Madam, – Philip Coleman's review of my Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry(Weekend Review, June 26th) took a sentence about Paddy Joe Hill and the Birmingham Six out of context; the result is a controversy where none should exist.
Let me set the record straight. The sentence Mr Coleman quotes from the book in his review should, of course, read “wrongly accused” rather than “perhaps wrongly”, and I regret the inaccurate phrasing. It is a mistake. (I am assured that it will be corrected for the next printing). I would like to point out that in the context of the book, if you’ll look at it, it’s completely clear that justice was served only when Hill and the other wrongly accused men were vindicated.
The editor of an anthology does his work in several ways, the most important of which is in selecting the poetry itself. The poem I selected to make the point that the Birmingham Six had been wrongly accused, British Justiceby Pearse Hutchinson, delivers the most succinct possible statement of their innocence. In just a few words the poem reminds us that the mishandling of the law that convicted the Birmingham Six did not serve justice.
To make this point still clearer, I also include in the anthology Mr Hutchinson’s note on the poem, which reads as follows: “This poem is for Paddy Joe Hill, because on that memorable day in 1991, when the Birmingham Six came out of court vindicated, one of the first things he said to the world was: ‘It’s English justice, not British – we can’t blame the Scots or the Welsh’.” What this note emphasises is not just the content of Paddy Joe Hill’s own statement, but also the “memorable day” on which the Birmingham Six were vindicated. Memorable because justice, which until then had been wrongly subordinated to English expediency, was finally served by the vindication of these men.
While I believe the anthology makes this history clear when the sentence in question is read in its proper context, I am nonetheless deeply sorry for the inaccurate phrasing of that sentence. I apologise to anyone who was hurt or offended by the error, in particular to Mr Hutchinson, whose poem deserves an accurate introduction, and to the men and families whose lives were ruined by the tragic episode the poem recalls. – Yours, etc,