Sir - As the author of the only biography in French of Michael Collins, I have collected for many years all possible bits and pieces on the life and times of the Big Fellow. I was fortunate to lay my hand on, amongst other things, three or four film scripts including one written by a certain Mr Eoghan Harris, who surely can have nothing whatsoever to do with the other Eoghan Harris who vituperates Neil Jordan with such vehemence on his cavalier treatment of history (October 12th).
The screenplay which his namesake signed in 1987 has its own distortions which are, to say the least, rather amazing. For example, there is a scene in Kilmainham Jail, after the Rising, where Michael Collins is brutally truncheoned to the ground by the warders for having given a passionate kiss to Hazel Lavery. At least, the brutality here is not politically motivated! There is another interesting scene in which the same Hazel Lavery is positively raping the Big Fellow on a small bed in the cellar of a Dublin steam-laundry. The fine dialogue reveals the upper-class arrogance of the lady, which undoubtedly reinforces the credibility of the episode. But the gem of the screenplay is certainly the extraordinary scene in which Collins and Constance Markievicz, "dressed soberly but looking like Bonnie and Clyde", as the author does not hesitate to point out, are attacking a bank, gun in hand.
As far as violence is concerned, there is a fair bit of that in the screenplay as when (I quote again) "James Connolly is blown backwards in slow motion, a rain of blood and splinters and brick from the wall all round his falling, toppling chair." The vivid description of the executions of Bloody Sunday and the ambush of Kilmichael are not exactly the type of idyllic visions which would please and comfort a congress of dedicated pacifists. Indeed, one shivers at the thought that such scenes might transform nice, innocent kids into trigger-happy young thugs, and faithful husbands into sex-maniacs raiding every laundry cellar in Dublin, looking for nymphomaniac aristocratic ladies.
I do hope that the Eoghan Harris who preaches so convincingly against amoral film directors, will at once expose and vilify the other Eoghan Harris, who should not be let off the hook until he confesses his own sins. - Yours, etc., Les Chines Vorta, 152 Bd J.F. Kennedy, 06460 Antibes.