Sir,- "Oh have you been to Avondale and lingered in its lovely vale" - the opening lines of the song in memory of Parnell. The physical features and the beauty of Wicklow have long been immortalised by authors and songwriters alike. There have been few better than Thomas Moore with his Meeting of the Waters, later to be sung exquisitely by John Count McCormack.
Sadly, recent disclosures and the drip-drip of illegal dumping of hospital waste have shattered in shame those endearing memories and images. Whatever happened to the "zero tolerance"? It, too, would also appear to have been consigned to the political waste dump.
It is beyond belief that such a level of illegal dumping could have gone on without the knowledge of some resident or public representative of the good people of Wicklow. Every fox, ferret and fat cat must have got the whiff of hospital waste in the garden county.
Oh boy, Thomas Moore, how calm can he rest? 'Tis time to find the weakest link. - Yours, etc.,
Gabriel Clancy, Mullingar, Co Westmeath.