A real-life soap opera
Sunday November 29 2009
Sir -- I read the first line of Eamon Sweeney's column (Sunday Independent, Nov 22, 2009) and I felt as if someone was reading my mind. The Lady Di reference is amazing because there is a theory about how we have become a mediated society, where our exposure to so much media has, in effect, made us method actors in a soap opera or play we all think we have a part in.
Hence the incredible outpouring of grief over Di and now this farce. The media has created a huge role for the public and they are only too happy to play the part. I was talking it over with a friend of mine one day and he remembered his dad -- an obsessive Kilkenny hurling man -- getting emotional over Diana's death.
Brendan Coffey,
Maynooth, Co Kildare
