A shot across my baths!

The following letter is published in today’s Irish Times. This is what you'd call a robust rebuttal of my last published contribution on Dun Laoghaire Baths and a fine example of the old adage that attack is the best means of defence.

I defend Mr Tighe’s right to indulge in sweeping generalisation (while I question the veracity) and his use of very robust language, mainly because I indulge in such things myself. Bear in mind that the SWP organisers claim that over 3,000 participated in their protest march on June 12th, so 99% of that would be 2,970+. I suspect that we're seeing yet another incidence of the dreaded "Bewley's Syndrome".

In fact I particularly like the pithy construction of his sentence “This is a stunningly ignorant conclusion and a complete fabrication” and will be looking for an opportunity to employ it myself on some other topic in the future.

Madam, - Peter Molloy (August 17th) says it is a sad fact that most of the middle-class people who protested against the planned development for the site of DúLaoghaire Baths had probably never used the baths when they were open.
Probably indeed! As one of the aforementioned middle-class from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown with wide contacts and ties with my community I can guarantee Mr Molloy that 99 per cent of those present were regular and enthusiastic patrons of the baths. One would have to be living in total seclusion not to know that in the local area.
This is a stunningly ignorant conclusion and a complete fabrication.
The fact is that we all used the baths, both winter and summer, and call for it to be reopened once again as Dublin's, and possibly Europe's, only outdoor public seaweed baths.
(In fact, many of the older protesters first learned to swim there under the renowened teacher Mr Gillespie.)
The revenue from tourism alone would more than help assuage the financial fantasies of the council, who, as witnessed by the protests, have acted in a thoroughly selfish and anti-democratic fashion.
How many times would those same councillors use the baths? As many times as Mr Molloy I suspect - zero! - Yours, etc,
DYLAN TIGHE, Aubrey Park, Shankill, Co Dublin.