Sir, - M. O'T's fine appreciation of the late Felix Cronin (The Irish Times, January 25th) came as a shock to me. I had written to him when one of his own letters to this page during the nurses' strike suggested he was ill. I received no reply and had not heard of his passing.
As M. O'T suggests, Felix's aloofness from politics was quite remarkable. He assisted me with photographs of his mother, Kitty Kiernan, for my novel about her romance with Michael Collins (Break the Green Bough, later Rebel Heart) but was reluctant to go too deeply into their relationship. When I later suggested a biography of his mother, he again was reluctant. So I wrote a play about Kitty. Felix and his wife and daughter came to its premiere. He lit up the occasion with a sense of fun, walking on to the stage after the curtain-calls and presenting my daughter, who played Kitty, with a bouquet, saying "To my surrogate mother".
I met Felix on only a few occasions. He was everything that his eulogist claims. Yet I doubt the suggestion that, when the final trumpet sounds, "Felix will follow Oscar Wilde's advice and pretend not to hear it." I think he will be playing it, or at least conducting Gabriel.
Deepest sympathies to Maura, Michael and their families. - Yours, etc.,
Padraic O'Farrell, Mullingar, Co Westmeath.