Sir, - Dr Patricia Coughlan (April 14th) has responded to points I made about her reading of Peig Sayers. She tells us that Peig "sharply resented the economic circumstances of her life". This is not at issue in my letter of April 6th. Neither is Dr Coughlan's warmth towards the writings of Peig.
What was at issue is an ideological reading of Peig that I believe is inappropriate. I cannot presume on The Irish Times allowing me space to confront Dr Coughlan's many assertions. Let me focus, then, on a single instance which will be exemplary of everything else she says. In my letter of April 6th, I said that it is a "cardinal principle of literary criticism that we must never go from the historical circumstances in which a text was written to the text but that we might, on occasion, cross from the text to the historical circumstances". Dr Coughlan's response to this is as follows: "Fr Moore thinks there is a "cardinal principle" which makes art somehow inpregnable by history." Given that she redefies history in this sentence, it is doubtful if it has any meaning at all; but giving it the benefit of the doubt, it is evident that Dr Coughlan is arguing not with what I said but with conclusions she has illegitimately drawn from what I said. Indeed, as an answer to my letter, her letter from beginning to end is a logical non sequitur.
In Chapter 14 of the account of her life, Peig tells us of a night when three men unknown to either herself or her father came through the door. They produced a bottle and within a short time, while Peig was wondering which one of them was looking for her in marriage, her response was: "Bhi gach aon duinne acu ro-mhaith d'fhear domsa da mbeinn seacht h-uaire nios fearr na mar bhios (any one of them would have been too good a man for me even if I was seven times better than I was)." In the conversation that ensues, Peig's father asks her "Cad ta le ra agat? (what have you to say)?" Peig's reply is "Raghad pe ait a dearfaidh tu liom (I'll do whatever you tell me)." With not a little justice and some reification a person might conclude that in this scene we are observing the patriarchy at work. Peig at no time registers her rage or disappointment at this and there are in this passage no esoteric or occult codings that would enable us to claim Peig as an articulate but culturally silent proponent of particular socio-political causes. She confesses to delight at the outcome of the events.
We must honour that; and if we wish to make moral judgments on this situation or register our moral outrage at it, we must be careful to remember that those are extraneous to the text and that we must not import them into the text as though they had an ideologically corrective right to be there.
This is the essence of the point I wish to make in the first letter and which I now, again, wish to make in this letter. In other words, I am talking about what I think should be correct procedure in critical appraisal. - Yours, etc.,
Pat Moore CC
Gneeveguilla, Rathmore, Co Kerry.