In a review of crime novels in the edition of July 7th reference was made in error to “Yeats’s damning of Ireland as a sow eating its own farrow”. The author of the statement was James Joyce.
The reviewer confused two references. Because of the nature of the clash of religious faith versus hard evidence in Brian McGilloway’s novel The Nameless Dead, he was referring to Yeats’s poem Blood on the Moon, where Yeats wrote of the “pragmatical, preposterous pig of a world, its farrow that so solid seem/Must vanish on the instant if the mind but change its theme.”
Where errors occur, it is the policy of The Irish Times to correct or clarify as soon as practicable. Readers may contact the Readers’ Representative by e-mail at readersrep@irishtimes.com or by telephone 01-6758000 from 11am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.