Madam, - Your shortlist of 50 "greatest Irish novels" (Weekend Review, September 27th) will have raised blood pressure among book-lovers at home and abroad - which may, of course, have been its intention.
I cannot let it pass without adverting to at least three hostages offered to fortune:
1. Gender balance: Of the 42 writers listed (some of whom are represented by more than one work), nine are women (and indeed two of these collaborated on a single work). That is a male-female ratio of 3:1. Contemporary Irish women writers omitted include Clare Boylan, Ita Daly, Ann Enright, Anne Haverty, Julia O'Faolain, and Val Mulkerns to name a few.
2. The inclusion of Melmoth the Wanderer. I was going to say it is virtually unreadable, but hell, I'll get off the fence and ask, pace Terry Eagleton's comments, if anyone involved in compiling your list has actually read this Gothic, psychotic drivel? If so, they deserve a special prize of their own.
3. Other exclusions: Your compilers have missed a great opportunity to introduce your readers to some fine Irish novelists they might actually have enjoyed - the ebullient Ben Kiely, the shamefully neglected Gerald Hanley, or the children's writer Patricia Lynch, for example, or Patrick O'Brian, who has Kevin Myers and readers all over the world to support him. Another inexplicable exclusion is that of Colum McCann, whose international reputation needs no defence from me.
No list can be definitive, certainly, but this one is less definitive than most. - Yours etc.,
NOELEEN DOWLING, North Circular Road, Dublin 7.