Sir, - I remember very well the world Kevin Williams describes in his article "Presence of Religion in Irish Culture" in today's Irish Times (July 23rd), though it is a world utterly remote from the experience of my children. Yet not so long ago, religious faith translated itself into cultural forms and practices which were all pervasive.
That world, for better and for worse, died a sudden death in the late Sixties. The Zeitgeist, it seems, was to blame. Certainly the growth of consumerism the banalisation of the media and the secularisation of politics played a part in destroying the specifically Catholic culture which is Dr Williams's concern. But there was also a loss of nerve in the Church: drama went out of the liturgy and prayer was drained of poetry. At any rate, there is no question of turning the clock back, as some reactionaries might wish.
Yet there is one positive aspect of that culture which deserves mention. It was rich enough to nourish the sensibilities of generations of Irish writers. I need only mention Brian Friel and Tom Murphy, John McGahern and Edna O'Brien, Seamus Heaney and John Montague to establish the point; of younger writers, only Aidan Mathews seems relevant here. This is, of course, a matter of style and seriousness, of cadence, and imagery and emphatically, not of the present religious affiliations of these writers
I quarrel only with Dr Williams's use of the present tense; to my mind he is engaged in cultural archaeology, itself a worthy pursuit but not to be taken as offering insights into contemporary reality. Tempora mutantur. - Yours, etc.,
Malahide,
Co. Dublin.