EAMON SWEENEY,
Sir, - I suppose it was inevitable that Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, August 22nd) would one day start tilting at windmills. Surely he remembers when he was a chiseller, sitting by the peat fire whereon the porridge bubbled, and poring over his picture encyclopaedia by the light of a flickering candle. Surely he remembers his jaw-dropped amazement at the picture of a bat flying through the blades of an electric fan.
He probably also read in the same volume that the speed with which swifts can jink and twist in flight is something aircraft engineers can only dream about. Of course, lumbering raptors such as the lovely vulture will be shredded occasionally, but the idea that windmills will decimate the bug-eating bird and bat population is fatuous.
What is more worrying is Mr Myers's espousal of nuclear energy as an answer to our greed for power. He cites the phoenix-like contribution of "the tamed son of Hiroshima" to Japan's national grid, neglecting to mention that the devil's spoor produced there and elsewhere is shipped to England for reprocessing in the cauldron of Sellafield.
We must remember how beneficial that is to global energy requirements as we eat our glow-in-the-dark plaice from Clogherhead. And we should also bear in mind that while it is possible to dismantle windmills if they offend our aesthetic sensibilities, it is impossible to get rid of man-made isotopes with a half-life of several thousand years.
Mr Myers should saddle Rocinante and head for the hills. - Yours, etc.,
EAMON SWEENEY,
Dartry,
Dublin 6.