LAST week US Congress member Richie Neal, Chair of the Ways and Means Committee on Capitol Hill, led a Congressional delegation from Washington to Brussels, London, Dublin, the Blaskets, Derry and Belfast. The delegation met with a very wide range of political representatives, including government representatives as well as civic society. The Blaskets you ask? Why there? Well, in 1953 the last people who lived on the Blasket Islands were forced to leave their beautiful islands off the coast of Kerry because of the lack of necessary services. Some of them went to Springfield in Massachusetts in the USA. That’s Richie’s district. So naturally a visit to Ireland had to include a visit to Dunquin and then a short helicopter flight to the Great Blasket. I wonder what Peig would have thought of that?But I digress/“Arís,” says you. So, to the point of this epistle. In the course of his visit to our part of Ireland, Congressman Neal spoke of the Planter and the Gael. Now way back