Sir, – It is very hard to write a newspaper article that does its job for the day but is still worth reading for its own sake decades later. Your supplement (November 20th) shows Fintan O’Toole has done so again and again.
To a university scholar, it is obvious from his other publications, as well as the quality of his Irish Times work, that Fintan O'Toole would be right at the top of any number of disciplines in Irish or US universities: English literature, soc/pol, drama and theatre, non-fiction writing, or history. The range of his talent is unmatched by anyone in contemporary English language journalism. He clearly has long been fitted to serve a turn as artistic director of the Abbey Theatre. That he has put his gifts, along with any writer's desire to exercise his literary gifts for literary and personal purposes alone, at the service of the daily needs of his country. That is a sacrifice worthy of public gratitude.
His effort to correct the course of the ship of state (one man in a dinghy in front of a supertanker) has a Greenpeace kind of nobility, futility, and Don Quixote quality to it, and a tragic quality too. Hats off to him. The country is in a different place because of his work. – Yours, etc,
ADRIAN FRAZIER,
Henry Street, Galway.
Sir, – If we could endure 25 years of Fintan O’Toole columns (Conor Brady has a lot to answer for!) we can survive anything. Long may your esteemed “opinion-monger” continue to inform, entertain and infuriate in equal measure. I suppose it can only be a matter of time before you publish “25 years of Irish life through the columns of John Waters”? – Yours, etc,
PAUL DELANEY,
Beacon Hill,
Dalkey, Co Dublin.
Sir, – Fifty years on from attending secondary school, I can still recall the feeling of gloom that descended, every week, when my homework assignment included the writing of an essay. So let me say, at the outset, and in all sincerity, that it is no mean feat to keep a newspaper column going for 25 years. Congratulations to Fintan O’Toole on this achievement. Personally, however, I am uneasy with Fintan O’Toole’s brand of journalism. While he writes very well, he has been extremely selective in his choice of targets.
This is especially true of his coverage of abortion. Anti-abortion activists are presented by him as inconsistent, hypocritical and prone to the use of dodgy statistics; pro-choice activists are never, ever, criticised. In Fintan O’Toole’s world, no pro-choice politician ever bullies or lies, no woman ever dies from an abortion, psychiatrists can predict a pregnant woman’s suicide, and abortion is a treatment for suicide. Also, while a lot of scientific evidence has been discovered, in the past 25 years, about the development of life in the womb, Fintan O’Toole continues to ignore the baby entirely in this debate.
There may also be a wee problem with political and religious bias. Like so many others in The Irish Times, Fintan did not have a lot to say when a Labour Minister for Education, shortly after taking office, announced a cut in the number of special needs assistants in primary schools. Was he too excited by the simultaneous announcement, by the same Minister, of a cut of 50 per cent in the number of Catholic-controlled schools? – Yours, etc,
JIM STACK,
Lismore, Co Waterford.
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole’s column has grasped our attention vividly for 25 years. The pin-sharp clarity of his prose still illuminates each topic that concerns us. He has the soul of a writer and no doubt athwart the grain: otherwise he would be mediocre. May he always provide us with a fresh and sometimes necessary acid portrait of ourselves. – Yours, etc,
JOSEPHINE LINEHAN,
Garryvoe,
Castlemartyr, Co Cork.