Sir, - In response to Mr Myers's article of October 24th, I would like to refute his claim that the terms Aosdana and Saoi have no validity in today's society. As a Leaving Cert student of Irish history, they have a very real meaning for me.
According to him, the use of such titles is ridiculous. To show this, he used an example of the English creating a "League of Arthur" or "Merlin's Elect". Of course such titles are bogus and highly ridiculous - they are being used completely out of context. The legends of Arthur and Merlin have no parallel in today's society. The terms Aosdana and Saoi, however, are being put to the same use today as they were in the 12th century. They refer, respectively, to a class of poets and artists, and the best among that class. Does Mr Myers find the term Taoiseach and Tanaiste "bogus" and "lacking in cultural resonances" also?
I felt particularly annoyed at his relegation of documented Irish history to "a realm of fantasy" and "an imagined world of bards and kings". According to the studies of Bob Willoughby, among others, "to become a poet meant a rigorous apprenticeship of up to 12 years. The poet was required to know at least 350 classic narratives, some lasting for hours, to memorize genealogies and topographical traditions, besides coping with the hundreds of complex metres and disciplines that would boggle the mind today.
"Their poetry had such style and is so sophisticated in a form rich with alliteration and assonance, internal rhymes and metre, that it can never properly he translated into each language.
Knowing this, how can Mr. Myers state that Irish courts were "muddy hamlets, and the kings no more than illiterate cow thieves"? Perhaps he hasn't read his history? Yours, etc.,
Maryville,
Kilworth.
Co. Cork.