Sir, - I write to correct the impression given by Victoria White's arts column (May 9th) that differences between myself and the committee of the John Hewitt International Summer School have been happily resolved. She quotes a press release issued by the committee to several newspapers. This statement, of which I had no prior knowledge, attempts to defuse the anger over my removal as academic director, and it does contain one welcome admission. The committee acknowledges that I "made a significant contribution to the emergence of the school as one of the premier summer schools in Ireland". This contradicts the claim (in the Sunday Tribune) of committee member, Hazel Armstrong, that I had ruined the school".
However, the statement does not retract other damaging charges which Ms Armstrong, Damian Smyth and Patrick Close have aired in the media. Nor does it address the real problem. The committee's behaviour has deeply alienated many who value the school and the work of John Hewitt.
The statement "regrets the controversy and publicity" that followed my resignation. The controversy was not of my making. The publicity was not of my seeking. My resignation was forced, without warning. There were no issues of policy or practice that could have justified such an action.
The Hewitt Summer School, in its evolution, has woven together various strands. These include concern for Hewitt's writings; continuation of the cultural debates he initiated; attention to the literature of the North; readings by poets and prose writers; contributions from the Republic and other parts of the British Isles; international horizons; political discussion; a lot of fun and laughter. It has been a forum, a space, where issues that intimately concern people in Northern Ireland could be raised in a non threatening way. The school also depended on an ever expanding network of relationships. Therefore I am not the only victim. Those who have protested against my expulsion feel that a whole ethos has been violated and the collective work of years jeopardised.
Above all, there is great sadness that the ideals associated with John Hewitt appear to have been compromised. Yours, etc.,
Osborne Gardens,
Belfast.