Hugh Leonard Snubbed My Aunt

Hugh Leonard has died: good TV drama technician, charming memoirs, a couple of decent plays, unfairly omitted from the Field Day Anthology of Irish Literature (because of his rabidly anti-Republican views I assume), played an inglorious role as a member of Gay Byrne's hit squad in the failed attempt to mug Gerry Adams on the Late Late Show, and a grumpy presence in the benign village of Dalkey. I do bear some rancor towards the old bollocks for the very unkind and inhospitable way he treated an old relation of mine who made the mistake of moving into the same apartment block in Bullock Harbour. He was unfailingly churlish in response to her tentative neighbourly overtures (even a hello on the stairs was too much effort) - crushing to someone old, genteel, and alone.