Vol. 26 No. 9 · 6 May 2004
pages 34-35 | 3336 words
Diary
M.J. Hyland
I often use the past tense when I talk about my father, which is strange, since he’s still alive, still an alcoholic, still a gambler and still, technically speaking, a criminal. At the end of 2002, he was released from a Brisbane prison after serving 20 months of a four-year sentence for armed robbery, which makes him sound dangerous and exciting. Far from it. He’s five foot nothing, wears thick spectacles, speaks slowly with a broad Dublin accent and is polite to strangers.
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Letters
Vol. 26 No. 11 · 3 June 2004
From Eoin Dillon
M.J. Hyland (LRB, 6 May) tells a story that is rapidly becoming a cliché: that of the miserable Irish child of even more miserable Irish parents who finds emotional and material salvation in a foreign country: Angela's Ashes in an Australian accent. What such stories reveal, contrary to the intentions of their authors, is that there is nothing uniquely awful about awful Irish childhoods: they are typical instances of child abuse anywhere, which at the same time confirm the host country's belief that theirs – Australia, America, wherever – truly is the land of opportunity. That is questionable; what is not is that the Irish tradition of moaning (which can be beautiful when played as a lament) carries on, resisting the forces of modernity and wealth, the decline of religion and the provision of counselling services.
Eoin Dillon
Dublin
