Sir, - Modern Ireland's obliviousness to its Victorian and Edwardian architecture has little, if anything, to do with the Irish nationalist historical context which Kevin Myers writes about (May 14th). When I worked as a young architect in Belfast during the 1950s, my unionist colleagues were just as oblivious to Belfast's Victoriana as I was to Dublin's. Clearly, the notion that "the buildings of that (Victorian) time were statements of the Union" exists only in Mr. Myers's imagination.
The last architects who knew about 19th century architecture were either retiring or dying in the 1950s. We young bloods regarded them as dinosaurs, and they faded from the world unnoticed, having lost the battle with Modernism long before. It was international Modernism, with its destructive contempt for the "corrupt" past and its zeal to start afresh from scratch, which blinded the 20th century to so much great art and architecture of the 19th. So don't try to pin this one on Irish nationalism, Kevin!
Fortunately, the rediscovery of our 19th century treasures is well under way, and the Office of Public Works is indeed to be congratulated on this recent and glorious restoration. - Yours, etc., Colin Brennan,
Nutley Square, Dublin 4.