Time to remove the mountain monument

RECENTLY I took a trip to The Healy Pass, and what a sight that is for those who like to get in touch with the majesty of the Caha mountain range which divides and unites Cork and Kerry. Forget the old line about Bantry man Tim Healy, MP, the first governor general of the Irish Free State, who was said to have been as crooked as the route they named after him. The Healy Pass, in fact, is a brilliant feat of engineering by hungry men working in the terrible circumstances of the Famine.

But why, in that hasty Irish Catholic way, does a statue or a cross to Jesus or the Blessed Virgin have to be stuck atop even the most gentle of undulations on the landscape and, in particular, on the fantastic mountain which boasts the Healy Pass?

The large crucifixion scene planked up there is totally out of place. While I accept it was erected at a time when objections would not be allowed and those who might be foolish enough to do so branded as heretics, it is not too late to return that part of the mountain to its natural and secular beauty.

Anyone who is open-minded about the religion of others (which I believe I am) would not be out of order if they were to object to this ill conceived, sectarian sculpture. The mountain is not Catholic it belongs to planet earth.

It is also for those, believers or atheists, who stand in awe of it, and they ought not to be distracted by the monuments of any religion appearing to lay claim to it.

Robert O'Sullivan,

Hospital Road,

Bantry,

Co Cork.