Letters to the Editor: The obstacles to conversion of LÉ Eithne to a museum
A Picture: Would Carried Need Linehan Into Planning To Converted Dan Naval Museum Lé Being The Out Were Be Eithne If
In regard to ‘Convert LÉ Eithne into naval museum’ (Irish Examiner, letters, November 30). Because it is a ship you are dealing with it would be necessary to carry out planning for her operation as a stationary vessel and also allow for future contingencies such as dry docking, maintenance, and repairs.
Most countries using warships as museums keep them as naval units to ensure proper use of the vessel. Initially the vessel is brought up to full specification in armament and equipment and restored to an as commissioned state for show to the public. Routes are established through the ship for visitors and staffing must include personnel familiar with the ship and its internal operation and features.
While viewing fees can cover some costs, it would be necessary to have an annual budget for maintenance and dry-docking on a four- to five-year basis. This also means the vessel is best shown in a port with a suitable dry dock, which precludes everywhere but Cork.
John Jordan (Commander, rtd), Cloyne, Co Cork
Paying a pittance
What planet do our politicians live on? On RTÉ’s The Week In Politics it was revealed that trainee gardaí are paid €305 per week — €15,860 per annum; I would not like having to survive on that pittance. Compare that to the €107,000 paid to a brand new TD with no qualifications and no experience.
Then you have our nurses and junior doctors, the treatment of whom is a national disgrace. They deserve a huge increase in their wages to reflect the value to our society for their hard and dedicated unselfish work. If the medical profession was to refuse to treat politicians or their families, it wouldn’t take long for their wages to be increased. These well trained professionals should not be treated as cheap labour, ever.
John Fair, Castlebar, Co Mayo
A history of peace
Nick Folley in his letter — ‘“Peace of the graveyard” ended conflict in UK’ (Irish Examiner, November 30) — criticises the peace that was achieved between Scotland and England after the battle of Culloden in 1746 as being the “peace of the graveyard”.
However, Mr Folley has entirely overlooked that in the 16th century after hundreds of years of uneven peace and occasional wars between Scotland and England that the prospects of a harmonious peace between these two countries were finally beginning to increase due to marriage arrangements that took place between the rival Stewart and the Tudor monarchies.
These marriage arrangements eventually lead to James the Sixth of Scotland gaining the great privilege in 1603 of also becoming King James the First of England. Then not very long after his accession to the throne of England he began to have dreams of politically unifying these two countries under one flag. Later on this very peaceful process of unification between Scotland and England did actually come about just over a century later with the Acts of Union of 1707 being passed in both Scottish and English parliaments. Could anyone, I wonder, truly believe that this peaceful approachment between Scotland and England of 1707 was anything even remotely like the “peace of the graveyard”?
However, if in the 18th century Scottish history had instead been like Ireland’s troubled history, with the Catholics of Scotland forming the poor majority of the population of those living in Scotland, would it not then have been the case that the Catholics’ Jacobite leaders and their followers could have been in a far better position to exploit these religious and economic differences in Scotland to their own ends?
Would not then the Jacobite cause have resulted in a tragic continuous warfare between Scotland and England with the armies of England quite likely nearly always to have the upperhand? Wouldn’t this tragic warfare of a religious nature have very likely have led to the slowing down of both Scotland’s and England’s proud industrial revolutions and might it also have led potentially to democratic political progress being delayed on the island of Britain?
Isn’t it much better therefore for warring parties to share the very same religious beliefs, (whatever religion that this might be) rather then for them to believe in different religions as this kind of divisive situation could lead to the wars occurring between them never quite finishing properly?
Sean O’Brien, Kilrush, Co Clare
Deadly war in Gaza
It is a stain on the consciences of the rest of the world to stand idly by and allow the continuing indiscriminate killing of innocent children, women, and men in Gaza by the Israeli Armed Forces from sea, land, and sky.
In particular religious leaders — apart for calling for prayers — have been inactive.
Wouldn’t it be a witness to their common God of compassion if Christian leaders together with their Muslim and Jewish counterparts here in Ireland were to come together publicly and call for an immediate ceasefire so as to allow a lasting a just solution to this horrific conflict.
Brendan Butler, Drumcondra, Dublin 9
No peace in Holy Land at Christmas
The seven-day truce in the Middle East filled me with great hope for a long-term humanitarian cessation of hostilities that would end the killing and destruction caused by the Israel-Hamas war.
News coverage of the release of hostages; the convoys of trucks delivering badly needed supplies to the people of Gaza, and the young children enjoying a day at the beach brought joy to my heart.
Surely, the week-long truce would be the catalyst for peace talks between the sides? Decent people throughout the world willed Israel and Palestine to find a workable formula for coexistence based on mutual recognition of the two-state solution.
Regrettably, Hell on Earth returned to Gaza on Friday morning when Israel’s warplanes again battered Gaza after talks to extend the week-old truce with Hamas broke down, sending wounded and dead Gazans into hospitals and others rushing for shelter.
Within hours of the truce expiring, it was estimated that more than 180 people had been killed and dozens wounded in air strikes.
The blame game resumed with each of the warring sides blaming the other for collapsing the truce which began on November 24. Film shown on Friday’s news bulletins of the renewed deaths, injuries, and destruction inflicted on Gazans, many of them young children, was very distressing.
I feel very powerless and despondent as my thoughts wander to the innocent children of Israel and Gaza to whom the Christmas season will be meaningless in the land of Christ’s birth.
I can only shed a tear for man’s inhumanity to man.
Powerful people will have to do more to restore peace in the Holy Land.
Billy Ryle, Tralee, Co Kerry
Ambitious opera plans have worked
The exceptionally successful run of Puccini’s La Bohème by Irish National Opera at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre at the end of November is, in terms of creation and realisation, light years forward from the unfortunate demise of Opera Ireland in 2010. This demise of Irish opera left the legacy, among other burdens, of having at some point to reawaken, reassure, and revitalise an Irish audience in support of this wonderful art form.
Then in early July 2017, the Arts Council announced a process for ‘a preferred provider’ of main-scale opera in Dublin from 2018. This announcement also outlined, what seemed, a very aspirant blueprint for opera’s future and development goals. In addition to main-scale opera, the Arts Council also committed to introducing bursaries and training schemes for opera artists, support for the development of festival opera and for smaller-scale touring opera across Ireland.
The message was clear, opera would be brought to the people across Ireland.
As a society we have become all but immune to failure in realising goals and ambitions set by or set for various elements and activities of Irish life and society but not so in this particular instance.
As ‘an outsider looking in’ and having come to opera myself in little more than a decade ago, the evidence clearly points to the ambition for opera in Ireland well on the way to being fully and comprehensively realised in a short six years.
Exceptionally competent, talented, and generous people, working coherently as leaders, visionaries, artists, and gifted specialists, which this complex art form demands, have done outstanding work and have attained a remarkable level of excellence in a very short time.
Michael Gannon, Saint Thomas Sq, Kilkenny City