No regrets over €1.2m purchase of Joyce's work
THE head of the National Library has "no regrets" about the purchase of James Joyce manuscripts for nearly three times the original price.
The purchase of early drafts of the author's 'Finnegans Wake' novel has been shrouded in controversy since it emerged they had been available for €400,000 from a bookseller in 2004. But the drafts were bought privately instead by a dealer employed by the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism and later re-sold to the library for almost €1.2m.
National Library director Aongus O'hAonghusa denied the library had been slow to act when it was alerted to the existence of the manuscripts by one of its own research fellows.
Public Accounts committee members in the Dail expressed concern that taxpayers had been victims of a "sting operation".
