Madam, - Toby Joyce has the wrong end of the stick in his comments on O'Casey and Orwell (July 2nd). O'Casey's "waspish response" to Orwell's review of Drums Under The Windows was actually refused publication by the Observer, so it cannot have been a factor in Orwell's naming O'Casey on his list of "crypto-Communists, fellow-travellers or inclined that way" sent to the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office in 1949.
On the contrary, Orwell's review of O'Casey's book reveals his unacceptable attitude towards the Irish. What Orwell said was: "It is not surprising that there should be Irishmen whose life-work is abusing England: what does call for remark is that they should be able to look to the English public for support and in some cases should even, like Mr O'Casey himself, prefer to live in the country which is the object of their hatred ... This book contains literally no reference to England which is not hostile or contemptuous".
The logic of this view is that the Irish living in England should keep their mouths shut. In 1945, when the review was published, the war was just over and a lot of English people, Orwell among them, still resented the Irish policy of neutrality. In February 1941 Orwell noted in his diary: "The spectacle of our allowing a sham-independent country like Ireland to defy us simply makes all Europe laugh at us." Thus a review of the kind handed out to O'Casey did not come out of the blue.
All the brouhaha at present to elevate Orwell to some kind of sainthood ought not to blind us to his little-Englandism and his prejudice against the Irish. - Yours, etc.,
CHRISTOPHER MURRAY, Watson Drive, Killiney, Co Dublin