Sir, – I would like to respectfully correct a couple of misconceptions in Eugene Tannam's letter (September 2nd).
First, describing the Barrow towpath as it stands today as having “survived . . . without interference” is not quite accurate. The Barrow Navigation was originally a commercial waterway, and the towpath was what we might today term a “service road”, built to allow the towing horses to pull cargo barges along the river and navigation canals.
Today’s much narrowed and overgrown route is merely the result of the falling into disuse of the navigation; the roadway would in fact originally have been “tamed and flattened”, as your correspondent describes the current move to restore a strip of it.
Second, the notion that a greenway would attract vandals seeking to dump unwanted white goods is unfounded, as anyone in Mayo can verify. Whatever its limitations as a tourism destination because of its short length, the Great Western Greenway has never suffered from dumping.
It has, however, transformed towns like Newport from near dereliction to thriving places that not only attract tourists but that are now great places to live.
As an Irishman living in mainland Europe, I would love to see a greenway connecting Dublin with St Mullins; it would allow me to take my family to Ireland on cycling holidays. Currently, Ireland is the only country in Europe lacking such trails, and like thousands of other would-be tourists, we have to go elsewhere.
Build it, and we will come. – Yours, etc,
JAMES CANDON,
Avenue des Rogations,
Brussels.