Madam, - I read Kevin Myers beautifully composed elegy to the friend of my youth, Fedelma Cullen, with a mixture of amazement and dismay (An Irishman's Diary, November 26th).
His eloquent admiration of Fedelma's beauty is justified - she was indeed gorgeous - but to create a myth out of her life, and to cast her in the singular role of tragic heroine, is to do her a disservice.
Fedelma was an intelligent woman, talented and creative, who loved theatre and performance. Like many performers, she was at heart a shy person. It was our mutual shyness that brought us together when we first met in UCD. The cool self-confidence that Kevin described was a protective mask.
Fedelma was private and reserved and she would not have wanted her personal gynaecological details or the more tragic aspects of her life with Donal McCann to be made public after her death.
She was, I know, grateful that Kevin Myers was the first to speak out publicly when Donal died, rightly commenting on the absence of her name from the many tributes published at the time.
Donal McCann, a brilliant actor, was not a saint, but neither was he the devil. He was an alcoholic, and addiction to alcohol is a disease of the mind, body and spirit, which affects everybody who lives with it. And Fedelma loved him.
The woman her family and friends spoke about at her funeral was not a victim. As I understand it, she courageously and doggedly set about re-establishing her career as a freelance actor after the disbandment of the permanent Abbey Company.
She had been hurt and disappointed by the treatment she and her fellow actors at the Abbey received as they were slowly and systematically frozen out of the company. But she had moved on.
Ach sin scéal eile - and the truth, as Kevin well knows, shifts its shape according to whoever is telling the story. Allow Fedelma to rest in peace. - Yours, etc.,
NUALA HAYES, Bridgewater Quay, Islandbridge, Dublin 8.