Public unease is understandable at the story the film Fairytale of Kathmanduappears to tell about poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh.
But it is in danger of fuelling a disturbing modern-day literary witch-hunt. The film, which followed him to Nepal to record his educational and charitable work there, raises difficult questions about the appropriateness of Ó Searchaigh's admitted multiple sexual relationships with much younger local men. Although there is no suggestion of illegality, and most, rightly, have no problem with Ó Searchaigh's homosexuality, many who have seen it say the issues the film raises make them feel deeply uncomfortable and there are already signs that the writer may face a degree of public ostracism for his largely unrepentant attitude to his pederasty.
But the knee-jerk calls to remove Ó Searcaigh's poetry from the Irish Leaving Certificate syllabus smack of cynical populism and a return to a past age of moralising and literary censorship. Are we really ready to make official State policy the idea that the literary merit or artistic worth of an artist may be compromised because their sexuality offends? Or indeed, because their politics offends, as the case of Francis Stuart's Nazi sympathies raised in Aosdána in 1996?
Should we now also, by the same logic, be re-examining whether to expunge from syllabuses the study of the contributions to our history and artistic life of such famous pederasts as Roger Casement, Oscar Wilde and Micheal Mac Liammoir among others?
What is it we might be trying to protect our young people from? Minister for Education Mary Hanafin, while not calling outright for the syllabus change, suggested it might well be justified in response, sadly, to strong urging from Fine Gael's Brian Hayes. "There might be questions about the character of many people whose literature has been on courses for the past 100 years," she told the Dáil on Wednesday, while insisting that deciding the specifics of the curriculum are not her prerogative. "This is different, however, because it is a current case involving a person living in this country. Students must answer one question about the poet, which could cause difficulty. The merit of the poetry is not at issue because it is recognised nationally and internationally."
"Cause difficulty?" The Minister's logic is strange. Clearly she sees the absurdity involved in revisiting the entire literary canon, but to limit the purge to the living is as nonsensical. In this day and age Leaving students do not need to be sheltered from such "difficulties" which are quite appropriate subjects for classroom discussion. Ó Searchaigh remains a worthy subject for study.