SINEAD MC COOLE,
Sir, - In an interview in your edition of January 25th, Una O'Higgins O'Malley refers to my biography of Lady Lavery, and in particular to the fact that I did not personally inform her of the existence of the letters between her father, Kevin O'Higgins, and Hazel, Lady Lavery which revealed an intimacy between them.
In the interview she stated: "It's true that she came across the letters after she had last been in my house but she never contacted me to tell me about them and the book was practically in print before I knew." Mrs O'Higgins O'Malley made reference to knowing me quite well and that we had discussed a number of things about this period. I wish to clarify the situation.
When I met Mrs O'Higgins O'Malley in 1990 I was a recent graduate of UCD, preparing my MA thesis on Lady Lavery's involvement in Irish politics in the early years of the Irish Free State. At that time I believed there was no truth to the rumour of an affair. The reasons for my conviction were the biography of Kevin O'Higgins by Terence de Vere White, first published in 1948, and other material in the public domain.
In fact, the rerceived view was that Hazel invented her role in Irish politics and fabricated her correspondence to give the impression of a close relationship to key players in Irish political life.
While researching Lady Lavery's biography in 1992, I was shocked to discover intimate letters from Kevin O'Higgins to Lady Lavery in the Lady Lavery papers (private collection). These letters had never been seen by any previous historian. I did not meet Una O'Higgins O'Malley after I had uncovered this material but she was informed by a third party known to her and the Lilliput Press prior to the book's publication in 1996. At the time, I wrote her personal note, to which she replied. It still causes me great sadness to be responsible for bringing this information to light, and by doing so hurting both the O'Higgins family and Lady Lavery's descendants.
My objective was to document Lady Lavery's life as accurately as I could using all available documentation. I used the material as sensitively as possible, in part because I knew Mrs O'Higgins O'Malley. In the introduction to the biography I quoted Sir Shane Leslie, who suggested that the stories should be put in an envelope for the "historian of 2000". On reflection, perhaps the biography of Lady Lavery should have waited for another generation. - Yours, etc.,
SINEAD MC COOLE,
Ballybrack,
Dublin.