Sir, – Back in Myles’s later years, I was let play for a while as the writer of An Irishman’s Diary. In one column, I committed the following sentence: “There is an alternative, but it won’t be me who suggests it.” This brought a swift postcard from Myles: “It should be ‘it won’t be I who suggests it’, you ignorant bollocks.” If I had the card now, it would be framed on the wall.
It sensitised me for ever to the confusion, to be heard and shouted at every day on RTÉ, between the uses of “I”, “me” and “myself”. The evident terror of being “me” has particularly undermined the national psyche. – Yours, etc,