O'Flaherty's birth date marked as he would have wished

VERY few tourists exploring Inis Mor, the largest of the Aran Islands yesterday were aware of the celebrations honouring the writer Liam O'Flaherty who was born here 100 years ago.

One group of American tourists, however, felt they had just joined a literary secret society of sorts, as two of them had seen John Ford's film version of O'Flaherty's novel The Informer. A girl from Boston with a Nike sweatshirt had read Famine, "because Dad said it was a good story and it also gives some idea of the suffering caused by the famine".

She thought for a moment and added: "There's all this stuff about the potatoes rotting and all. Really cool, but you know, sort of gross. The people just starved to death on their feet." Her dramatic account of the novel certainly had some impact on her listeners, but they did not abandon their ice creams.

Liam O'Flaherty, born in Gort na gCapall, the only village on the Atlantic coast of the three islands, is remembered here with respect, but not with love or even affection. His presence remains an austere one.

The man who went away and became a famous writer an angry passionate man who was one of them and yet somehow quite apart from them.

His nieces, Maureen Concannon and Alice Powell, both read his work as young girls. According to Maureen "We read his books when they were forbidden. Well, they were more than forbidden, they were banned. Times were much stricter then. People were so conservative."

Standing in the open air with the hard sunlight glaring on the dry limestone walls which dominate the landscape she said.

He was good to us. He'd let, us read whatever he was writing until he got fed up with us and paid us to slay away and not be bothering him.

She remembers read in g the pages of"Famine", "almost one by one as they were written. We'd take up the pages until he'd lose patience with us."

The day's celebrations had begun with a Mass in the local church at Kilronan. In the Heritage Centre the latest editions of O'Flaherty's books were on display and were being bought. Later the gathering moved on to Scoilan Cheathrar Alainn.

There his eldest daughter Pegeen O'Sullivan unveiled a bronze plaque of the stern features of her father.

Looking at the work which had been sculpted and cast by a local student she said that it was sad that the person that all the fuss was about could not have been present. But she stressed she was happy that the celebration was on the Aran Islands.

O'Flaherty's life had taken him far away. After a period training for the priesthood and some time spent at university, he had joined the British army. This marked the beginning of long years of travelling throughout North America, South America and Russia.

He was a man rarely at peace. Yet while in turmoil he was at his most active as a creative writer. Regarded as, a difficult, abrasive personality, Liam O Flaherty was never romanticised as a lovable eccentric or gentle dreamer. He was aloof, aggressive and uncompromising. Playful anecdotes do not abound.

Pegeen O Sullivan does not idealise her father. He was solitary and restless, and he got cranky as he got olden. But he always loved children.

While reluctant to evaluate his work she did say that she felt his most artistically perfect achievements are Skerrett, and "of course, the short stories".

Among the speakers honouring O'Flaherty was the publisher, Seamus Cashman of Wolfhound Press, who has single handedly kept O'Flaherty's literary reputation alive in Ireland. Although O'Flaherty had been published in London, from the start of his career by Jonathan Cape and later by Gollancz, when his books sold out of print it was Cashman who revived them - and has kept several of the titles, including Famine, Skerrett, The Black Soul and The Assassin in print.

Yesterday however Cashman spoke more about O'Flaherty, his friend than O'Flaherty the writer. Angeline O'Kelly, who edited the late short story collection, The Pedlar's Revenge, "discussed the impact O'Flaherty's war years had on his subsequent life. The attendance then moved on to the house in which O'Flaherty had been born and raised.

The mighty fort of Dun Aenghus clearly was visible in the near distance. The O'Flaherty house, a small, neatly whitewashed traditional cottage, is now the home of an old man who lives alone. The gathering took place on the road outside. At no time was there a sense of pilgrimage and O'Flaherty would have approved of the direct, almost business like approach to remembering him and his work.

His great grandson, Ciaran Powell, read one of O Flaherty's most famous and most delicate short stories, The Three Lambs. Pegeen shares something of her father's reserve. "He was quite distant, he respected his distance." Then she added with a surprising spontaneity: "I think he was great, I think he was a poet."

There are no O Flaherty tea towels, no souvenir mugs, no posters, no pubs named after his novels or his short stories - at least none on the island.

Liam O'Flaherty's face does not appear along with the usual collection of "famous Irish writers". It hasn't happened yet and it never will. Respected and remembered, not, idolised, not the centre of an industry. It is the way he would have wanted it.