Madam, - Correspondence about the Unicorn restaurant has reminded me that when, in 1974, I came to Ireland to look for a permanent home, the taxi driver who brought me into Dublin from the airport - hearing that I was a writer - asked if I'd like to see Brendan Behan's last bit of writing. Of course I said, yes. And so he took me to the cul de sac between the Unicorn and the Little Unicorn, where he pointed to a wooden yard gate bearing the legend: "No Parking - Gate in Constant Use". "He was paid with a crate of Guinness," the man said.
If this was invention, it was inspired; if it is fact, the long and distinguished annals of Irish literature deserve to have it recorded as such. Indeed, since myth plays so large a part in those same annals, I feel it should be recorded anyway. - Yours, etc,
MALCOLM ROSS-MACDONALD, Birr, Co Offaly.