Sir, - In her article on the Irish College in Paris (Weekend, May 6th) Lara Marlowe presents a simplistic contrast between Old and New Ireland, "the Anglophile, globalised and secularised Ireland of Temple Bar and the Celtic Tiger versus tradition, Catholicism and the Gaelic League cultural nationalism of Mgr Devlin's generation". The tone with which she treats Breandan O Doibhlin makes it perfectly clear that she knows nothing of his work.
After all, this is the man who, among other achievements, introduced the practices of European literary criticism to Ireland and wrote arguably the best Northern Ireland novel of the past 30 years, An Branar gan Cur, a work which, like most of his output, is infused with stylistic and thematic debts to polyglot European culture and literature. However, this was done in Irish and so is apparently, in the words of her unnamed Government official, ludicrous (whether in Paris or Temple Bar).
In his work, and in his person as I know him, Breandan O Doibhlin reflects a generous, diverse internationalism and a true Europeanism, so different from a narrow, monoglot globalisation which would turn the Irish College into a high-grade Irish pub abroad for a better class of lager lout. - Yours, etc.
Eugene McKendry, Ballymena, Co Antrim.