A chara, - Liam Ó Muirthile (An Peann Coitianta, May 2nd) is concerned about what he sees as the dwindling audience for quality writing in Irish. He would even call it literature, and seeks the elevated company of Maupassant and Ó Cadhain.
The poet Patrick Kavanagh wrote that the artist needs an audience, however small, and that the quality of the audience was in any event more important than its size. One senses from Mr Ó Muirthile, however, a fear that his audience, such as it was, may by now have disappeared entirely.
His pieces are undoubtedly challenging (not least in their language) and skilfully crafted; but in my view, by failing to reflect or connect with the dominant paradigms of contemporary expression, they cannot be regarded as literature.
In a world where the instant image is all, the written word has had to contract and simplify. Irish language journalism has been surprisingly robust in adapting to this challenge, your own weekly Tuarascáil being a good example. In my view this column has been consistently excellent in its choice of subject and its use of direct and accessible language.
Mr Ó Muirthile says he doesn't want to make a paidir chapaill of his own plight. But the danger is it may still be read as, at least, a bit of a paidir fhada. Mr Ó Muirthile is in the privileged position of having a platform. There is an onus on him to reach out to the small and dispersed Irish language reading public.
There are many like myself who have lived all our lives in the Galltacht, and who learned what Irish we have from a mix of school, television (going back to the days of Féach on RTÉ) and reading (going back to the days of Tuarascáil under Eibhlín Ní Bhriain in The Irish Times).
Our fluency can never hope to match Ó Muirthile's. But we are a receptive audience, none the less, more than willing to meet the author half-way. So I say: Mair, a Liam, agus gheobhaidh tú lucht léitheoireachta. - Is mise,
JOHN GLENNON,
Bannagroe,
Co Wicklow.