Yet again a writer is pilloried - for not pandering to readers’ prejudice

HAVING written full-length biographies of both Charlie Haughey and Jack Lynch, I was particularly interested in Frank Dunlop’s book, Yes, Taoiseach.

Although it is a great and interesting read with some fascinating insights into his periods as government press secretary under Lynch and Haughey, Dunlop has been somewhat savaged by reviewers. He has been accused of inserting too much of his own ego in the book. But how can somebody writing about his own experiences exclude ego?

His real problem is that he admired Charlie Haughey and that has always been a sin with certain Irish journalists. Dunlop is not criticised for what’s in the book so much as what’s not there, such as his own subsequent involvement in political corruption at the local government level. Of course, if he had included this, he would have been lacerated for writing about himself, rather than about his involvement with the two taoisigh. Such criticism frequently tells us more about the prejudices of the reviewers than the contents of the book. They are engaging in the male equivalent of bitchiness, and they really belong among those that PJ Mara categorised as “the clitorati”.