Sir, - Nuala O'Faolain's writing is usually characterised by its originality but her column in the Saturday's Magazine of May 12th was an example of the "Taisce-speak" which we hear too frequently.
Surely I can't be the only city dweller who applauds the many fine houses that are being built in rural areas (I exclude from my praise those ghastly tax-incentive holiday schemes). It cannot be a bad thing that sons and daughters of farmers can now rear their children close to the family and the land in which they are rooted, rather than in Dublin or Birmingham.
These new households are the backbone of community (the lack of which in the US was so recently decried by Ms O'Faolain). They ensure that schools and post offices remain open; they make up the membership of sports clubs, dramatic societies and voluntary organisations. Preserve us from going the way of Britain, where much of the land is in the hands of multinational corporations and absentee landlords who have no wish to see their vast acres populated. There, local communities have been decimated, the suicide rate among the few farmers left has grown to epidemic proportions and farming is no longer a vocation but a business - an attitude that played no small part in the foot-and-mouth outbreak. In Ireland we have been lucky that legislation over the past century and, more recently, the REPS scheme, have ensured that holdings remain relatively small and in private hands.
Let us hear more of the voice of the ordinary country dweller and less from An Taisce, whose motivation frequently seems to be the preservation of its members' traditional way of life - residence in nice Georgian piles, with compliant staff housed in (small) tastefully restored gate lodges, while the croppies huddle in damp conditions behind the ditch or emigrate to some suitably far-flung region.
If Nuala O'Faolain wishes to campaign on behalf of the countryside, rather than decrying much of what is good, she might try to have something done about public transport and the roads which have been modified to facilitate rapid transport of ever-bigger vehicles to the detriment (and often the death) of cyclists and pedestrians. - Yours, etc.,
Rose Mary Logue, Woodley Park, Dundrum, Dublin 14.