Sir, - Last Thursday night in Sligo a number of writers and musicians from all over Ireland held a benefit night for the American writer Robert Drake, who is in a coma as the result of a savage beating. The purpose of the gathering was to help raise funds for his medical care and repatriation. Those who took part answered the call as artlessly as hurlers might gather for a benefit in aid of an injured player, or indeed journalists might gather should, say, Kevin Myers have the misfortune to be beaten into a comatose state by people who dislike his snide and juvenile style. Everyone travelled at their own expense, nobody was paid, the venue and accommodation were provided without charge.
On my way back to Dublin on Friday morning I read in Mr Myers's Diary that we had been taking part in a "show of solidarity" - the quotation marks intended, of course, as a weary sneer - and we are to be castigated for not putting on a show of solidarity with the unfortunate Mr Pat O'Donnell, who was so cruelly and senselessly killed the other day. What exactly is Mr Myers's point here? That we shouldn't show simple human sympathy for a friend and colleague unless we also (or instead?) do so for another person? Is there to be a national menu from which we are to pick some cause of the week? And why are writers to be sneered at for not organising a benefit event for the late Mr O'Donnell? Why should bus-workers, barristers, Four Courts cleaners or even journalists not equally be sneered at? If he cares so much why does not your "columnist" organise something?
We are told twice in 90 words or so that Robert Drake was an American, a writer and a homosexual, and the thrust of Mr Myers's offensive tabloidese is that those who took part in this benefit did so because of these three things, and that therefore their motives may be impugned, their concern for a colleague ridiculed.
There is now, apparently, some hope that Robert Drake may recover from the beating handed out to him. Last week's gesture was recorded so that he might eventually have some sense that we are not all barbarians, that his colleagues (and the many Sligo people who attended) took a night out of their lives to wish him a full recovery. Sadly, he will also be shown Mr Myers's squalid little piece. - Yours, etc.,
Theo Dorgan, Merrion Square, Dublin 2.