Madam, - I have mixed feelings about the demise of Magill. Its closure leaves the Republic without a formal current affairs periodical. Fortnight, published monthly from Belfast, tenaciously encourages dialogue among diverse sections of opinion in Northern Ireland, but budgetary and other constraints limit its appeal.
Over the years, Magill has carried some useful, investigative muckraking pieces. Writers with verve and brass neck have pinpointed seriously substandard conduct in business, ecclesial, legal, political and security areas of national life. They got some things wrong, alas, but brass neck is preferable to lack of spine. Vincent Browne's three-part revisit of the 1970 Arms Trial was a classic piece of hard work.
I believe, however, that Magill lacked the will and openness to interact with its readers. It had no letters pages until early this year, in contrast to continental and US national magazines, which carry animated letters pages as a matter of course.
Magill could never become a national platform for the discussion of conflicting ideas on a wide range of cultural, economic, administrative and philosophical matters.
The absence of widely circulating, freely debating, serious magazines in Ireland diminishes the quality of our intellectual life. - Yours, etc.,
GARRETH BYRNE, Woodlands Avenue, Dromahair, Co Leitrim.