Sir, – John Horgan has written about Edna O'Brien in An Irishman's Diary (November 16th). He recalls the recurrent charge that in the 1960s the then parish priest of Tuamgraney, Co Clare, "supervised a public incineration" of her first novel (The Country Girls). The allegation has ever since been widely accepted as a historical truth. This perturbative claim has, to my knowledge, been carefully checked by at least three reputable and diligent sources in recent years. No evidence whatsoever of an event of this nature has ever been forthcoming. Could this be a case of Co Clare "omerta"?
Surely, when this story was first noised abroad, there must have been at least some dissident source that could have averred the truth of this alleged high-handed and unjust dismissal of the author’s creative work. But absolutely no-one could be found to support the claim that such a public event had ever taken place; unless the parish priest in question had committed his “crime” in secret!
Perhaps some mischievous acquaintance had conveyed the fable to Edna privately. I wonder could it just possibly be that she has ever since clung conscientiously (and innocently) to its bogus face value; the outcome of a ruse amongst friends not unknown in the realms of playful literary gossip? – Yours, etc,
TOM STACK,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – In his interesting piece on Edna O'Brien , John Horgan refers to an article by the late Fr Peter Connolly, former professor of English at Maynooth, on obscenity and literature and states that it was published in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record. The article, "The Moralists and the Obscene", was in fact published in the Irish Theological Quarterly in June 1965. This was a groundbreaking article in which Fr Connolly reviewed the thinking of moralists and the civil legislation then in vogue on obscenity in literature in England and the US. He argued that "moralists and legislators should leave room for the dynamic and dialectical function of creative fiction". The article was quoted on a number of occasions in the late 1960s in the California legislature when the question of obscenity and literature was being intensely debated. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL O’DWYER,
Maynooth,
Co Kildare.