Irish Examiner view: Knowing what is literally the truth

Irish Examiner

12-07-2025

With flames raining down from the skies in Ukraine as Russia continues its three-year war, and heading towards the clouds in Moygashel near Belfast as effigies of refugees burn, the West Cork Literary Festival appears, as it often does, a haven of peace, good manners, and inherent intelligence.
This year's 27th festival, the largest ever with 110 authors participating in 95 events, opened on Friday night with Alan Hollinghurst, hailed as one of the greatest writers of the past 50 years, on stage at Bantry's Maritime Hotel.
The Booker Prize winner, who is credited for his major influence in taking gay literature mainstream, provided a rich overture for the roll call of talent which is to follow this week.
That includes the actor/writer Richard E Grant on Saturday, while Sunday sees John Creedon discuss his youth in a long-changed Ireland described in his memoir This Boy's Heart: Scenes from an Irish Childhood.
While the programme is full of other fascinating attractions — Neil Jordan, Eimear McBride, Graham Norton among them — what is notable, and topical, is the degree of interest which is now generated by 'real-life' stories, biographies, and particularly memoirs.
This taste for verisimilitude can produce conflicts and disappointment as can be evidenced by one of the biggest literary controversies of recent years.
Many readers may be familiar with the much-loved account of Raynor Winn and her husband, who is suffering from a degenerative neurological disease.
The Salt Path trades in the contemporary themes of wellness, and homelessness, and describes a shared redemption which is achieved by a 630-mile walk around the South-West coast of England through the counties of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, and Dorset.
It has sold more than 2m copies worldwide and was released this spring as a popular film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, who both said they were impressed by the real-life characters they were asked to portray before filming started.
Now the inspiring account of Raynor and her husband Moth's triumph over adversity is mired in controversy with the couple at its heart — identified as Sally and Tim Walker — dogged by questions about contradictions in the narrative.
The author published a 2,300-word essay on her website this week in which she described the investigation into her story as being 'grotesquely unfair, highly misleading, and seeks to systematically pick apart my life'.
But there are potentially serious consequences.
The couple has been dropped as ambassadors for the charity which helps people with corticobasal degeneration, the terminal condition from which Moth Winn suffers.
On Winter Hill, the fourth book in the series since The Salt Path became a publishing phenomenon, is due to appear in October.
Raynor describes her work as 'unflinchingly honest' and crucially it is presented as non-fiction in which the couple at its centre get a second chance because of the healing power of nature.
Raynor Winn describes her work as 'unflinchingly honest' and crucially it is presented as non-fiction.
That is what readers, and the public, are buying into.
Truth can be a matter not only of timing, but of perspective.
There will be many who remember the runaway success of last year's Netflix stalking drama Baby Reindeer, which was based on the autobiographical play by the actor Richard Gadd.
They will also recall the legal problems which were created by its opening line: 'This is a true story.'
Aspiring writers, and there will be many enjoying the literary festival programme until next Friday, are often advised to 'write about what you know'.
Proclaiming that as the absolute truth is worth a period of reflection, and more than a second thought.
In the deep heat of summer
That Ireland does not have a worldwide reputation for hot summers can be measured by the fact that our record temperature was set nearly 140 years ago and stands at a relatively modest 33.3c, barely enough to move the AC dials in locations such as southern Spain and Dubai.
Nevertheless, we're proud of it, and Met Éireann is determined to stand by the reading, which was taken at Kilkenny Castle, by a thermometer which was housed 'in acceptable standards' and 'certified as accurate'.
It's too hot to argue.
But what we can note is that the implications of climate change are to the fore.
Many of Cork's beaches are overwhelmed with smelly and unsightly 'sea lettuce'.
There are reports that the annoyingly stingy weever fish are hanging about in sandy areas at low tide.
It can only be a matter of time before that perennial favourite, reports that great white sharks are seeking warmer waters, hits the news agenda.
Our advice is to enjoy the weather. Don't overdo it. Wear a hat. Keep hydrated. Slather yourself in Factor 50. Don't barbecue in woodland areas and, if you have this habit, don't discard any lit cigarettes.
Something evil this way comes
Back in the 1970s, there was a popular musical poem which informed us that 'the revolution will not be televised'.
It's a phrase repeated regularly over the past 50 years.
Clearly, the Houthis, the Yemen-based revolutionaries who are sending ships to the bottom of the Red Sea, didn't get the memo.
Or they have their own contrarian version: 'The terrorism will be livestreamed.'
In two attacks this week in one of the world's main marine thoroughfares, Magic Seas and Eternity C, Greek-operated bulk carriers bound for Israel, were sunk.
While we have become familiar with grainy martyrdom videos, the production values attached to these episodes have come straight out of Hollywood.
Aerial shots from drone cameras.
Point-of-view perspectives from high-end bodycams.
Choreographed attacks which would not be out of place in a Die Hard thriller; crystal-clear focus and dramatic finales as ships are blown up and slip, broken-backed, beneath the waves.
The consequences of these attacks, utilising bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, unmanned surface vessels on autopilot, and missiles fired from speedboats, are dire.
Merchant sailors have been killed or captured and carried away in skiffs; traffic bringing goods to the rest of the world has halved; insurance costs are surging.
And, in a world distracted by Israel, Iran, Russia, and Ukraine, it has taken security forces by surprise.
Two months ago, US president Donald Trump was claiming that US airstrikes had bombed the Iran-backed militants into surrender, saying: 'They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore.'
This looks as realistic as his pre-election claim that he would end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on 'day one' — always unattainable, but a pledge which grows more threadbare by the day.
Now we are promised that he will make a 'major statement' about Russia on Monday.
Whether it will be one of his 'big, beautiful' policies we have no way of knowing, but if it is simply another raft of economic sanctions, a form of pressure which has manifestly failed to dial down Vladimir Putin's warlike instincts, then no one will be holding their breath in the embassies and chancelleries of Europe.
President Donald Trump looks up at the American flag on the flagpole on the South Lawn as he arrives at the White House. Picture: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Both France and Britain have agreed to police Ukraine's skies and seas in the event of a ceasefire, although plans for thousands of troops from the 'coalition of the willing' to protect Ukrainian cities and vital infrastructure have been heavily scaled back in the face of Russian opposition.
What is more likely is a further ramping up of armaments. US generals have been briefing that Nato must increase its supply of long-range missiles while warning that the Russian army is bigger today than when they started the war in February 2022.
Galling as it is for the vast majority of the world's population who yearn for peace to contemplate spending ever more on defence, we were given a stark reminder of the evil which attends such global conflict with the landmark ruling from the European Court of Human Rights that Russia shot down the commercial Boeing 777 airliner flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in 2014.
Some 298 people died on MH17, including a mother from Dublin, when a rocket was fired from Eastern Ukraine by anti-Kyiv separatists.
'It was not necessary for the court to decide exactly who had fired the missile, since Russia was responsible for the acts of the Russian armed forces and of the armed separatists,' said the 501-page judgement in Strasbourg.
We are likely to hear more dispiriting verdicts of this nature in the near future.