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Volume 8 1945~1948

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No. 375 NAI DFA 366/40/29

Memorandum by Conor Cruise O'Brien on the proposed membership of the cultural relations advisory committee

Dublin, 1 August 1947

  1. It seems to me that the list as it stands at present is defective on the literary side. It includes no practising writers of distinction - Daniel Corkery1 and Lennox Robinson2 are distinguished but quiescent figures.
  2. Austin Clarke,3 Frank O'Connor,4 Seán Ó Faolain5 and Peadar O'Donnell6 are the leading Irish writers who still retain an Irish domicile and continue to write. Any representative cultural committee which did not include one of these names would have something unreal about it - and the unreality would be particularly apparent from abroad and among precisely that 'intelligentsia' whom we are trying to influence. I know of course that, for instance, O'Connor would be quite impossible on any committee and that the other three have also things to be said against them. I would suggest however the inclusion of Peadar O'Donnell's name as the most innocuous and 'committeeable' of the bunch, though not perhaps the most distinguished.
  3. Dr. Rynne's remark that the committee will in fact be inevitably composed largely of representatives of various cultural centres and associations, seems quite true. I doubt however if admitting the representative principle would bind us to making up our committee from the venerable heads of our academic institutions etc. What is to prevent us, e.g., asking each such institution to submit three names, and selecting the most suitable person out of this panel? Thus, in the case of TCD, any such panel would be likely to include the names of Senator Fearon,7 and Dr. Stanford,8 either of whom would be far more suitable than Dr. Alton9 - who would probably not put forward his name at all.

1 Daniel Corkery (1878-1964), writer, cultural philosopher and literary critic.

2 Lennox Robinson (1886-1958), playwright and director.

3 Austin Clarke (1896-1974), poet, novelist and verse dramatist.

4 Frank O'Connor (1903-66), short story writer, literary critic and translator.

5 Sean O'Faolain (1900-91), writer and editor.

6 Peadar O'Donnell (1893-1966), socialist and writer.

7 William R. Fearon (1892-1959), biochemist, senator representing Dublin University (1943-59).

8 William B. Stanford (1910-84), classical scholar, senator representing Dublin University (1948-69).

9 Dr. Ernest Henry Alton (1873-1952), Provost of Trinity College Dublin (1942-52).

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