Sir, - Where to begin to address the obfuscations in Damian Smyth's reply (August 16th) to my article ("Any Muslims here tonight ?", August 9th). I'll pass over his foolish description of me as "a white, settled English speaker" and move straight to the point which he has missed utterly.
My argument was not that the Arts Council of Northern Ireland should not address or seek to fund its minority communities. I was objecting to a form produced by the Council which asked me to specify what I was doing to explicitly engage with the Chinese, Indian, Pakistani Muslim, Traveller, Caribbean and other communities of Northern Ireland while no reference whatever was made to the communities which, according to his own figures, form between 98.5 and 99 per cent of the population of Northern Ireland. I found this odd; I still do. It seemed to me ludicrous that a form which can identify a community as "Pakistani Muslim" should shy away from identifying the two major communities in Northern Ireland. Or are the words "Catholic" and "Protestant" simply more troublesome than "Muslim"?
My second point was that I didn't and don't think it appropriate that arts organisers should be expected to justify their existence on the basis of the communities, minority and majority, which they have explicitly targeted. The organisation which I represent is inclusive, which means that its activities are open to people of all classes, creeds and sexual preferences, and that, indeed, is reflected by the diversity of our programmes, audiences and participants. I do not, however, set out to design a specifically lesbian programme or programmes exclusively for men, women or Ulster Scots speakers. Nor do I intend to ascertain what proportion of gay men attend a poetry reading in the building or how many Romanians used the computer room, though we have had events featuring Romanian writing and writing by gay men and women. We do these not because we feel we have to satisfy our funders but because openness and non-exclusivity is built into the enterprise. We welcome and attempt to nourish talent, in whatever form it appears.
I'm amused to be informed that " `Ireland' and `Irishness' is [sic] about more than Catholics and Protestants". Where does he think I live? As it happens, I'm neither Catholic nor Protestant and have never attempted to locate my Irishness in either creed. I don't need to have Louis MacNeice quoted at me to nudge me into pluralism. Nor do I need to travel to Legahory to encounter Muslim immigrants. ("Has Peter ever been there? It's about 18 miles from Belfast?") I can step out my own front door and encounter long settled Muslim, Chinese, and many other communities. I don't know whether Damian Smyth has been here. It's called Dublin; it's about 100 miles from Belfast. Precisely the reason I find it interesting to live in it is its increasingly mixed cultural composition.
Nowhere in my article can I find anything which in any way disparages any community, nor can I find anything to account for the assumption in Damian Smyth's reply that my vision is exclusivist, white and English-speaking. D'fheadfadh muid e seo ar ndoigh a phle tri mhean na Gaeilge da mbeifea toilteanach, a Damian. Nilim anois no ni raibh me riamh i gcoinne ilghneitheac hais: a mhalairt is fior. Ni he go bhfuilim in aghaidh Comhairle Ealaion an Tuaiscirt ach oiread - chomh maith le Damian sheasfainn ar son prionsabail na comhairle, da mbeadh se ar mo chumas iad a thuiscint. - Yours, etc.,
Peter Sirr, Director, Irish Writers' Centre, 19 Parnell Square, Dublin 1.