A ‘spy’ writer in good company

THE letter from Jack Lane on the Trevor/Bowen Summer School in Mitchelstown and Farrihy, Kildorrery, Co Cork (August 20) gave an interesting side-view on a great Irish writer.

I have one, if not two, advantages over Mr Lane.

I lived through the Second World War years in Ireland, and attended the Trevor/Bowen school last August bank holiday weekend.

Those present enjoyed a stimulating series of lectures.

Elizabeth Bowen’s wartime activities did not pass without comment from two of the principal speakers.

Ms Bowen was loyal to England at war, but did not stop being Irish. She was not the only Irish person with shared or ambiguous loyalties.

Estimates vary for the number of Irishmen from the South who joined the British forces, but there is no dispute about the vast numbers who worked in Britain in wartime or the eight Victoria Crosses and one George Cross awarded to men from this part of the island.

There is also no dispute about the astute manner in which de Valera facilitated both this process and the recruitment of Irishmen into the British forces, a fact confirmed by Churchill in 1941 when he acknowledged “the considerable help which we were receiving by the enlistment in our forces of volunteers from Southern Ireland”.

After all, Miss Bowen and de Valera, whatever their differences, were both aware that the common enemy was fascism.

I will let Mr Lane decide whether Elizabeth Bowen’s wartime reports to the British Ministry of Information on Irish public opinion amounted to “espionage”.

I doubt if she found too many secrets or did any harm. Her reports may have helped foster some degree of understanding at a very difficult time in relations between the two islands and for this, as for many aspects of her writing, we must be thankful.

In this happier time in relations between the two countries it is interesting to recall these wartime experiences of one of Ireland’s most distinguished writers. It is a pity Mr Lane employs a redundant epithet — “Cromwellian” — to describe Miss Bowen’s family history. We cannot be responsible for our ancestors or be required to atone for their sins.

Indeed a trawl through all family histories might also produce as many thrilling tales as Mr Lane thinks will be found among Ms Bowen’s ancestors. History is rarely so simple.

Kathleen Fitzgibbon

King’s Square

Mitchelstown

Co Cork