Sir, – Without in any way wishing to “rain on the parade” of the 1,693 Irish dancers who hoofed it for a new world record along the river Liffey on Sunday (Home News, July 22nd), was there not just some potential risk involved in large numbers of feet thumping in unison on the Samuel Beckett Bridge? There is a phenomenon called resonance frequency that can cause a bridge to collapse in certain situations. Soldiers throughout the world, including Ireland, are invariably ordered to break step while marching across bridges, precisely for the above reason.
One assumes that Dublin City Council engineers were consulted and gave approval for the mega-dance on the Samuel Beckett Bridge, said by your reporter, Christopher McKinley, to have begun “to bounce like a trampoline” when the dancing got going. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK JUDGE,
Rochestown Avenue
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.