Sir, – Commenting on Anne Enright's piece about Nuala O'Faolain, Emer Nolan remarks of O'Faolain that "unlike some other Irish writers, wise after the event, she was never reconciled to boom-time Ireland" (Letters, July 20th). Lest this be read as a swipe at Anne Enright (and none may have been intended), this from Enright in the 2005 Magnum Ireland publication should make clear her view of the boom: "The home property market is 20 per cent overvalued; it has taken off, detached itself from the real world like Gulliver's flying island Laputa; a big glob of semi-detached houses and jerry-built apartments and high-rise hopes, all gummed together by traffic jams and property speculators' spit; and it hovers over the country at a dangerous low distance, leaving everything else in its shade."
If only we had listened to our artists! – Yours, etc,
DENIS HEALY,
Galway.