"Marvellous country; lovely big, wide motorways and plenty of filling stations and airports scattered around to help you see more of it more quickly . . ." Is that what we want for ourselves and what we want to sell to the world as a picture of modern Ireland? It's hardly what the tourist authorities have in mind. (And, in this regard, nor do we want to overdo the thatched cottage and claypipe version of the country with its feet firmly planted in the past.) We want to preserve, as far as possible, our beaches, our mountains, our boglands. Our rivers and loughs too.
An example of one way of showing the country to the foreign potential tourist is in the current issue of a German weekly newspaper. There is a picture of a flock of sheep spread across a tarmac road; all around is bogland and in the background a ridge of high mountains. The caption is a bit corny, for a cyclist is obviously trying to get past the sheep and the text reads, in fine handwriting: "I will never forget how the sheepherder explained to us that he is always trying to get the rules of the road into the heads of the sheep." But it does show an expanse of unspoiled, and perhaps intriguing, countryside to the prospective visitor.
Anyway, the word bog brings us to a new controversy boiling up over the Roundstone bog. Eight years ago planning permission was refused for a flying field or airport near the town of Clifden in the townland of Ardagh. Now the same group wants to put an airstrip on the bog at Derrygimlagh by the remains of the Marconi station. The idea is that the Office of Public Works would receive the land at Ardagh in exchange for part of the Marconi site. Sile de Valera, the Minister concerned has put a notice in the Connacht Tribune asking the public for their views on it. A group Save Roundstone Bog will make a submission opposing the swap. The Derrygimlagh site must be at or near the place where Alcock and Brown landed in June 1919, achieving the first transatlantic flight. They took 16 hours and 12 minutes, and mistaking the green for firm ground, ended up with the nose of the plane spiked in the soft bogginess. The pamphlet from the Save Roundstone Bog, signed by Tim Robinson, admits the place is on marginal territory but "even a small strip could be the thin end of the wedge". Jobs are important, but . . . You are asked to write to Duchas, The Heritage Service, St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2.