Sir, – On St Patrick's Day, 2012 the front page of The Irish Times reported the publication of an academic article I wrote about St Patrick's Romano-British identity. The article argued, among several other things, that Patrick might have been a Roman official who traded in slaves. This provocative hypothesis caused quite a stir, and was covered by written and electronic media worldwide, from CNN to TV New Zealand. Not everyone agreed with me, and this is fine. I was, and still am, happy to debate with those who offer informed and constructive criticism, academics and members of the public alike.
But some people find it more difficult to cope with criticism. Recently, when my colleague Dr Elva Johnston (Letters, October 31st) criticised Rev Marcus Losack's Rediscovering Saint Patrick (Columba Press, 2013) for drawing on flimsy evidence in claiming that St Patrick originated from Brittany, Rev Losack responded (Letters, November 18th) with an uncalled-for personal retort. According to him, "the extremist position she takes in refusing to countenance any alternative theory reflects a certain academic arrogance and authoritarianism". Rev Losack got one thing right: Dr Johnston is an academic historian. But to argue that a historian's legitimate criticism of Rev Losack's use of evidence "reflects a certain academic arrogance and authoritarianism", is a bit like denouncing an astronomer for rejecting Immanuel Velikovsky's hypothesis that the Book of Exodus preserves the vestigial record of great natural disasters wrought by a close encounter with Venus. The millions who bought Worlds in Collision (Macmillan, Doubleday, 1950) believed he was right, but I would prefer to trust an expert.
Rev Losack chooses to end his rebuttal with an aphorism by a modern-day sage, Dan Brown, whose popularity, it appears, is not confined to the ever-widening circles of anti-Catholic conspiracy theorists. “The translation or mistranslation of one single word”, Brown says, “can re-write history”. If this is so, then my advice to Rev Losack would be to read St Patrick’s own words carefully before he translates them. Oh, and he would also do well to read more recent (academic) scholarship on St Patrick before criticising academics for not taking him seriously. – Yours, etc,
Dr ROY FLECHNER,
School of History
and Archives UCD,
Belfield,
Dublin 4.