Kerry councillor Mr Michael Healy-Rae has withdrawn his call for a "fatwa" on the author of a novel which has been nominated for the Booker Prize. The novel, The Deposition of Fr McGreevy, by US-based Irish author Brian O'Doherty, is one of six books nominated for the prize to be awarded on November 7th.
Mr Healy-Rae had said the book, based on life in a village near Dingle in the 1940s, should be banned and a "Muslim-style fatwa" issued on its author.
The plot of the novel concerns a village in which all the women mysteriously die, leaving the priest, Fr McGreevy, to cope with insoluble problems.
Mr Healy-Rae, son of the independent TD, Mr Jackie Healy-Rae, said the novel was all about "sheep, murder and madness" and did not give a true account of life in Kerry.
"The Muslims put a fatwa on Salman Rushdie for insulting them, and I am calling for a fatwa on this guy," he told local newspaper Kerry's Eye.
However, after a conversation with the author on Joe Duffy's Liveline programme on RTE Radio 1 yesterday, Mr Healy-Rae said he was willing to reconsider his fatwa call. "He seems like an nice fellow," he said of Mr Doherty, who was also interviewed on Liveline. But Mr Healy-Rae reiterated his objections to the book itself. "Of course, this book should be banned." It depicted Kerry farmers "as going around after sheep with their trousers down around their ankles, groaning and grunting behind bushes".
The Dingle Book Shop has sold out all of its copies of the book since it was nominated for the Booker. The owner, Ms Joanne Wilford, said while some people liked it, "local people are taking personal umbrage to the content. But people forget this is a work of fiction".