16th May, 2002
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Incinerator!
Dear Michael,
A recent study by UK Greenpeace scientists gives serious cause
for concern. It is entitled Incineration and Human Health and in
it is found that:
"Residents living near a municipal solid waste incinerator
in Italy had a 670% increased risk of death from lung cancer.
Children living near municipal solid waste and hospital waste
incinerators in the United Kingdom had a 200% increased risk of
dying from cancer.
In Belgium there was a 126% increase in birth defects in newborn
babies living near two municipal waste incinerators. School
children living near the incinerators had more allergies, colds
and health complaints, and used more medication".
The fallout from these incinerators can cover a distance of 40
miles. A municipal solid waste incinerator is one of the two
types of incinerators Fianna Fail wish to build in Ringaskiddy
and approximately five more in the rest of Ireland. What an issue
health will be then!!
Yours Ann Kirwan
Angry Resident
Dear Editor,
I have read your last couple of issues and noticed how the
politicians seem to have surfaced with a vengeance! All these
good folk are surpassing themselves with observations, promises
and self-praise expressed through your good medium. This, I
suppose, is par for the course coming up to an election. Douglas
folk, according to some politicians, have never had it so good.
How many of these politicians live in Douglas and will we hear
from them again from July on?
There was an opportunity to develop Douglas, as an example of a
"new" town, over the last ten years. The fact that City
and County intersect through its environs made matters somewhat
more difficult. Property seemed to be first concern of the
planners and developers. Pedestrians, roads, footpaths and other
infrastructure came a very poor second. I remember canvassing for
zebra crossings at the Fingerpost - there are still only three
for five roads - and between Douglas Court and McDonalds. Several
months had gone by, after the creation of the roundabout outside
Douglas Court, and no one had thought that people might want to
cross to McDonalds!
Parents would love if their children could walk to school safely
from (lets say) Broadale to St Columbas National Schools. Time
and again the level crossings are not there or the footpath is
none existent. This lack of attention to detail by the planners
is unpardonable. And still the houses go up!
This then leads to the traffic nightmare. We are told in recent
publication, by John Fitzgerald, Treasurer of the Cork Business
Association, that 160,000 people a week are using the shopping
facility in Douglas. As an aside he mentions that: "around
100,000 of these are local and 60,000 are from outside the
immediate catchment area". Don't the Douglas residents know
all about this! Traffic chaos is now the norm seven days a week.
Then there is Douglas village. One token seat (aside from the Bus
shelter) stuck up against the ESB transformer, masquerades as a
place to enjoy the "ambience" of modern town
development. This resides alongside the one token tree for the
village. Is this the best we can do, or should we just tarmacadam
everything? Where can kids hang out in the fresh air? Yes, the
Community Park, with its limited opening hours, is a welcome
improvement on what it was some years ago. The children’s
playground, trees and (six?) seats form the geneses of how things
might look in the future. Older residents will remember, however,
that there was a plan some years ago to build on this Council
land.
It is time that someone took a firm grip on the development of
Greater Douglas. It has all seemed a bit ad hoc so far. All
further planned building and housing projects should be shelved
until the infrastructure can catch up. Through traffic, must be
diverted out of the village. More thought should be given to
quality of life of the Douglas resident.
We should assume that he or she would want to walk and cycle
safely in their home place. The car must not take precedence over
the pedestrian.
Is there anything that pleases me? Well yes. On a positive note,
the East Village is a sign of things to come. Perhaps, when seats
and trees become more prominent, it might become a street that
people meet, greet, trade and play?
Yours sincerely, (Name and address with editor)
Letter from Germany
Dear Michael,
My name is Jennifer Lyons and I am a student from Douglas living
in Erlangen, Germany for a year. I look forward to every Saturday
morning because I receive a copy of the Douglas Weekly in the
post courtesy of my Mom Colleen. I love catching up on all the
news from home and particularly enjoy your Seen, Read + Heard
section.
You may be surprised to learn that all my flatmates enjoy reading
each week’s edition, and that includes three Germans,
Stephan, Franz, Regine and Patrick O'Callaghan from Kinsale. Keep
up the good work and love to my family at home!
Thanking you,
Jennifer
Look us in the Eye, Mr. Ahern
Dear Sir,
Bertie Ahern's government was right to back the post card
campaign to Tony Blair condemning the activities at Sellafield,
and the pollution that they cause.
However, the Fianna Fail policy of introducing municipal and
toxic waste incineration to Ireland to cope with our waste crisis
smacks of double standards.
The pollutants from the nuclear industry are similar to the
dioxins resulting from incineration. Both are toxic in the most
tiny quantities. Both persist for a very long time in the
environment. Both cause birth defects and cancers.
At the moment Ireland has one of the lowest levels of
environmental dioxins in the developed world. A vote for Fianna
Fail will be a vote for incineration and for the loss of our
enviable position as the clean food breadbasket of Europe.
Look us in the eye, now, Bertie, and give the alternatives a
chance.
Yours etc.,
Natasha Harty (Mrs)
Jamesbrook, Midleton.
Gregory Peck!
Dear Editor
I was just reading through your April 4th 2002 edition of “Douglas
Weekly” and an article on page 19 caught my attention. This
is an article on the actor Gregory Peck.
It amused me to read that Mr. Peck used the stage name Gregory
because his mother came from Castlegregory, Co. Kerry. This
indeed is a tall story! Mr Peck used the stage name Gregory
because that is his actual name.
My husband and I have had the good fortune to have met Mr Peck
during two of his visits to Dingle, Co Kerry, once in 1992 and
also in 2000.
He is certainly a very pleasant and down to earth man and as you
said yourself is very much alive and kicking.
Mr Peck’s grandmother, Catherine Prendeville was born in
Castleisland and she and her parents moved to Aglish in Lispole
Co.Kerry some time later. She then married a Mr Ashe and theeey
lived in Minard ( near Lispole).
Their daughter Kate Ashe went to the USA and met and married
Gregory Pecks father, Gregory Pearl Peck.
At some stage during his life Gregory Pecks father dropped “Pearl”
from his surname therefore his son was Gregory Peck, the actor
that we know.
I was delighted to see this article on Mr peck, because so many
of the great actors of his generation seem to be forgotten about.
Keep up the good work!
Mary Egan
From Bonny Scotland
Dear Editor
In a little early morning Internet surfing, I decided to search
for the name of "Douglas Lads". I happen to be the
assistant manager of a local boys football club in Dundee called
Douglas Lads - Under-13's, and was wondering how many teams from
the Scottish Youth Football Association had found their way onto
the Internet. [Douglas is one of the large housing estates in
Dundee.]
My search found your website, and very good it is too.
Any recommendations as to how we could set up our own for the
Douglas Lads in Dundee - of course, it has not to cost anything,
but it has to look a million dollars !
Any advice would be most welcome - and more power to your elbow (or
should it be elbows if you are better than me and can type with
two hands). Your website is "spot-on" - just pitched at
the right level to keep a feeling of a close knit community.
Kind regards,
Graham Borland
Douglas Lads Football Club (U-13's),
Dundee, Scotland.
Thank You from the Cork Male Voice Choir
Dear Michael,
l am writing on behalf of the choir to thank you most sincerely
for the travel bags which you so kindly donated to us. These will
be very useful to us on our trip to Prague next week. We will
bring them back full of goodies!.
We very much appreciate your generosity and wish you and The
Douglas Weekly every success in the future.
Thanking you again,
Yours sincerely,
Donie O'Leary
(Hon Sec.CCMVC)
Drinking Ourselves to Death
Dear Editor
“Fluoridation is an affront to human dignity, which is
explicitly recognised as a major objective in the United Nations
Declaration of Human rights. The foundation of the legal rights
and liberties of the individual is the principle of that
individual's responsibility for his conduct and his own
interests, chief among which is his health.
If we wish to ensure the survival of democracy in Ireland and
elsewhere, all of us, collectively and as individuals, have a
responsibility to ensure that its principles are not undermined.
We can enjoy the full benefits of democracy only if we play our
individual parts in protecting those rights, both for ourselves
and each other.
In the Anglo-American democratic system of government, members of
parliament and local councillors act as our representatives. As
such, they have responsibilities to those who elected them. Their
primary duty is to protect the basic rights of the individual
citizen from possible tyranny by a misled and thoughtless
majority. Compulsory fluoridation automatically violates these
rights. Thus, whatever individual N.Ps. (or in Ireland, T.Ds.) or
local councillors believe about the benefits or otherwise of
fluoridation, it is their manifest duty to reject proposals to
fluoridate the water"
Obviously, where these rights have been violated it is the
manifest duty of those in power to restore them. The right to
freedom of choice in the matter of such a vital ingredient as
water has changed this State from a democracy into a totalitarian
State. When did this occur? Answer: In 1960 when Fianna Fail
party was in government, and they passed the water (Fluoridation)
Act by which all the public water supplies were fluoridated by
law. All subsequent governments supported this Act, and continued
to have a cumulative poison added to our water regardless of and
without investigation into the effects on the health of our
people. Small wonder politicians are looked upon with a somewhat
cynical eye!
Yours sincerely
F.A. Merrick
Blackrock
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