Correspondence
A LETTER FROM DUBLIN.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sue,—During the revolutionary years, shortly after the setting up of the Northern Parliament, I saw upon a Belfast hoarding a poster which had been issued by the licensed trade by way of attack on the Prohibitionists, then greatly feared. It showed a map of Ulster, with a notice board over every one of the Six Counties. " No drinking here " said one notice, and the others, " no football here," no theatres here," &c. Some wag had pencilled notices on the counties across the Border. Over Cavan was written " No courting here," and over Donegal " No ambushes."
I was reminded of this during the controversy over the Free State Censorship Bill. The opposition to the censorship can point to the fact that Ireland does tend to run to Puritanism. The suppression of the cross-road dances in the last century (turning the dancers into corner-boys) was part of this deso- lating rigorism. It would be wrong, however, to suppose that mere Puritanism initiated the censorship movement. It rose from the ugly consequences of the last conflict. To get back to the idealism which was the safeguard of Irish chastity in former times, is felt, by people who are no way Puritanical, to be the country's great need. These people feel, rightly or wrongly, that censorship is a necessary beginning to that end.
On this theme only personal views can be offered. I believe that the possible effectiveness of the Bill lies in its being made a starting point of social reform. I do not believe that, apart from the banning of sonic lurid Sunday newspapers, it will affect the public reading matter perceptibly. The film censorship shows how ineffectual mere negative action must be. The film censorship has banned many films that are - shown in England, and has " cut others drastically ; but still, when I looked for a decent cinematograph show one . recent evening, there was none at the chief Dublin houses which did not deal with seduction, adultery or rape. Censor. ship will be effective only if it leads to positive action. It is unfitting to wash dirty linen in public ; but there have arisen abuses, during the years of disillusion, which demand the measures directed against social evils by the present Italian and Spanish Governments. I regard the Censorship Bill with hope, therefore, preferring to see in it, not Puritanism, but the awakening of the social conscience.
A fortnight ago I was writing at a cafe table in a Belgian market place, and thinking how closely the scene resembled one in Ireland. Then the biggest aeroplane that ever I saw at close quarters hummed overhead. Not one person save myself looked up. Here was a contrast to Ireland with a vengeance. What to me was a prodigy, to this people was a commonplace. In Ireland we still run from the house to look at any aircraft that crosses our skies. (As recently as 1923 children ran out to admire motor cars, in a part of County Wicklow, not forty miles from Dublin). Ireland soon, however, will find aeroplanes no marvel. A civil aviation club is work- ing to popularize the notion of flight. The club has just obtained an Avro machine, which is maintained at Baldonnel, and let out to members for training and for flights. At the moment I believe that it is in Berlin with Major Fitzmaurice, the Atlantic flier. Mention of Berlin recalls the fact that negotiations are understood to be afoot for the initiation of German-Irish lines. The idea is to link Galway, as a port for trans-Atlantic traffic by air, with the Continent. The scheme of Imperial Airways to link London, Belfast and Dublin in a continuous daily service already has been made public.
" Is the Abbey Theatre played out ? " This question is much discussed. Save Mr. O'Casey's curious plays, little of note has appeared on the Abbey stage for years. Some hold that the Irish dramatic movement is exhausted. Others suggest that good work is being written, but fails to win the approval of those directors who refused to produce Mr. O'Casey's Silver Tassie. They point to the remarkable fact that about 600 amateur dramatic societies are working in this small country—societies which demonstrated in 'recent contests that acting reaches as high a level in the provinces as in the capital. The country being thus interested in drama, it would be curious if playwrights were as scarce as the many repetitions at the Abbey suggest. Week by week, however, even in playing old plays, the Abbey boasts a full house. Meanwhile, in the small associated theatre, the Peacock, an interesting enterprise has been launched. Two brilliant young men, Irish and English, have started a " Gate Theatre." They promise to subscribers a winter season of foreign drama. Their Peer Gynt has proved a triumphant success, and they are to offer a fare of Strindberg, Eugene O'Neill, and other modern masters. With native and foreign drama thus cultivated side by side in Abbey Street, we regret a little less the deplorable fare obtainable at the commercial theatres.
One night last week we were puzzled by the sight of men with instruments like those which make the white lines on tennis lawns, tracing lines along the Dublin pavements. Next morning we found the main streets marked in such fashion that the public was asked to walk always to the left of a line down the pavement centre. This means that people on the kerb side of the pavement always face towards the street traffic. We doubted whether an undisciplined public would obey the directions at its feet, but found that the people instantaneously fell in with the new scheme. To walk on the right hand of a pavement now is to be buffeted by the crowd and quickly put into one's place.
We are mourning the death of Padraic 0 Conaire, the Gaelic novelist whom everybody knew, less by, his books than by his droll, genial, romantic presence. The press is full of tales of his wanderings with a donkey, his tavern tales, his arrests, his witticisms. Wayward as he was, never a man met him but felt the better for it, so full was Padraic of a noble zest of life. I have seen him teaching Irish in the same hall with Mr. Robert Lynd in London, and telling wild shanachie's tales in a cottage in Connemara. Shortly before his death I learnt that he was contemplating an Irish historial romance (he had written one fine tale of the sort already, Brian 0g) on a certain theme. Mr. F. R. Higgins, our youngest poet, has gone down to the West _ in order to complete a prose work
on exactly the same theme. Among Padraic's unpublished . .
remains is a Gaelic study of Joseph C,onrad—I am, g,i-r;
l'ol.YR DUBLIN tORR,ESPONAENT.
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