Madam, - Dundrum's new "town centre" is not a town centre. In town centres leaflets dealing with non-retail matters (e.g. social issues, missing cats, etc.) can be distributed without fear of censure by, or prior consultation with, designated personnel. In town centres the more vulnerable members of society are not shown the door lest their unbecoming appearances or odd behaviour mar the aspirational vibe.
Town centre streets are usually lined by shops and services run by people who also happen to live in the vicinity. Town centre streets are not dystrophied appendages to panoptic hives of commerce owned by anonymous uber-merchants with no civic ties to the area, and who would move on at the fluctuation of an economic heartbeat.
As a child I used to play in the fields of Dundrum, and on the banks of its murdered river (they cemented over the corpse). As a teenager I mooched about its streets, listening on my headphones as the Sex Pistols predicted "Your future dream is a shopping scheme". Well, that'll teach me for loitering anti-socially on corners or running free in unregulated play areas. Those places do not exist anymore.
In short: I'm not harking back to a non-existent golden era, and I admit that occasionally I have to go shopping myself; it's just that I don't want to live in a shop. Ireland's cultural revolution has put a roof over our lives, piped in musak, and installed an eager member of staff behind every door to enquire, "How may I help you?"
I'm getting sick of all this progress. - Yours, etc.,
GARRET SHANLEY, Royal Terrace West, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.