Madam, – An Irishman’s Diary (August 10th) opens with reference to a poem in the Irish language poem An Long by Pádraig de Brun (1889-1960), however this was a translation by De Brun from the original by Oliver St John Gogarty.
As custodians of the Aidan Heavey Collection, we pride ourselves on having several fine special collections within the main collection. One such collection is the Gogarty collection and one of the gems it contains is the very rare The Ship and other poems (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1918) which is, I believe, the first collection of poems by Gogarty published under his own name. The title poem The Ship opens with the verse: “A ship from Valparaiso came And in the Bay her sails were furled; She brought the wonder of her name And tidings from a sunnier world.” Therefore the emotions that the author ascribes to De Brun were actually those of Gogarty. Credit where credit is due, please! – Yours, etc,