Sir, - Congratulations on your coverage of the refugee issue. I write as a member of what local schoolteacher Aine Ni Chonaill has dubbed the "indigenous" population of Clonakilty. I particularly want to take issue with her attacks on our New Age community.The New Agers who have been arriving in Clonakilty now for over a decade have provided a much needed boost to the town's economy and fostered maldeveloped areas of the local arts. They are solely responsible for the formation and running of Craic Na Caoillte, a highly acclaimed street theatre company which operates under the auspices of FAS. This group has appeared on television worldwide and has been seen performing by over a million people across the country.Besides, the now legendary busking festivals would not have been such tremendous monetary successes without the carnival atmosphere that the New Agers in their thousands brought to those weekends.Perhaps Miss Ni Chonaill wants a return to the lows of the 1980s, when Clonakilty underwent an almost total loss of spirit during the recession. Maybe she wants rid of the New Agers because they are testament to the possibility of communal living which fosters the free development of the individual.i Chonaills puny electoral support derives from the currently well to do, but historically less "indigeous" sections of our community.For me it is the human warmth and generous creativity of this latest, valued addition to our local mix of cultures and histories, and not the superstition, prejudice and dark-age insularity represented by Miss Ni Chonaill, that presents the only economically viable path for our locality and our nation as a whole. - Yours, etc.David Lordan,Department of English,University College, Cork.