Sir, – Miriam Lord, in her fine and ever-fair "A very strange situation, including Gerry Adams, his PLO scarf and Bee-Gees hair" (Sketch, February 14th), noted Mr Adams's aside after an interjection by a Daily Mail reporter at the Sinn Féin press conference. He boomed out a retort, "The Man from the Daily Mail".
Your columnist styled this as a reference to a republican ditty.
Sean O’Casey included this ballad in his “Songs of the Wren No. 1”.
A mixture of satirical and love ballads, retailing at one penny, the collection appeared in early 1918 before the Sinn Féin electoral landslide later that year.
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Sung to the air of “The Girl from the County Clare”, the “Daily Mail” lyric is one of a relatively unknown sequence of political war ballads penned by O’Casey during the first World War.
He mocks the colour reportage of the Daily Mail for observing that every “doggie had a tri-coloured banner” tied to his tail, while every bird was “singing treble I’m a rebel”.
O’Casey later stated that he used the Daily Mail much as he used the Bible – “takes what I wants out of both, & leave the rest standing where it is”.
Good advice for those looking to negotiate a possible coalition government! – Yours, etc,
PATRICK CALLAN,
Portmarnock,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – I have it on the best authority that Gerry Adams is not now and has never been a member of The Bee Gees. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL ANDERSON,
Balgriffin,
Dublin 13.