Sir, - Every year at about this time I paddle the Liffey Descent canoe race. Every day I buy The Irish Times. Hence every year I look forward, on the Monday morning after, to checking the level of coverage of the former in the pages of the latter. Imagine, therefore, my excitement this year, as I entered the newsagents, to spot paddles and paddlers galore, in full colour, on the front page, in pole position, above the fold, beckoning from the shelves.
Imagine also, if you will, the crushing disappointment of reading the caption. No parochialism here. The photograph, neither the point nor inherent merit of which was at first (or since, for that matter) apparent, was of Hungarian paddlers, somewhere in Eastern Europe, on anonymous, flat water, apparently taken after the completion of some obscure race.
What has Irish canoeing ever done to The Irish Times that any canoeing photo, snapped anywhere in the world other than the River Liffey, on that of all days, should be thus displayed with such prominence? - Yours, etc., David Walsh,
Annesley Park, Dublin 6.