Sir, – I would like to thank Eric Dempsey, and Dublin City Council staff who installed nest boxes for swifts on the roof of the Civic Offices (Environment, June 8th). As Mr Dempsey points out, the swift is part of the city’s heritage.
In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus watches birds from the steps of the National Library: "They flew round and round the jutting shoulder of a house in Molesworth Street". He wonders if they are swallows. Although Joyce sets the scene on a March evening, his vivid and lyrical description of the birds' flight and calls is of the swift, which arrives in May. – Yours, etc,
JOHN MURPHY,
Iona Park,
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Glasnevin,
Dublin 9.