PYERS O'CONOR-NASH,
Sir, - I read with mixed emotions the section dealing with my family home, Clonalis House, in Count Randal MacDonnell's book The Lost Houses of Ireland, reviewed by Frank McDonald in your edition of August 24th.
To summarise my emotions is difficult, but let me say nostalgia, relief, bewilderment, and distress go some way to conveying my present state.
Yes, I found the photographs from the Tatler and Sketch extremely nostalgic and evocative; and so too is my early-1970s memory, of Randal striding across the front square in Trinity wearing the kilt to an early morning lecture (or was it the Buttery?) - we were students together in those days.
Relief? Yes, because of the various families dealt with in the book, the O'Conors have been treated in a relatively benign fashion.
Bewilderment? Yes, because in common with my forebears we have spent much time and expended considerable effort in trying to ensure Clonalis does not become a "lost house". We are taken aback to find our home in a book so titled.
I do appreciate the title can be read to refer to the lost Tatler and Sketch photographs of the houses, but this interpretation of the title is more than a little inaccessible to the average reader.
Distress? Yes, because of some of the unnecessary inaccuracies that have been made in references to the O'Conor family. Not the least of these is the reference to the supposed fact that the present O'Conor Don is the grandson of my late uncle, the Rev Charles O'Conor SJ, O'Conor Don.
My late uncle was, as can be attested to by those who knew him, a most devout and pious Jesuit priest who took all his religious vows with the utmost seriousness. The relationship is in fact, a second cousin once removed.
Had the count informed us that he was going to write about Clonalis or given us an opportunity of "proofing" what had been written, such mistakes could have been avoided.
I trust the Count MacDonnell and the publishers, Weinenfeld & Nicolson, will, at the very least, include an "erratum" in the copies as yet unsold. - Yours., etc.,
PYERS O'CONOR-NASH,
Clonalis House,
Castlerea,
Co Roscommon.