Sir, – In an interview with Sylvia Thompson ("Kilmacurragh Arboretum: Ireland's secret garden", March 7th) Megan O'Beirne, author of a recent book on Kilmacurragh, the Co Wicklow home of the Acton family, refers to the family's "arrogance". The piece says the author was "disturbed" by the family's "disconnectedness from the suffering of the Famine".
It would be difficult to be more unjust to William Acton (1789-1854), MP for Wicklow, who in 1843 said in the House of Commons that he was “anxious to rescue the unfortunate and destitute hundreds and thousands of his fellow countrymen”. Acton was the chairman of the Rathdrum Poor Law Union; he was hailed as “the Friend of the Poor” – hardly arrogant or disconnected.
In 1822 and 1845 during periods of famine he had walls and ditches made on his estate, and extensions built to his house, in order to give employment to local people and to refugees from the west of Ireland. The family diary of the time gives specific evidence of this work and comments that “absentee landlords made it worse spending their money in London instead of Ireland”. The Actons were distinguished from many of their neighbours in that they were consistently resident on their estate, and enjoyed good relations with their tenants.
Ms O'Beirne is aware of these facts, since she enthusiastically read my book Charles: the Life and World of Charles Acton, and quotes extensively from it in her own. – Yours, etc,
RICHARD PINE,
Perithia,
Corfu, Greece.