Madam, – Hugh Oram’s Irishman’s Diary on Robert Tressell’s novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (August 20th) was both informative and timely.
This book also influenced Brendan Behan to combine the roles of housepainter and writer. In Borstal Boy he recalled “it was our book at home too and when my mother was done telling us of the Children of Lir and my father about Fionn Mac Cumhaill, they’d come back by way of 1916 to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and on every job you’d hear painters using the names out of it for nicknames . . . even by painters who had never read the book, nor any other book, either”.
A century after the author’s death, at a time when Irish PAYE taxpayers are being forced to perform their own act of philanthropy by bailing out and subsidising this country’s bankers and politicians, the continuing relevance of this book and of what one of its characters calls “the Great Money Trick” should be clear for all to see. – Yours, etc,