Sir, - Walking towards central Dublin to view the St Patrick's Day parade, we commented on the cheerful sound of the pealing bells in the air. We have always loved living within earshot of Christ Church and St Patrick's Cathedral bells.
We took our favourite vantage point across the road from St Patrick's shortly after 11 a.m. and wondered at the poor communications that left our Army No. 1 Band, stationed there to play to the crowd beforehand and to escort the official colour party opening the parade, being totally defeated in the decibel stakes by a non-stop mechanical carillon of bells from the cathedral. We watched the clock in the tower, confidently expecting the deafening peals to stop at noon when the parade began.
Back home at 2.30 p.m., the ringing of St Patrick's Cathedral's bells could still be heard, their incessant noise having ruined for us what will long be recalled as Dublin's biggest and best parade on the sunniest St Patrick's Day for a generation.
They had travelled, many of them, a long way. They got up very early to put on their best uniforms and assemble on time. They came from Colorado and Clondalkin, Fingal and Florida, and streamed past us playing a great variety of shining instruments. The occasional drumbeat could just be felt, but no tune was identifiable from our Garda Band, our Army Band, or from the many, varied and most welcome bands from communities near and far who marched through Patrick Street today, inaudibly playing their hearts out.
I fail to understand the cathedral's decision to leave its bell-ringing mechanism running throughout the entire parade, but the Dean might reflect on the following query overheard from a bystander in the Patrick Street crowd, a small and very frustrated child: "Da, are them church bells doing it for spite?". - Yours, etc., M. Healy-Doyle,
Dublin 8.