Sir, – I refer to the article (“Sour grapes as letter shows British duped by ‘vile’ Irish plonk”, Michael Parsons, Home News, July 7th) about a letter auctioned at Sotheby’s last week.
The article concludes with, “The name of the cheeky Dublin wine merchant who concocted the fraud is, sadly, not recorded.”
It is most unlikely that there was any fraud. The important post of master of ceremonies in Dublin Castle at the time was, Thomas Kelly, who was one of the foremost wine merchants in the city of Dublin of his day. Most unusual for the time, he was also a Roman Catholic. The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh who was delegated to check the wine cellar in Dublin Castle seems to be taking a side-swipe at Kelly when he reported that the wine was “a vile infamous mixture” and “fundamentally bad”. The likelihood of a man in Kelly’s position supplying or even allowing such wine to be supplied to Dublin Castle, of all places, is preposterous.
Thomas Kelly was the father of the famous Irish tenor, Michael Kelly, whom Mozart chose for the role of Don Curzio in the first performance of The Marriage of Figaro. Kelly was a friend of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and after returning to Ireland he wrote his Reminiscences which include many references to Mozart, particularly his love of billiards at which he usually beat Kelly. – Yours, etc,