Grove, Gracehill,
Ballymena, Co Antrim.