Sir, - Re your Midlands Report by Sean MacConnell (June 4th) we would be grateful if, through your columns, we could also praise the enterprise and energy of those in Athy who so successfully converted the old Town Hall and Fire Station into such a splendid Heritage Centre.
We were honoured to be invited to participate in its opening by launching our publication of the history of the Leinster Regiment, part of our series of histories of The Disbanded Irish Regiments of the British Army. In this we were even more honoured by the attendance of relatives of Kildare men of The Leinsters, several of whom travelled from England and Scotland for the occasion.
The nephew of John Holland VC, came and the son of Private Peter Reid donated his father's Military Medal to the Centre. We, as military history publishers, are delighted that the memory of all the men of Ireland who fought and died in the terrible war of 1914-18 is being preserved in various ways and places nowadays, and we see that as part of reconciliation. Our national view of history is becoming mature enough to allow us to look at it from more than one narrow angle and if this maturity, embodied in heritage centres such as the Athy one, prevails, it can only be good for us as a nation. - Yours, etc. John O'Connell,[Qr] Barbara O'Connell, Schull Books,
Ballydehob, Co Cork.