Madam, - Last week I received a copy of the programme for the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. The first thing that caught my eye on opening it was a sultry poster of a muscular, half-naked youth in what a friend subsequently described to me as "a classic St Sebastian pose". The film was called Fairytale of Kathmandu.
The accompanying description presented it as a documentary on the poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh. I noted it as an interesting film that I would certainly like to see.
That Saturday your Weekend Review section carried a full-page account by Kathy Sheridan of the film and the process of its making that made me wonder if in fact it was not closer to a tabloid exposé of the poet's personal life. Ironically, but perhaps appropriately, the only other material on this page was a large advertisement featuring a picture of the late Oscar Wilde.
I know Mr Ó Searcaigh slightly and have had some occasional professional dealings with him. I have always found him to be open, honourable and generous and there is no question that he is a remarkable writer and performer of poetry in the Irish language. He may also be quite literally an innocent abroad when it comes to the making of bio-pics.
On Monday the subject was being pruriently ventilated on the Joe Duffy Showon RTÉ radio. On Tuesday the story was on the one o'clock news and also again on Joe Duffy. It now appears that the video has been made selectively available to members of the press and others. The health authorities, the Rape Crisis Centre and the police have now been involved.
This all revolves around suggestions that Mr Ó Searcaigh, who has clearly been the generous benefactor of quite a number of young men in Nepal, may also have had sexual relations with some of these youths, although it is not claimed that any of them were under the Nepali age of consent. The issue of disproportionate status, although not of coercion, has been raised.
There may indeed be some questions to be clarified. However, the manner in which these issues have been sensationally presented to the Irish public could hardly be construed as being helpful. Indeed Tuesday's Live Lineshowed signs of a witch-hunt being stirred up with calls for Ó Searcaigh's poetry to be withdrawn from the Leaving Certificate syllabus and for him to be drummed out of Aosdána. I find this very sad as I had hoped that we had in recent years matured beyond this ignorant vindictiveness.
On the other hand I was very struck by the bravery of the poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi, who, although elderly and, as she indicated herself, from a rather prim background, yet refused to be cowed into joining the pack baying for Ó Searcaigh's blood.
The stirring-up of this controversy may well advance the commercial prospects of this venture but one may ask if it advances the cause of justice and fairness. There are some, apparently, who are determined to push this into the criminal arena. The waters have been very effectively muddied by the fact that Mr Ó Searcaigh has already been subjected to an extensive media trial and by the selective introduction to the public consciousness of materials that appear to be damaging. Official investigations are apparently now being carried out also in Nepal.
Some of those critical of Mr Ó Searcaigh have actually questioned whether homosexuality exists at all in Nepal. This in itself betrays a certain mindset. The youths themselves, although above the age of consent, might well find it extremely difficult to be positive even about consensual sexual activities in a country where, according to your own paper, homosexual activity between males is completely illegal.
To return to my opening point, I find it strange that a film which now appears to be in fact largely centred on allegations of what is presented to be a form of emotional, if not sexual abuse of young men should be advertised by such sultry visual materials. I have always disliked being manipulated and I will not now be paying money to see this film as I do not wish to swell the profits of those involved and I hope that other people may take a similar view.
- Yours, etc,
Senator DAVID NORRIS, Seanad Éireann, Dublin 2.