Writer did an excellent job in her ‘spy’ reports to London

I CAN assure Martin Mansergh (Letters, Sept 9) that I have neither the inclination nor the power to excommunicate Elizabeth Bowen or anybody else from anything they might wish to be.

What I seek to do is to make sense of her activities during World War II. That is why I published her extant reports, and while Mr Mansergh describes my comments on those as “lurid”, I would describe them as calling a spade a spade — just as her reports did.

Was she a traitor to Ireland or a spy for England? I believe the evidence clearly supports the latter. As doing one’s patriotic duty in time of war to the best of one’s ability is normally a laudable thing, I cannot see how I denigrate her, as Mr Mansergh claims.