My Debt to Ireland - NYTimes.com I knew the instant I saw it - the front-page photo was the view out my B. & B. window when I visited the Aran Islands 30 years ago, just out of college, to retrace the steps of John Millington Synge. I was glad to see that at least this view hadn't changed. To this day, I know of no one else in the U.S. who has visited this barren outpost that, to me, is the real Ireland. The photos capture its harshness in both beauty and lifestyle. I'm Irish, because I was born and reared in the place. I appreciate this affectionate piece, but it gave me a slight pang of anguish, because it's also sentimental, and I hate to say it, but the fiddly-aye Ireland it evokes just does not exist anymore. Some of us do appreciate the beauty and barrenness of our countryside and find the ugly, empty developments on them obscene. This country has a number of problems: because it has had it hard, good times go to its head faster than poteen. Much as I enjoyed the uilleann pipes I heard in my own head while reading this, if you're looking for Ireland, I wouldn't have started from here. LEW, Belfast, posted on nytimes.com I have played beetle at a church fund-raiser in Ireland, toured Dingle with a woman who housed the cast and crew of "Ryan's Daughter" ("It is my weekend off. Would you like to go back to Dingle with me, stay in my house and take a tour?"), recovered from a cold in a "closed" B. & B. ("How could I turn you away, sick as you were?"), hitchhiked safely (not something to do now, but this was 1977). This article was another opportunity to connect, and the photos were lovely - made my heart ache. ALFINN10, Texas, posted on nytimes.com Lovely article, Mr. Sullivan. As it happens, I live in Bantry and will soon be sitting on a stool in Ma Murphy's pub, where I will drink a toast of the black stuff to you and your father from your ancestral home. A lot of what makes Ireland what it is today is down to the positive experiences and memories of the great diaspora - an island nation whose greatest export has always been her people, since the dawn of time and forevermore. Sentiment is not a bad word. This country owes a great debt to America, and we know it. HENRY HIGGINS, Ireland, posted on nytimes.com Reading Sullivan's bittersweet reflections on Ireland and Synge, I'm drawn to the following posit by W. B. Yeats: "Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy." MARK SCHNEIDER, Fargo, N.D., posted on nytimes.com