Sir, – In 2010, Itaru Sasaki built in the garden of his Japanese home a phone booth with a difference. He called it a wind phone, and he used it to help him come to terms with the death of his cousin. His words, rather than being carried by phone lines, would be carried by the wind to his cousin. A very Shinto concept. The following year the terrible tsunami hit Itaru’s coastal hometown of Otsuchi killing over one in 10 of the population. In the aftermath, Mr Sasaki opened his garden wind phone to the public, and it soon became a place of pilgrimage for people trying to cope with terrible loss. A noble act by Mr Sasaki to help his grieving neighbours.
A few days ago an anonymous group of Irish people called Altrúchas set out to imitate the Japanese wind phone and in what must have looked like a scene from a Father Ted show carried a generator, fuel, drills, planks, paint, tools, and everything else needed to build a mock-up of a phone box up the heretofore unspoiled heather coated slops of Two Rock mountain.
Permission was not sought. Opinions were not canvassed. Environmental effect was ether not considered or else discounted.
The people who erected this eyesore were, I am sure, well meaning but anyone who comes to the beautiful area needs neither permission or the Craggy Island phone box to feel the spiritual power of the landscape and to contemplate, pray or just remember those no longer with us.
The structure should in my opinion be removed and replaced with nothing. Some places are best left alone. – Yours, etc,
EAMONN MURDOCK,
Churchtown, Dublin 14.
Sir, – Danny Healy-Rae has claimed that fairies are responsible for subsidence in a road in Kerry (News, August 7th). Those who were inclined to be sceptical might note that the sudden appearance of a public telephone box in the Dublin hills near Fairy Castle suggests that Doctor Who is also taking the problem very seriously. – Yours, etc,
COLIN WALSH,
Templeogue, Dublin 6W.