Madam, - In a mean-spirited, personalising manner, the publisher Steve MacDonagh (July 7th) misrepresents what my letter of June 27th under this heading was about.
Tony Farmar had informed us authoritatively (Arts, June 20th) that Irish book publishing was in crisis. I argued that its insufficient enterprise - its failure, since Independence, to attempt to conquer the world for the Irish book - was a main cause of this.
I pointed out that Irish publishing, unlike a normal national publishing industry, has (with extremely rare exceptions) failed to publish books by Irish writers, including academics, about the world outside Ireland. For books on such matters, we must rely on foreign publishers.
Mr McDonagh, while making innuendos about the quality of my own writing, does not face up to this fact which I illustrated in some detail. Irrelevantly, he lists the admirable ventures of Brandon/Mount Eagle in the publication of fiction by foreign and Irish authors. Fiction, as we all know, is fiction and can be set imaginatively anywhere.
He laments "the decline in the market for serious books that are not about celebrities" and confirms this trend by telling us that the only Irish writer about the real world outside Ireland whom he has published is the television celebrity Manchan Magan.
The predominantly inward-looking characteristic of Irish publishing has had the serious consequence of impeding at source the thoughtful expressions of Irish minds about world matters, present and past. This, combined with our export of Irish fiction and poetry, has served to perpetuate the Mathew Arnold image of the Irish as "imaginative, thoughtless Celts".
As to my own writing about world matters, Steve MacDonagh need not worry about its fate. That I have managed, with much difficulty, to overcome this home-grown impediment is evident from a visit to my website www.desmondfennell.com. - Yours, etc,
Dr DESMOND FENNELL, Carton Square, Maynooth.