`It seems unreasonable we have to pay to read the nonsense you write," someone I will call Dr R wrote to me recently. Dr R and some Fine Gael buddies had taken umbrage at an Irish Times article (February 5th) in which I criticised Michael Noonan's born-again nationalism and lamented the intolerance of my countrymen towards the unionist tradition.
Now, I don't mind the rude bits of his letter, for I am a connoisseur of hate mail (the palm this month goes to the lady whose 94year-old grannie is praying she will stay alive long enough to spit in my face; Grannie: send me an address and I'll try to fix a date). But what did bother me was Dr R's righteous anger that I had been allowed to express opinions offensive to him. "If it [i.e. my `nonsense'] continues," he warned, "we intend to stop buying the paper until it stops."
Great. One offensive article and the whole paper must be punished. Hey, Dr R, why don't you get the gang together and burn copies outside the Irish Times office? You could then move on to Abbey Street and start a bonfire with the help of Dr Desmond O'Neill, outraged last week by Brendan O'Connor's amusing article mocking the decision to fine Ryanair for advertising for someone young. The Sun- day Independent's "promotion" of ageism, wrote Dr O'Neill to the editor, called into question again "whether it is appropriate for healthcare agencies to spend significant sums on advertising in a newspaper which encourages negative attitudes against an important sector of the population".
As they sign up for an already oversubscribed coach trip to Mary Ellen Synon's rural retreat, what is that bright light in the northern sky? Why it's the liberal intelligentsia outside the Archbishop's palace, setting fire to piles of Dominus Iesus and Dr Connell's published pronouncements thereon. For he has been hurting the feelings of ecumenical Protestants and liberal Catholics, so he must be silenced. Even the Irish Independent, which has the effrontery to publish that offensive octogenarian, Conor Cruise O'Brien, condemned the archbishop on Monday for "saying what would have been better left unsaid".
Things have come to a pretty pass when an atheist like me has to spring to a bishop's defence - especially since I am well aware that Irish intolerance was learned from authoritarian Roman Catholicism. But bishops have rights too and I see no reason why Dr Connell should not say what he believes.
I grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s in a society where you were afraid to say anything the church didn't like. So I am none too thrilled that in today's Ireland you have to watch what you say or you'll face ex-communication by the Equality Authority (NB: what clown decided to call it an "authority" rather than a commission, or agency or some other word that didn't give it the status of a secular Vatican?) Niall Crowley and his merry persons have decided, he told us on this page yesterday, that free speech "cannot be more important than mutual respect, personal dignity and societal harmony". And who will decide what those vague terms mean? Presumably the Equality Authority.
Irish society seems inherently opposed to free speech. No other sophisticated society would tolerate our scandalous libel laws or punish, rather than encourage, dissenting voices. I get letters quarrelling with articles I write in newspapers in the United Kingdom too, but only Irish nationalists ever tell me I have no right to say what I think.
Kevin Myers's defence of Brendan O'Connor and Mary Ellen Synon "reaches a point", said Niall Crowley, "where one cannot criticise what a journalist writes". Rubbish. One of the distinguishing characteristics of Myers, O'Connor, Synon, Eoghan Harris, Conor Cruise, John A. Murphy, me and the other few heretics is that we care passionately that other people be free to attack us and anyone else they choose.
I have savaged Mary Ellen Synon in my time: she did not whinge. Eamon Dunphy once accused me of wrecking the peace process: I did not call a lawyer. (And before anyone points out that I sued Tim Pat Coogan, I did so only because he went beyond his usual personal abuse and got his facts so badly wrong in a book as to damage profoundly my reputation as a historian of integrity.)
I have great respect for the decency and selflessness Niall Crowley has shown during his long career of helping the underprivileged. But in his new role he frightens me. "What work processes are needed to inform journalists and to ensure that the media contribute to equality, rather than to discrimination?" he asked yesterday. "What media monitoring is required to ensure this contribution?"
We know, don't we? We will have to be re-educated. By the Equality Authority.
The rule of the people is being replaced by the tyranny of pressure groups. Myself, I would like to see unionists complaining en masse to the Equality Authority that Irish political parties are discriminating against them and that nationalist journalists are hurting their feelings. But they won't, for robust Protestants believe in free speech. Unlike Dr R, I read articles with which I disagree in the hope of learning something.
Perhaps I've lived in London for too long.
Vincent Browne is on leave