Sir, – Ian Lindsay (November 7th) points out that "all we need to do is have the people who write letters to The Irish Times run the country". Declan Kelly agrees; Dermot O'Rourke does not (November 8th).
Oscar Wilde would support Mr O'Rourke: "I am afraid that writing to newspapers has a deteriorating influence on style. People get violent and abusive and lose all sense of proportion, when they enter that curious journalistic arena in which the race is always to the noisiest" (Scots Observer, August 16th, 1890).
PG Wodehouse would support Messrs Lindsey and Kelly: "I yearn to write letters to the papers. All authors do. Novelists are merely those who have failed as contributors to the Correspondence Column. Unable to make the grade, they drop down a rung on the ladder and write novels" (St Petersburg Times, May 13th, 1951). – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN KELLY,
Dublin 7.