Sir, – Frank McNally pays tribute to St Fiacre, the Irish monk who gave his name to the horse-drawn hansom cabs of Paris (An Irishman’s Diary, August 30th). The Kilkenny holy man also left his mark in Vienna where tourists happily pay €80 for a romantic ride around the city in a Fiaker.
Given his seventh-century attitude to women and his life of self-mortification, St Fiacre might be less pleased to be remembered for the riotous Fiaker Ball held on Ash Wednesday, and to be immortalised in Fiakermilli, the coloratura seductress in Richard Strauss’s opera Arabella. – Yours, etc,
Dr JOHN DOHERTY,
Vienna.