Sir - As a patron of the Pushkin Prizes, I was dismayed to read that the Duchess of Abercorn was forced to cancel her visit to St Mary's Primary School in Pomeroy because of pre-emptive action by one councillor who feels free to speak for "a nationalist school" and "a Catholic school".
I regret the interference with the school principal's prerogative: it is a disturbing development. Sacha Abercorn has been a passionate advocate of the value of creative writing in primary education, and for the past 12 years has been the inspiration for a cross-community, cross-border movement that has been its own reward, artistic and educational, for everybody involved.
It is a poor look-out not only for nationalists and Catholics, but for people of every party and every denomination, if the enlightened work done by children, teachers, inspectors and trustees under the aegis of the Pushkin Prizes can be so crudely demeaned - Yours etc.,
Seamus Heaney, Strand Road, Dublin 4.