Evening star., 1948-03-14
An Irishmon
Discusses
Irish Letters
By Mory Mc6roy


deperature of Eamon de Valera and
the imrninence of st. Patrick's Day
seemed as good a time as any to
look into the state of Irish letters.
It was comparatively easy mat
ter to find a man lately come from
Cork who was willing to discuss
reading and writing in his native
land, but who thought it would be
just as well if his name wasn't men,
toned because you know how it is,
they're very sensitive and ALL"
Yes, the Cork man said, it might
appear rather strange that some
of the works of Irish authors who
are world famous as interpreters
of Irish life are forbidden to their
own countrymen. Writers like Kate
O'Brien, Sean O'Faiolain and Frank
|O'Connor depend almost entirely on
foreign markets, he explained. The
most famous Irish book of modern
times, James Joyce's Ulysses" is
not to be bought in Ireland.
It's not that the home literary
products are Disseminated against
in any way, the Cork man hastened
to add, because the banned lists are
full of titles by English and Amer
ican authors. Contraband books
are passed from hand to hand
among the bitterly resentful Dublin
lntellectua1s, he explained.
Most well-known Irish authors
are published in England, while ma
tive publishers concentrate on re-
ligious books and biographies of IL
lustrious Irishmen. In country
that has no Book of = the Month
Club, the novels of Annie M. P.
Smithson, who might conceivably be
called the Irish Kathleen Norris,
are enormously popular as are the
historical romances of Francis Nc
Manus. who seeks his themes in
Ireland's glorious past.
Rigid Censorship.
One outraged reader can originate
ban, and one line has been enough
to condemn a book, the exile ex-
planned. The critic has only to
mark the Objectionable passages and
pack 1t off to the censoring board,
who may or may not rule that the
book is "in its general tendency in
decent" Once the list of censored
books is made public (the Irish
Times, which is violently anti
censorship, features it, the din is
something terrible, he said. 1.-THE
Letters to the Editor column is
fuA of shot and shell, and often the
matter will reach the floor of the
Senate, where it is a commonplace
for the Irish legislators to argue
f1ercely for four hours about the
possible corrupting influence of
piece of literature.
Sean O'Faiolain, author of "An
Irish Journey" and a prominent
government gadfly, is extremely
vocal and always good for corro-
sive communication or two every
time list comes out, the Corkman
said, smiling happily at the memory
Of a good fight.
They Choose Moral Value.
This stern restriction of their
reading matter doesn't bother the
rank and file much, our Cork OBJ
server thinks. "They are very sensi-
tive to matters of religion, you know.
They are prepared to live and die
for them. If 1t is a question be-
tween the moral values and the
value of artistic freedom, they will
choose the moral value"
Another controversy that he re-
ported is the guerrilla warfare that
still goes on between the Irish Ire
landers,"- led by Daniel Corkery of
Cork University, who holds that
Irish literature is only those works
written in, Gaelic, and the opposi-
ton, captained by O'Faiolein and
O'Connor, who count in the ranks
of Irish authors all writing Irishmen
from Swift and Burke to Shaw.
"Ah, yes" he said, "that scrap Is
good for another hundred years"