Madam, - Unlike Valerie Cox of RTÉ radio, I read the whole of Kevin Myers's pungent piece about ragwort (An Irishman's Diary August 4th) and actually reached the paragraph in which he recanted his spoof remark about shooting a corncrake.
Once again, Mr Myers has put his finger on a serious problem. The countrywide epidemic of ragwort may result in the death of agriculture in this country.
Back in the 1930s and 1940s the word ragwort was as naughty as sex; it was absolutely forbidden to have either of them. There were fógraí all over the place, reminding the backsliders of their duty with respect to ragwort. Those found with it on their property were fined heavily.
At my school we used to have scavenging parties to tear up ragwort and compost it. My father, the warden of St Columba's College, had a special small grubbing-spade on the end of his walking-stick, which he used on his walks to uproot the weed.
In fact, about the only Irish words my father knew were buachalán buí, which Mr de Valera taught him on one of his visits to the college. Many years later, after my father had left Ireland, he met Dev again. The latter asked my father whether he remembered the Irish for ragwort, and my father was glad to trot out his cúpla focal.
Even today, more than 60 years later, I feel the urge to tear out ragwort when I see it. It utterly amazes me that no one seems to care about this fizzing time-bomb. - Yours, etc,
DAVID SOWBY, Knocksinna Crescent, Dublin 18.