Sir, - Kevin Myers, a very busy man by his own account, made time on August 30th to say that I had achieved "heights of sectarianism and fatuity simultaneously" by describing G. B. Shaw as Anglo-Irish, but he was apparently too busy to make more than an excathedra denunciation of me for believers to believe without bothering their heads any further.
Actually, I thought I had described Shaw as stage-Irish. But what concerns me is the assertion that I was motivated by anti-Protestant religious bigotry in the matter. "Fatuity" is mere vulgar abuse - and applies to Shaw's multi-volume biographer if it applies to me.
But "sectarianism" which in its context can only mean anti-Protestant bigotry, is rather more serious. I took a stand against the Catholic-nationalist torrent of 1969 by making out a case for the Ulster Protestants, and have maintained it ever since. (I don't know what Mr Myers did. Catholics, even Southerners, making out a case for Ulster Protestants were very few then, yet I did not notice him doing it.)
But because I took Elizabeth Bowen at her word about her overwhelming sense of Englishness, expressed at the end of her life, I am a Catholic bigot! I'm afraid I need some explanation to be able to see it. - Yours, etc.,
Milllstreet, Co Cork.