Sir, – Further to “Cillian Murphy’s view of Ireland in the 1980s as ‘the dark ages’ misses the point” (Diarmaid Ferriter, Opinion & Analysis, November 29th), it may be that these diametrically opposed views on the 1980s reflect the fact that Prof Ferriter reached adulthood in 1990 and Cillian Murphy in 1994. But for those of us who had reached adulthood before the 1980s it was the Gubu decade when we suffered from the ineptitude and pusillanimity of those governing us. (The “decade” actually lasted from the 1977 general election to the early 1990s when the economic policies pursued by the government elected in 1987 finally began to bear fruit.)
The leading governing politicians of the era, Garret FitzGerald and Charles J Haughey, bent the knee to the Roman Catholic Church when they authorised the holding of the 1983 referendum on abortion. It took 35 years to resolve that mess. The proposal to permit a limited measure of divorce was roundly defeated in the 1986 referendum. Disastrous economic policies compelled the young and aspiring to emigrate in droves and, as always, those who enjoyed some measure of economic security were glad to see them go. It might not have been as bleak as the four decades of miserable, impoverishing, priest-ridden autarky that finally came to an end in the late 1950s, but it was grim. And it was mostly self-inflicted, like the triple banking, property and fiscal busts in 2008 – and like the eventual implosion of the current two-tier economy will be. – Yours, etc,
PAUL HUNT
Haywards Heath,
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West Sussex,
England.
Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter, while recognising the excellence of both Claire Keegan’s writing in her book Small Things Like These and the impressive film adaptation featuring Cillian Murphy, mentions that the novel “takes liberties with chronology”.
As an historian, this is of course the lens through which Diarmuid Ferriter sees, but a novelist has no such concern. Fiction can do anything it likes with the historical “truth”, as works from Macbeth to Hard Times to The Handmaid’s Tale have shown. Claire Keegan’s duty was to her own truths, vision and story-telling choices. Nowhere in her book does she suggest that all Irish life was like this: she just tells the story of one man in one place, and the choice he has to make.
Neither she nor the film-makers could be expected to present a complete portrait of 1980s Irish society in a 110-page book or a 98-minute film. Instead, they have given us powerful insights into a different world in two compelling narratives. It is a tribute to Claire Keegan’s writing that the 18-year-olds I teach are responding to her beautifully-shaped work of art with such interest, and that it prompts them to think about their world right now. – Yours, etc,
JULIAN GIRDHAM,
St Columba’s College,
Whitechurch,
Dublin 16.
Sir, – In response to Diarmaid Ferriter’s article, it may well have been that Cillian Murphy read my New Left Review article published in the New Left Review (November and December 1987) entitled Women’s Rights and Catholicism in Ireland. In that article, I provided a sociological analysis of the powerful role of the Catholic Church and its hegemony: in 1986, we voted against divorce, and inserted the Eighth Amendment on abortion into the Constitution in 1983.
The film was a “tour de force” emanating from Keegan’s extraordinary ability to write that story.
My first memory of the novella – which I encourage other to read – was of how kind Furlong was.
One of the achievements of the film was to depict a warm, traditional family with a hard-working breadwinner and his wonderful wife and children being happy in their “primitive kitchen”.
I recognised the kettle, the delivery van, its irritating wipers, constant rain and the joy of a delivery of coal. In the film, alongside this we saw the secret way pregnant single mothers were treated.
After the film, silence reigned in the cinema, and several of us wiped our tears. – Yours, etc,
EVELYN MAHON,
Fellow Emerita,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.