Taoiseach Simon Harris was given a briefing on how his favourite childhood book from Roald Dahl had been sanitised since he first read it as he prepared for an interview with Ryan Tubridy.
Mr Harris agreed to be a guest on the Bookshelf podcast and was asked to pick three novels he loved, ideally “a childhood book, a book that made you cry [and] a book that changed your life”.
Staff at the Department of the Taoiseach prepared a four-page primer, including notes on Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot at the specific request of Mr Harris.
The briefing advised how the book would have changed from the version the Taoiseach read in childhood as it had “been edited in recent years alongside other Dahl works”.
The briefing said: “In Esio Trot, more than a dozen changes were made, including removing [a] reference to Mrs Silver being ‘attractive’, changing ‘I’ll be your slave for life’ to ‘you’ll be my hero for life’ (and similar).
“[A] reference to a woman changing her surname upon marriage [was also edited out].”
The briefing said it was the last of Roald Dahl’s books to be published during his lifetime and unlike other works did not feature “tyrannical adults and heroic [or] magical children”.
“[It] is the story of an ageing lonely man (Mr Hoppy), trying to make a connection with a person that he has loved from afar (Mrs Silver).”
The document then went on to give a brief summary of the plot before advising about changes to the text since he read it.
In a note, the Taoiseach was also told to be “as generic as possible” on the podcast when it came to talking about days and dates as it would not go live immediately.
The briefing said: “For example, you are recording the podcast one week before you welcome the British prime minister to Ireland, but it will not be made available online until October 1st, three weeks after that meeting.”
It said the format of the interview would be “conversational and relaxed” aiming to get the life story of the guest “through the lens of their favourite books.”
“The podcast is not a test on books, Tubridy uses them to springboard into a phase of a guest’s life and then goes all over that period,” staff told Mr Harris.
It said Esio Trot would represent his childhood and “reading by yourself” before a quick “segway” [sic] into the Taoiseach’s background.
The next book chosen was Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and its representation of an autistic child and how this opened up Mr Harris’ “early advocacy”.
Two books were listed as life changing, Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe and Lost Lives by David McKittrick, both about the conflict in Northern Ireland.
The briefing said: “The thinking being the way the author [Radden Keefe] tells a story from the Troubles as a novel and as your life changed this year in becoming Taoiseach, a reminder of how far Ireland has come.”
Say Nothing could then be linked to Lost Lives which the notes said was “an extraordinary piece of work but a deeply sobering reminder of the Troubles and the responsibility of being a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement.”
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