Sir, – Laura Kennedy writes that James Joyce was guilty of a good deal of sentimentality about Ireland, "as was Beckett" ("Homesick for a place that does not exist, except in memory", Life, May 1st).
Sadly she fails to furnish the startled reader with examples of these aberrations. How about: “Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow”? That’s Joyce. And: “I’d prefer to live in France at war than Ireland in peacetime.” That’s Beckett. – Yours, etc,
RONAN FARREN,
Killiney,
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Co Dublin.