Volume 9 1948~1951


Doc No.
Date
Subject

No. 496 NAI DFA/5/304/14/150

Letter from Brendan O'Riordan to Conor Cruise O'Brien (Dublin)
S (P/12)

Canberra, 1 September 1950

Dear Conor,
It has occurred to me that our prominent authors of the Anglo-Irish school devote much less time to propaganda and publicity for their native country than do British writers of the same class. I wondered whether it might not be possible to get some of them to write propaganda articles, e.g. on partition, which they could place (on the basis of their literary fame) in prominent British, American and Australian magazines, just as Evelyn Waugh placed an article in the 'Saturday Evening Post'.

I presume that our writers, although artistically temperamental and fanatically opposed to Government control, red tape, the clergy, etc., are not as a group lacking in patriotism and might be induced to react favourably if appealed to on that basis.

Yours sincerely,
Brendan