Madam, - I have just read, with a sense of disbelief, Trevor White's review of the Crawford Gallery Café in your weekend magazine. The café is run by members of the Allen family of Ballymaloe fame. The same subjects also enjoy a very nice half-page spread on a previous page of the same issue which is written by a different journalist. Both articles are included in the food section of the magazine.
Trevor White, however, seems to have another agenda. He has managed to introduce the unsavoury subject of a certain family member's "mistakes", as he puts it. The media are perceived as being unable to "separate the mistakes of one man from the achievements of his family" and if they were to do so, then it would be the "intelligent" decision to make.
The fact that the word "mistakes" is deemed suitable to describe behaviour which aids and abets the spread of child abuse really says it all about this ill-considered, sycophantic piece of journalism.
To even broach such a subject in a food review is not "intelligent", but stupid and grotesquely offensive. - Yours, etc.,
HELEN POMPHREY, Lower Albert Road, Sandycove, Co Dublin.