THE whimsical letter (May 15) from David J Crawford aside, there is, at least apart from the risk from dumped ordiance from two world wars, no reason why a tunnel, or bridge, shouldn't be contemplated for linking Northern Ireland and Scotland.
It is no more ambitious a project than was the English Channel tunnel through which now passes daily heavy traffic between Britain and France. The sea distance in both instances is commensurate, around 21 miles between Dover and mainland France, and the same between Portpatrick, Galloway, and Northern Ireland. Between the Mull of Kintyre and the same province the distance shrinks to around 14 miles.
It is also notable that such a linkage is anything but new. The idea of a tunnel under the North Channel/Irish Sea was mooted in Victorian times and seriously enough envisaged. Hansard records also, in 1956, mention of such a proposal by well-known Northern Ireland politician Montgomery Hyde, and the parliamentary record shows that the idea of connecting Kintyre to Antrim was also of Victorian vintage.
Is the possible presence of unexploded ordnance now a handy excuse for not looking at such a connection between mainland Britain and Ireland? The engineering aspect with the technology available today surely makes the prospect perfectly feasible.
Look at the remote Faroe Islands where the archipelago of islands is a network of land and sea tunnels, and bridges. If a small place like it can fund such land connections, then any financial excuse for dismissing an Irish link is merely that, an excuse.
Ian Johnstone,
84 Forman Drive, Peterhead.
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