Sir, - In his lengthy letter (October 29th) Gregory Allen relies on the mistaken premise that homosexuality and masculinity are mutually exclusive in order to reject out of hand the statement, made in our documentary Dear Boy - the Story of Micheal Mac Liammoir, that the actor had an affair with Eoin O'Duffy. He states that he himself "did not pick up even a breath of scandal touching his life" in the course of his research into the history of the Garda Siochana. This is in sharp contrast to Prof Tom Garvin, who was quoted in the Sunday Times of October 17th as follows: "There have been constant rumours about O'Duffy's sexuality".
We are confident that the facts as stated in Dear Boy are correct and would add that their veracity does not depend (as Mr Allen wrongly assumes) on the sole evidence of the late Mary Manning: there is strong, corroborative, first-hand evidence from the late Christopher Casson and further information, which has come to light since the film was transmitted by RTE, confirms a positive association between O'Duffy and Mac Liammoir.
We do not believe that our statement is, as Mr Allen calls it, "an outrageous calumny" of Eoin O'Duffy and it was not intended as such. We included it as part of our discussion of Mac Liammoir's sexuality - and as part of a much more wide-ranging examination of his life and work - because we believe that the relationship, short though it may have been, was significant in terms of Mac Liammoir's overall career, and because it was in the public interest to draw attention to an otherwise little-known aspect of O'Duffy's life while he was Garda Commissioner. - Yours, etc., Donald Taylor Black,
Producer/Director, Richard Pine, Associate Producer, Poolbeg Productions, Dublin 2.