Fridge

22 March 2014 Fridge

I go all the way around the park listening to the Navy Lark. Our heroes are in trouble, again.They have to deliver an ambassdor, can they find the rght country? Priceless

Cold slightly better order undercounter fridge

Scrabbletoday Marywins, just,and gets under400, Perhaps Iwill win tomorrow.

 

Obituary:

 

Bob Millard, who has died aged 91, was a teenager in the Home Guard in 1940 when he was approached by a friend and asked if he wanted to join “something a bit more interesting”; the “something” was a secret group, the British Resistance Organisation, also known as the Auxiliary Units, composed of civilian saboteurs who would go into hiding and carry out guerrilla operations behind the lines in the event of a German invasion.

Gubbins selected a dozen regular Army intelligence officers to recruit local men, many from the Home Guard and many with an intimate knowledge of their local areas (gamekeepers and poachers were said to be particularly popular recruits), and turn them into ruthless killers. “They should be solid chaps who are not likely to lose their heads under the sort of pressures that occupation brings,” one officer wrote of the character that was required, “quite ordinary types in normal, everyday jobs”.

Millard was one of thousands who signed up. “I said yes and they asked me all sorts of questions and then a week later I was contacted and told: ‘You can join.’ I had to sign the Official Secrets Act before being told we were to go underground and come up behind enemy lines in the event of an invasion…It was not whether there was going to be an invasion, but when it was going to come.”

Gubbins established his new HQ at Coleshill House, a stately home in Wiltshire, where recruits were trained in the dark arts of sabotage, stealth and silent killing. “We were trained in how to set up a charge, the best place to blow a railway line, how to tackle a sentry with a knife or garrotte — how to move around quietly at night,” Millard recalled.

After training he was issued with explosives, weapons and vital supplies and returned to a “normal” civilian life. In the event of an invasion, however, as a member of the Bathhampton Patrol, he was to report to his unit’s operational base (OB) in an 18th-century stone mine near Bath. This was one of hundreds of hideouts around the country, many of them dug out in woodland in the dead of night so that no one would know they were there. The OBs were so well hidden that many remain undiscovered to this day.

Millard’s patrol would regularly practise what they had been taught at Coleshill and also identified possible targets to attack in the event of a German invasion (including the main London to Bristol railway line and Claverton Manor – a local country house deemed a likely candidate for a German HQ). On one occasion the patrol staged a practice night attack on the airfield at Colerne to test their skills as well as the defences of the RAF unit guarding the airfield. During the exercise the patrol’s sergeant was taken captive, only to be “rescued” by Millard and other members of the patrol. They also captured a captain and flight sergeant and placed dummy explosives on the target planes before getting away.

Men in the Auxiliary Units were expected to last for about two weeks before they were either captured or killed. Though Millard was never given this depressing prognosis, he knew that the reality of invasion would have been brutal. Auxiliers, as they were known, were expected to ignore German reprisals among people in their own localities and were instructed never to be taken alive: “We were told at Coleshill that if a colleague was badly wounded he was to be shot. It was made clear if you were captured you would be executed — but before that you’d be tortured,” he recalled. “The story was that some patrols were given suicide pills because you weren’t to be caught.” Millard felt “apprehensive” but not scared. “There was a job that needed doing so you volunteered to do it,” he said. “You didn’t think much more deeply about it.”

By the middle of 1941 Hitler had turned his attention to the Soviet Union and the immediate threat to Britain had passed. However the Auxiliary Units were kept in place until November 1944, when they were stood down.

Millard received a letter of thanks at the end of the war and a small lapel badge, but for the next 50 years no one knew about the Auxiliary Units. Millard had sworn an oath of secrecy and even his wife was unaware of his involvement. “You just didn’t talk about it, really,” he said. “As far as my family were aware I was still in the Home Guard. It was all very hush, hush. After the war, it was water under the bridge.”

It was not until 1994, when a reunion was held to mark the 50th anniversary of the stand-down of the Auxiliary Units — and the end of the 50-year silence decreed by the Official Secrets Act – that Millard himself became aware of just how substantial the organisation had been. One of his fellow guests was a man with whom he had played rugby in 1941, neither being aware that the other was an Auxilier. He was also surprised to discover that, in addition to his own unit, there had been 10 other patrols around Bath alone.

In later years Millard was instrumental in helping to found the Coleshill Auxiliary Research Team (CART), a group of volunteers that has been uncovering the story of Britain’s Resistance Army and which has unearthed the remains of many of the underground bunkers from which Millard and his comrades would have launched their clandestine raids on the enemy.

He became the principal spokesman for CART, helping to educate the public, and in 2012 he opened a replica operational base at Coleshill House, cutting the ribbon with a Fairburns Sykes knife – the main assassination weapon issued to the units.

CART’s campaign for members of the Auxiliary Units to be included in the Remembrance Day march was crowned with success last year when former members were invited to participate in the Cenotaph ceremony. Sadly Millard was too ill to attend.

Robert Millard was born in Bath on New Year’s Day 1923 and educated at the City of Bath Boys’ School. After leaving school in July 1940 he became a student teacher and joined the Local Defence Volunteers (the Home Guard).

By 1942 the immediate threat of invasion had diminished and members of Millard’s Auxiliary Unit were allowed to volunteer for other services. Millard joined the Fleet Air Arm as aircrew and was subsequently involved in anti-submarine patrols and attacks on Tirpitz off Norway, eventually serving with the British Pacific Fleet. In September 1945 he was aboard Formidable when the aircraft carrier survived several kamikaze attacks while supporting the landings on Okinawa. He became a member of the “Goldfish Club”(with bar) having survived going down “in the drink” in an aircraft on two occasions, in May and November 1944.

After demob, Millard trained as a teacher at Loughborough Training College and joined the staff at City of Bath Technical College. In 1953 he returned to Loughborough Training College as a teacher and remained there for the rest of his working life, becoming head of the department of creative design at what is now Loughborough University. During his time there he ran the college British Sub Aqua Club and became a National Diving Instructor.

Bob Millard married Josephine Bond in 1946. She died in September last year and he is survived by their son and daughter.

Bob Millard, born January 1 1923, died March 15 2014

 

 

Guardian:

 

 

 

 

 

Donald Braben and others ask for suggestions on how to support and encourage “maverick” scientists to pursue open-ended research (Letters, 19 March). One way is to encourage scientists to move from one institution to another, so they do not become set in the orthodox thinking of one particular group of peers. In former years, the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 used to award research fellowships to applicants intending to pursue research in any institution in the Commonwealth other than the one he/she currently worked in; and, most unusually and importantly, did not require applicants to submit any research proposal. On arriving at their chosen institution, they could pursue any project they liked. This is the kind of support mavericks need. Sadly, the 1851 Commission nowadays requires applicants to submit a research proposal, in line with the practice of other funding bodies. They – and other funding bodies – should rethink this conservative and risk-averse policy.
Rupert Lee (former 1851 research fellow)
Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire

• Quoting Richard Feynman, “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”, Donald Braben and colleagues invite Guardian readers to suggest ways in which scientific mavericks could prosper again. I am reminded of the story told by Milton Friedman about his erstwhile colleague, the maverick Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard: “When Szilard applied for grants he always proposed to do experiments that he had in fact already done, so that he could use the money for research whose outcome he could not predict. The system worked perfectly until one year his application was rejected on the grounds that the proposed experiment was impossible.”Rather than relying on this kind of subterfuge, we need at least a modest funding stream where the sole criterion for future funding is, overtly, the quality and originality of the applicant’s recent past research. In this way, top research would be rewarded by giving successful applicants the freedom to find their own new blue skies. In science, as in other walks of life, one of the best predictors of future success is past success.
PN Pusey
Malvern, Worcestershire

• The scientists advocating that more of their colleagues should become mavericks forgot to mention that their lives will inevitably suffer if they take this approach. For example, the careers of notable modern heretics like Peter Duesberg (HIV is not the cause of Aids), Arpad Pusztai (GM foods can be dangerous), Jacques Benveniste (memory of water) all suffered dramatically under the weight of attacks by the science establishment. It is also often said that Sir Fred Hoyle was denied a Nobel prize because of his support for the idea that life comes from space and for maintaining that the chemical origin of life is a statistical impossibility. Heretics may expect protection from other academics, but this is rarely forthcoming; as the saying goes “academic freedom is there to protect academics from their colleagues”. As for peer review, it is designed to prevent paradigm shifts. Where would Darwin have been had his famous (and unrefereed) book been peer-reviewed by the likes of arch anti-evolutionist Richard Owen?
Professor Milton Wainwright
Sheffield

• Like the Ancient Greeks, the maverick philosopher Hegel used dialectics to distinguish physics from metaphysics, and right political authority from not-right political authority. Like the Ancient Greeks, Hegel regarded enlightenment as people using physics to extend their understanding of the world beyond their natural horizons, to include abstract people – future humankind. Like the Ancient Greeks, Hegel recognised that “all power corrupts”. Like the Ancient Greeks, Hegel developed dialectics to repudiate the tendency of political authority to become self-validating and alienated from the rest of the population.

Hegel’s method for mitigating the tendency of political authority to become self-validating and alienated was for maverick philosophers to teach the rest of the population to critique all political authority according to whether it meets the needs of future humankind. Hegel, like the Ancient Greeks, regarded the rest of nature as unchanged by the course of history. Maverick philosopher Feuerbach recognised that, unlike other animals, humans deliberately change the rest of nature, because that is how they cultivate themselves – by deliberately cultivating their habitats. Prompted by Feuerbach, Marx and Engels famously “turned Hegel on his head, or rather his feet”. The Marxist method for mitigating the tendency of political authority to become self-validating and alienated is for maverick philosophers and scientists to teach the rest of the population to critique all political authority according to whether it cultivates humankind and the rest of nature.
Steve Ballard
London

 

 

Independent:

 

 

Times:

Sir, The Chancellor’s pensions revolution will allow people to get their hands on their own money and do with it as they choose. This is in touch with traditional Tory values of individual freedom and certain to be extremely popular electorally. The notion that people sensible enough to save for their retirement are hardly likely to blow the lot in the first couple of years is persuasive.

However, no one knows how long they are going to live. Doubtless these newly enriched people will invest their money wisely to partly fund their retirement but this will only take them so far. The question is how quickly to run down their capital — a conundrum which the maligned annuity neatly addressed. Those dying early in retirement tended to fund those who just went on and on, with the insurance company absorbing any imbalance.

Under the new arrangements, it is the next generation who will benefit when early leavers pass on the residue of their lump sum to their families, but the State will have to pick up the tab for the ones more inclined to linger. The equilibrium currently managed by the insurance companies will no longer prevail. What might seem like an excellent vote-winning idea today may look less appealing in 20 or 30 years.

John Stone

Elton, Matlock

Sir, It is suggested that people may cash in their pension funds, squander the money and then claim benefits. They should know about the Deliberate Deprivation of Assets rule. They may find that they are still treated as having the capital they have squandered, and that they are not entitled to those benefits.

D. M. Milstone

Northwood, Middx

Sir, I wonder whether there is another reason for the pension reforms. Care costs continue to rise as our population ages. Will giving pensioners direct control of their funds enable councils to consider these assets as “realisable” when determining an individual’s ability to pay for retirement care?

Alun Marriott

Tudeley, Kent

Sir, All this hot air about pensioners blowing their pensions on fast cars, holiday homes and helping their children out with house purchase deposits — but the average pension pot is only around £30,000. A budget idea for the better off?

P. D. Cocks

Horns Cross, Devon

Sir, The pension changes may, ironically, hit young people hard.

Letting the over-55s raid their pension pots means that some will squander their assets and eventually fall back on the state, increasing the burden on the younger generation.

On average, people underestimate their life expectancy by almost five years, so individuals are not as well positioned as a third party to decide what to keep aside for their old age.

The freedom to withdraw pension assets means it will now be easy to avoid IHT — a loss to the Treasury and increasing the burden of national debt for future generations.

Many baby-boomers may withdraw pension savings to invest in buy-to-let properties which could well push up prices for first-time buyers and force more of them into renting for their whole lives. These young people, saving for a deposit, won’t have access to the Pensioner Bonds which Mr Osborne is subsidising for the over-65s.

Angus Hanton

Intergenerational Foundation

London SE24

 

 

 

 

Sir, Susan Patton advises women to snap up husbands with their degree certificates (“How to marry well; meet at uni”, Mar 18). The same could be said of men, too. If a man puts off marriage for too long he may have to buy a wife from the Third World or Eastern Europe, which stamps him as a write-off. This is even more likely if he deteriorates physically — many men wear badly as they are not governed by the rigorous beauty industry.

Patton’s book belongs to a US tradition back through Jo Hemmings’ The Little Black Book (2006) and Ellen Fein’s The Rules (1995) to Marabel Morgan’s The Total Woman (1973). The kindest adjective is “quaint”. Let this tradition stay moored on the other side of the Atlantic.

Margaret Brown

Stoke-on-Trent

Sir, My wife and I enjoyed our ruby wedding last weekend, having met and married at Nottingham University. I have always said that I saw my 2:1 degree as a side-benefit.

Dudley George

Alnwick, Northumberland

 

 

 

 

 

Telegraph:

 

SIR – Have other readers noticed how many actors wear their watches on their right wrist?

 

SIR – The British sense of humour is famous around the world. Anyone who has watched Prime Minister’s Questions can see that even our MPs are funny – occasionally intentionally.

 

SIR – The Government wants to micro-manage parents as they raise their children, and qualified school teachers. It tries to micro-manage the entire population’s eating habits and (by over-regulation) most of its lifestyle choices.

 

Irish Times:

 

A chara, – It’s a delight to read Una Mullally’s view of the Irish language (“Irish – A language for all speakers”, Monday March 17th), coming as it does from a fluent urban speaker. She’s absolutely right to note that we need to start looking outside the Gaeltacht if we’re serious about achieving the 250,000 daily speakers sought by the Government by 2030. I fly in the face of conventional wisdom in my belief that this number is very possible, but it can only be done if non-Gaeltacht Irish speakers begin to shoulder the burden that Gaeltacht people have been predominantly carrying since the foundation of the State – using the language at home.

Ms Mullally is right to note that snobbery exists within the language, but should go a little easier on Gaeltacht people. Yes, there is a certain Gaeltacht hostility towards “46A Irish” and the dialect of the urban Gaelscoil, but it is there firstly because of the difficulty Gaeltacht people have speaking Irish with city folk, whose Irish is often a non-fluent schoolroom mishmash, but secondly because there is the whiff of the language hobbyist about many urban speakers. They’re delighted to “come down” to the Gaeltacht and practise their Irish on the natives, but when they go home, it’s back to English again. Native speakers are rightly annoyed by this. City speakers of Irish will earn respect when it becomes clear that they are using Irish as a home language with their children, not just for one-night-a-week hobbyism or for the day job.

When this happens (and I think it will), that 250,000 daily-speaker figure will rapidly become achievable. Is mise,

BRIAN Ó BROIN, PhD

Department of English,

William Paterson

University, New Jersey.

Sir, – Una Mullally rightly notes that the “Irish language is for all, not just for the fluent”. She is very concerned that “snobbery towards Irish is real”. Here in Wales the very same point of view was put forward earlier this year by Karen Owen in the Welsh language weekly newspaper Y Cymro . There was a fierce response – from snobs and non-snobs! – Yours, etc,

CLIVE JAMES,

Cae Gwyn,

Caernarfon, Cymru.

A chara, – Una Mullally’s piece is pertinent, timely and most welcome. It opens a major debate.

The success of the policy of promoting our national language by an overemphasis on the Gaeltacht is open to question. For its size, the Gaeltacht has had disproportionate influence and, it can be argued, has frustrated the wider promotion and development of the language. Is it not time now to turn attention to areas where greater developmental opportunities exist – if only because of greater population density and a broader growing interest in the national tongue?

For the most part the national agencies, notably the Department of the Gaeltacht, TG4 and Radio na Gaeltachta, have been somewhat passive to the need for a more inclusive base. My own representations to TG4 for greater flexibility to satisfy a wider diversity of intonation in its programming, elicited the response that the “integrity” of the language had to be preserved. Not a particularly enlightening response! It may be a little unfair to pick on TG4 given the quality of some of its programmes, but it must not lose sight of the fact that it is “Teilefís na Gaeilge” and not “Teilefís na Gaeltachta”. Its remit extends to all of Ireland.

Snobbery “within” the language, as Ms Mulally points out, is a dilemma; but whether we like it or not a two-tiered edifice is emerging. The summer days going west to challenge the progression of one’s capability in the language is now less easily satisfied. Regrettably, one finds that the fíor Gaeilgeoir is becoming less willing to engage with those of us on lower fluency levels or who lack the blas.

All, however, is not gloom – there have been some very worthwhile developments and initiatives with respect to the language. In the Gaelscoileanna, demand for places across communities outstrips supply, while the emphasis in the Leaving Cert on speaking the language is having a most positive impact. We can now say with some certainty that interest in the language is growing.

So how do we build on this? For those of us in the eastern region, an official recognition of a Leinster dialect, alongside those of Ulster, Connacht and Munster, would certainly be a help. Persuading TG4 to broaden its staffing and commissioning base would facilitate a more inclusive service. Encouraging the promotion of more centres of Irish learning in areas outside the Gaeltacht would give a significant impetus. Assigning the responsibility for the language to the Taoiseach’s department would ensure the necessary leadership. Such actions could readily be taken without any additional cost to the national finances. – Is mise,

PG Ó hEOCHAIDH,

Gleann na Smol,

Blackrock, Co Dublin.

 

Sir, – Vincent Browne’s singling out of an entire sport’s “culture” as private school boorishness is a strange attempt at some form of populist class warfare (“Rugby culture is boorishly patriarchal”, Opinion and Analysis, March 19th). It is strange because, while perfectly entitled to an opinion, I find it very ironic indeed that he deems those who have attended private fee-paying schools to be “posh”, despite having attended a private fee-paying school himself.

This is surely a ground-breaking statement for a contrarian? An instance of “self-contrarianism”? – Yours, etc,

JUSTIN DEEGAN,

Celbridge Road,

Maynooth,

Co Kildare.

Sir, – Gabriel Rosenstock puts his finger in the wound (March 21st). In my Dublin Catholic school, renowned for its rugby, we 10-year-olds practised military drill as an integral part of the curriculum, swinging white batons to signify that we were “officer class”. We had our own parade ground for marching and afterwards it was compulsory rugby on the playing fields of Rathmines. There were beatings for not attending. True to post-colonial type, Ireland was imitating its colonial masters – young Irishmen were being trained in British imperial traditions. This was in the late 1950s, more than 30 years after Ireland theoretically became independent.

The English also gave us that fine, egalitarian game of soccer – ruptured sinews and broken bones indeed, but no ruptured spleens or broken heads. We were not permitted to play soccer, it was for the lower classes only. – Yours, etc,

GERARD MONTAGUE,

Zaumberg,

Immenstadt,

Allgäu, Germany.

Sir, – Vincent Browne on “boorishness“? That’s a good one. – Yours, etc,

MICHAEL HEALY,

Ardagh Park Gardens,

Blackrock, Co Dublin.

Sir, – The suggestion by Denis O’Connor (March 21st), writing from Toronto, that “anyone who encourages a child to play rugby is an eejit”, is rich considering that ice hockey is Canada’s national sport. Hardly a genteel game. – Yours, etc,

BRENDAN O’CONNOR,

Clinstown,

Stamullen, Co Meath.

 

Sir, – Eamonn McCann’s argument for Ireland supporting Russia over Crimea is a classic instance of half-baked facts and rhetorical tricks being deployed to a bad end (“If we have to pick a side over Crimea, let it be Russia,” Opinion & Analysis, March 20th).

Crimeans should have some say over their political destiny, but the referendum held in Crimea last Sunday fell so far short of even “shifting norms of democratic probity” that it has to be dismissed. The vote was in no sense free or fair. The choice put before Crimea’s citizens was not a choice since it contained no option to remain within Ukraine. The vote was rushed forward so that there could be no campaigning against it, held under the auspices of a Crimean government that lacked any legitimacy and that denied meaningful protest against the referendum, and under conditions of a media blackout of Ukrainian news sources. Not surprisingly, many Crimeans boycotted the poll to deny it any legitimacy. Now that Russia has annexed Crimea and fatally wounded its relations with Ukraine, we will never know what Crimeans actually wanted.

Mr McCann is right to note that Russia has grievances with the post-cold war security architecture in Europe. It is, however, hypocritical of him to argue for the right of Crimeans to make decisions about their political and security futures and deny those rights to east Europeans whose countries joined the EU and Nato after 1989. Nato and EU enlargement may not have been well handled diplomatically, with rash promises that there would be no eastward enlargement of Nato made on several occasions by people who had no right to determine the foreign policy orientations of the new east European democracies. But this does not obviate the right of east Europeans to choose to be part of either Nato or the EU, a right that they exercised.

The rhetorical reason that Mr McCann holds east Europeans’ rights in such low regard is to justify Russian fears of further Nato expansion and to link these to Ukraine’s relationship to the EU. But no such relationship exists. Contrary to Mr McCann’s assertion, there is no mention of “Kiev align(ing) forces with Nato” in the agreements that Ukraine was due to sign with the EU last year. There is talk of co-operation in policing, anti-terrorism and other security areas, and of bringing about alignment between Ukrainian policy and the European Common Foreign and Security Policy. This has nothing to do with Nato and, given the state of European foreign and security policy, is not much of a threat to anyone.

The other argument that Mr McCann proposes, that the West is bad so we should ignore the wickedness of others, is so intellectually lazy that I will not dignify it with a response. – Yours, etc.

Prof NEIL ROBINSON,

Department of Politics

and Public Administration,

University of Limerick,

Limerick.

 

A chara, – The Government will move shortly to appoint a new member of the European Commission. As a country, we have, for the most part, appointed effective commissioners over the years who have made significant impacts on their portfolios and in tackling challenges faced by European citizens. For example, current commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn has achieved much success in her science, innovation and research brief.

Yet the debate in Ireland seems to be more about the potential of freeing up a Cabinet spot in a forthcoming reshuffle than about the qualities of the individual that will be appointed to Brussels or the portfolio that the Government should seek.

The appointment should be made on the basis of the person best capable to provide leadership and vision in the portfolio they receive and a willingness to seek Europe-wide solutions, not because of party loyalty or a desire to see somebody off the national pitch.

Given the challenges across Europe, a commissioner with specific responsibility to tackle the social and economic consequences of youth unemployment should be appointed, and Ireland would do well to seek such a post. – Is mise,

MALCOLM BYRNE,

The Chase,

Gorey, Co Wexford.

 

A chara, – On March 20th, we, as a nation, and in spite of years of austerity, cuts and bailing out banks, are one of the happiest in Europe (“Irish rank highly for quality of life in EU, survey finds,” Home News, March 20th).

However, the following day, we learn that as a nation, notwithstanding years of austerity, cuts and bailing out banks, we have some serious issues to do with suicide – most especially among adolescents (“Ireland has ‘exceptionally high rates’ of suicide”, Home News, March 21st). Lies, damned lies and statistics. – Is mise,

MICHAEL NASH,

Assistant Professor

Mental Health Nursing,

School of Nursing

and Midwifery ,

Trinity College Dublin,

Dublin 2.

 

A chara, – Finally, a Government Minister acknowledges the distinguished, not disgusting, service Garda Sgt Maurice McCabe and retired Garda John Wilson have done for the State (“Burton increases pressure on Callinan”, Front Page, March 21st). Personally, I find both Sgt McCabe’s and Mr Wilson’s brave and selfless acts incredibly heroic. I believe both these individuals, at enormous personal costs to themselves, their immediate family and friends, have been wholly vindicated in the entire course of their actions.

However, what I do not understand is why Minister for Justice Alan Shatter, Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan and Taoiseach Enda Kenny find it so impossible to embrace wholeheartedly these honest whistleblowers and apologise for the horrendous treatment both men have received and continue to endure? Surely the sooner an apology is sincerely given to both men, the better for everyone involved. – Is mise,

JASON POWER,

Maxwell Road,

Rathgar,

Dublin 6.

 

Sir, – Recent references to the impact of caring on women’s lives are well made and ultimately reflect the reluctance of the State to really value such care (“Imbalance at the top in third level”, Education, March 18th; Letters, March 20th).

However, universities also have responsibilities to create organisational cultures which are “women friendly”. The impact of such cultures is illustrated by the fact that while roughly one in three of those at professorial level in the University of Limerick are women, the national average is 19 per cent (with NUI Galway having only 13 per cent). Furthermore, the University of Limerick moved from a position where it had no woman at professorial level 15 years ago to one where it now has almost twice the national average. Hence even in the context of less than optimum involvement by the State, change is possible. Universities cannot be allowed to ignore their responsibilities. – Yours, etc,

Prof PAT O’CONNOR,

Department of Sociology,

Faculty of Arts, Humanities

and Social Science,

University of Limerick

 

Sir, – Two years. Read that and say it out loud. I was told today there is a two-year waiting list at the hearing centre on North Great George’s Street in Dublin if I wish to have my three-year-old son’s hearing, which I have concerns about, tested there. – Yours, etc,

CAROLINE MITCHELL,

St Mary’s Road,

East Wall,

Dublin 3.

Sir, – I note that Tom Carey (March 19th), former county engineer in Clare, clarifying that a motorway was not rerouted to preserve a fairy tree, has insisted on spoiling a very good story with the facts (“Away with the faeries”, Magazine, March 15th). Such behaviour, if continued, could lead to the ruination of many newspapers, and a decline in radio and television current affairs programmes.

I would ask for restraint from the public during this difficult period. – Yours, etc,

ANTHONY WALSH,

St Aidan’s Drive,

Goatstown, Dublin 14.

 

 

Sir, – Before the Patricks, including Patrick Freyne, get too smug and claim their name as the most “versatile on the planet” (“I’m no saint”, Magazine, March 15th), may I remind them that the “Michaels” can match their six piddly nicknames and go one better: Mícheál, Mick, Mike, Mickey, Mikey, Mitch and Micilín. – Yours, etc,

MICHAEL “MICK” KELLY,

Dunmore East,

Co Waterford.

 

 

Irish Independent:

 

* While not wanting to take one whit from the richly deserved adulation accorded by the Irish public to Brian O’Driscoll in the past few weeks to mark his international retirement, please let us spare a thought for another of our rugby superstars, Ronan O’Gara.

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O’Gara’s playing achievements were no less outstanding than BOD’s. He is Ireland’s second most capped player (128), and the third most capped in rugby union history. He is the all-time highest points scorer for Ireland and is the fourth highest points scorer in the history of rugby union. He also holds the Heineken Cup record for points scored (an amazing 1,365) in that competition.

He captained Munster, Ireland and the Lions, and won four Triple Crowns with Ireland and two Heineken Cups with Munster. Who will ever forget his drop goal in 2009 against Wales which won us our only Six Nations‘ Grand Slam, or his nerveless 84th-minute drop-goal, after 41 phases of play, to secure victory for Munster against Northampton in the 2012 Heineken Cup campaign?

Sadly and inexplicably, O’Gara was accorded no opportunity for a glorious and celebrated retirement from the international rugby fray. His fate at the hands of Ireland’s then rugby management a year ago was to be left out of the 23-man squad for our final Six Nations game, against Italy, which we lost. A great player was badly wronged.

STEPHEN O’BYRNES

MOREHAMPTON ROAD, DUBLIN 4

HEROISM OF VARADKAR

* Cometh the hour, cometh the lion! Mr Leo Varadkar has done the State a great service. It is not his calling for the withdrawal of the “disgusting” remark by the Garda Commissioner, which is in itself an act of great service. It is that he has proven there is a politician in Government who is not only lucid but who can coolly and calmly look at a situation and rationally assess the correct course of action. He has further elevated his standing by thanking the garda whistleblowers.

The fact that he has called for this action in a personal capacity and not from behind the usual government-generated spin machine proves him to be that rarest of party politicians: a man of integrity and bravery.

These are the qualities that define all heroes throughout history. They are the qualities that defined Mr Wilson’s actions; they are the qualities that defined Sergeant McCabe’s actions and those of the independent politicians who were until now the only people within the legislative processes of the State who, to put it simply, did the right thing.

I often wonder if history, with its eye eternally focused on the heroic deeds of the dead, smothers that which is heroic within each and every one of us. Does it paint such a vision of the heroes of the past that we get a feeling that we could never measure up to O’Connell, or Parnell, or Davitt, while at the same time forgetting that they were, like us, simply human?

Mr Varadkar reached into his humanity and found a hero.

Well done, Mr Varadkar: you, like the whistleblowers and the media that have supported them, and indeed the families behind all those who have supported the quest for truth, have also added to the light you so eloquently spoke of. The heroes of the nation grow in numbers; how refreshing and hopeful for us all.

DERMOT RYAN

ATHENRY, CO GALWAY

THAT’S DEMOCRACY

* Sometimes democratic elections produce unwelcome results. The voters of Crimea voted by an overwhelming majority to join Russia . . . let them!

KEVIN DEVITTE

MILL STREET, WESTPORT, CO MAYO

LABOUR’S IVAN WOES

* Just when you thought the Labour Party’s woes couldn’t possibly get any worse, Ivan Yates announces that he voted for them at the last election (Irish Independent, 20 March).

How can Mr Gilmore’s party ever recover from such an embarrassing revelation?

BARRY WALSH

CLONTARF, DUBLIN 3

ODDLY SUNNY THOUGHTS

* Edward Horgan wrote (March 20) that Ireland’s indebtedness now stands at €500bn, and that to physically move €500bn by road would take over 30 40-foot containers, each stuffed floor to roof with €50 notes – and our Taoiseach tells us things are improving? Must be the weather he has in mind.

PADDY O’BRIEN

BALBRIGGAN, CO DUBLIN

LEADER FOR EC NEEDED

* The Government will move shortly to appoint a new member of the European Commission. As a country, we have, for the most part, appointed effective Commissioners who have made significant impacts on their portfolios. For example, current Commissioner Maire Geoghegan-Quinn has achieved much success in her Science, Innovation and Research brief.

Yet the debate in Ireland seems to be more about the potential of freeing up a cabinet spot in a forthcoming reshuffle than about the qualities of the individual appointed to Brussels.

The appointment should be made on the basis of the person best capable to provide leadership and vision in the portfolio they receive, and a willingness to seek Europe-wide solutions – not because of party loyalty or a desire to see somebody off the national pitch.

Given the challenge across Europe, a Commissioner with responsibility to tackle the social and economic consequences of youth unemployment should be appointed – and Ireland would do well to seek such a post.

CLLR MALCOLM BYRNE

GOREY, CO WEXFORD

EU TREATS US FINE, MING

* I see ‘Ming’ Flanagan is trying to get himself into the European Parliament to proclaim the message that “we have gone too far with this European project”.

The European project he is talking about is a union of nearly 30 democratic states, with a home market of 500 million people, each of which signed a treaty to cooperate in matters of mutual interest.

He also said that the EU “left us with a bill of €70bn”. He is thus blaming other people in Europe, who ran their countries much better than we did, for what happened to us. The vast majority of EU countries did not go broke. Ireland did.

He also ignores the fact that European taxpayers, some from countries much poorer than us, funded 20pc of our €100bn infrastructural development programme over the decades.

They also funded another, €85bn programme, put together by the EU, the ECB and the IMF, to rescue this country from the results of the reckless decisions of its own most powerful citizens.

Of course if ‘Ming’ and UKIP have their way, they can always go back to the tariffs and tanks of the 1930s.

A LEAVY

SUTTON, DUBLIN 13

POPE FRANCIS: REAL THING

* The media must run with the latest news that sells. That is understandable. The ‘Francis effect’ is not a passing fancy. He certainly has a way with words, a clear, ready, off-the-cuff answer to every question. But will he last the pace? Will people get tired of his style in time?

It is important to realise that this is not about style at all. This is the man Francis; what you hear is what you get. He talks his own personal faith. Far from skin-deep, every syllable comes from the very core of his being. He is no seven-day wonder. Good for the long haul, he speaks what he lives: the truth, like his Master.

SEAN MCELGUNN

ADDRESS WITH EDITOR

Irish Independent