ALL SONS OF KINGS SIR,—Bloomsday, by Mr. Alan McClelland and
his co-author, James Joyce, at present running at the Eblana Theatre, Dublin, was not banned for its NighttoWn, or any other scene, in 1960. It was with- , drawn by the Irish Theatre Festival Committee, following a hint from the Archbishop's Palace that the Festival could not expect to be preceded by a Mass if the play was put on. There was no absolute necessity for the Festival Committee to withdraw it; Festivals have begun and ended without Church blessing before, even in this country; but they did. Whereupon two other slightly known dramatists also promptly withdrew their offerings, namely Mr. Samuel Beckett and Mr. Sean O'Casey; and the whole Festival packed it in and went home, until last year.
Ulysses in Nighttown, to the best of my know- ledge, was staged only at the Arts Theatre, London; and the language of the young ladies in it, though technically correct and taken directly from the Ulyssean script, was so incorrect in expression that I feel sure it would interest our Garda even more than did The Rose Tattoo, even though it might not be banned. There is no stage censorship in this country, as yet, as your esteemed 'first-timer' to Dublin, Mr. Ronald Bryden, might have found out, if he had listened to more than the sardonic laughter of those 'young poets' (names, please, Mr. Bryden?) caused by the mere sight of the elders who have taken over the Irish Literary Establishment, whenever they can spare the time from lecturing to American universi- ties—on Joyce, among other departed glories.
Mr. Bryden is right, though. It was a pseudo event out at the Martello Tower. I, as a son of Kings on the distaff side, and a citizen, was there also, and thoroughly enjoyed the charade and the sparkling wine. Death-mask, manuscripts, sketches, cane—but the great exile is still in exile, even though he never left Ireland. As for his mortal remains, which it has been suggested should be brought back also from Zurich, and reinterred in his beloved Dublin, it seems to me that until we, as a people, an island race, accept self-responsibility as our only Authority, as James Joyce did in his life, it would be more fitting to leave his bones where they are. At present we are the Irish children, from whom certain books and films are withheld by Church and State, not precisely until we have grown tql, but rather on the grounds that we must never grow up into such wickedness, and must therefore never read or see such books and such films, even though the rest of the civilised world may do so, and in most cases does. Perhaps our entry into the Common Market may bring Catholic Ireland more into line with Catholic Europe in all matters of social, human and sexual relationships? That would be some compensa- tion for the end of the Irish dream of Ireland a nation, which Mr. Bryden sought so hopefully, to find, doing his own Ulyssean mental tour from the Martello Tower to our National Museum, and from the Irish Gaels of New York to the White House, and back, as ever was, to the pub off Grafton Street, where the 'young poets' of today groan at the awful weight of their foefathers of our dodo, the Irish Renaissance. It is a brave and touching picture, if lacking something in reality.
EWART MILNE
17 Terenure Road East, Dublin, 6
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