Madam, - Fintan O'Toole is to be congratulated for his grasp of the central point of Gustave de Beaumont's Ireland, first published in 1839 and translated at the time into English by William Taylor of Trinity College Dublin (Opinion, April 18th). Daniel O'Connell is clearly Beaumont's hero. Beaumont was well acquainted with the Liberator in his last years and grasped his international importance as one of the founding fathers of not just Irish democracy, but of anti-sectarian and anti-racist democracy everywhere.
By way of contrast, Patrick Geoghegan's review of the new edition of the book, published by Harvard University Press and edited by us, contains some serious slips (Books, April 15th). Much of the review is a paraphrase of our introduction, which he then declares to be inadequate. In actuality, an editorial decision was made by Harvard to shorten the introduction so as to let Beaumont speak for himself. The name "Hess" is misspelled not once, but four times in the review.
Our summary of Beaumont's view of Ireland is described as being our own joint opinion rather than as Beaumont's. We are further accused of neglecting the translator, William Taylor. We refer Dr Geoghegan to the endnote (number 6) of our introduction. This gives a detailed and complimentary summary of Taylor's career and academic achievements. We also refer him to the translator's own preface, which is reprinted in full. - Yours, etc,
TOM GARVIN, ANDREAS HESS, UCD, Dublin 4.