Letter from Brian Durnin to Brendan O'Riordan (Canberra)

Dear Brendan,
Thanks for your letter of 1st September.¹ I had, myself, been turning over in my mind what use, if any, we can make of the well-known writers here, but I am afraid there is considerable preliminary spade-work to be done before they can be got round to do direct propaganda for us. There are, of course, only a handful of writers known abroad - Ó Faoláin,² O'Connor,³ Denis Johnson,⁴ Seán O'Casey⁵ and, perhaps, one or two more. Some of these are out-and-out anti-Irish and unapproachable - others need plenty of preliminary softening up. I am convinced that none of the really well-known writers would do anti-Partition propaganda for us at present although some of the less well-known ones, R.M. Fox,⁶ for instance, are already doing so. The trouble is that over some years, Governments here made the very grave mistake of treating writers as naughty schoolboys and until this can be got over, and a general habit of co-operation produced, we cannot get them to help. Some of them might, of course, help if there was a real crisis but that is another matter.