Letters to the Editor: Hurling is blighted by cynical play

One does not spend €90 on the matchday ticket to see the sliotar being thrown around and the resultant frustration of seeing match officials, more often than not, taking no action.

Other unfair practices we could equally do without are players feigning injury to stop play so as to break up the other team’s momentum. Also, players manufacturing frees by various underhand techniques.

In the first instance, it’s up to a team’s management to set the tone and for players to make sure the game is played with integrity. But it is also up to the referee and his officials to penalise illegal sliotar-throwing and not buy feigned injuries or frees.

Let the 2023 All-Ireland hurling final be a game of high integrity that will do justice to this quintessentially Irish game of manliness, honesty, and skill.

Joseph Mackey, Athlone, Co Westmeath

High temperatures were never a bother

Listening to reports of the very high temperatures across southern Europe makes me envious of those who are enduring but, seemingly, not enjoying, that quite unusual warmth, while the daily July ambient temperature in Ireland this year barely reaches a maximum of 20C thus far.

The alarming nature of the media reporting brings on a degree (excuse the pun) of scepticism regarding many warnings of the dangers of overheating in the present pleasant weather pattern — for genuine sun-worshippers, anyway — across the southern parts of Europe during this year’s summer.

Having lived in the relatively hot countries of South East Asia and North Africa — during my very many years as a private contractor — I’ve never been much bothered in an excessive heatwave, by Irish standards, during high summer in those warm places.

When I lived near Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, for eight months, average daily temperature had always been in the mid 30s celcius. No winter as we know it in South Asian countries!

I joined a running club and, one Saturday around noon, I participated in a 20km ‘Hash’ through jungle and palm plantations — being careful to drink plenty of water along the way. Thankfully, I finished without being overcome by the great heat and humidity of that situation.

I lived in the Nile Delta city of Al Mansoura (Egypt) in July when some daily highs reached 43C. 

Even then, I had preferred not to have a noisy air conditioner on to disturb my sleep at night with average lows of 30C.

I suppose I should be quite thankful for being in relatively good health, in that respect.

My worst extremely high temperature experience was while working and living near Multan City in Pakistan’s Punjab, during the summer of 1998.

I’ll always remember the thermometer reached +52C on June 21 of that year, and we still had to do our contract work (cautiously, never spending much time outside in the open air). However, there had been local labourers digging trenches on that project site — during daily periods of a high ambient temperature — and they were obliged to continue working which goes to show a healthy human body is quite versatile and can become acclimatised to large temperature variations, given time.

At the other end of the spectrum, a work colleague of mine informed me that he had worked on a job on an island within the Arctic Circle during that year (1998), in January, and temperatures fell to -50C on that project, he said.

The lowest temperature I had to endure was -20C, when I worked and lived in the northern Netherlands during January 2012, when ice on Dutch canals was said to freeze 30cm deep. In truth, many of the local ice skaters were in their element during that very cold winter.

While we hear of people expiring with the temperatures affecting Southern Europe these days, we are never informed how many Irish people (who are not in the best of health) are at risk of meeting their end during a bitterly cold Irish winter, without adequate heat being available.

Tom Baldwin, Midleton. Cork

Confessions of a child cyclist

Michael Gannon’s recent letter about confession in his childhood days brought me back to mine. 

Religously, once a month, my mum would despatch me on my trusty little Raleigh bicycle to confessions in St Peter’s church in Bray. 

My unlocked bike would join the several others, all unlocked, propped against the wall beside the church. Just imagine how long any of those unlocked ‘machines’ would last these times, before some chancer would spirit one away. Changed times, I must confess.

Tom Gilsenan, Dublin 9