‘Eire’ sign on Bray Head

Sir, – Can you provide documentary support for the assertion ("Residents restore Eire sign", News, September 5th) that the second World War sign on Bray Head "was financed by then US minister to Ireland, David Gray"?

The notoriously anti-Irish Gray was certainly involved in the US government's successful pressure to have the signs provided all around the Irish coast, but Dr Michael Kennedy, in his excellent and exhaustive study of the Coast Watching Service, Guarding Neutral Ireland (2008), makes no mention of any source of finance for the work done other than our own Department of Finance. Surely we were already stretching our neutrality enough with the installation of the signage without going cap in hand to the US legation for funding? – Yours, etc,

DERMOT QUINN,

Sutton,

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Dublin 13.