I read in THE TIMES (January 12) that its owner, Rupert Murdoch, is to marry Gerry Hall, ex-wife of Sir Mick Jagger and that David Bowie’s ex-wife had alleged she had found Bowie in bed with Jagger during the former’s sojourn on this planet. All of which might explain the acres of TIMES coverage of Bowie’s latest manifestation. It all has echoes of the 1930s song “I danced with a man, who danced with a girl, who danced with the Prince of Wales” or even the 1920s one, (following the sale of Peerages and Knighthoods) -“Lloyd George Knew my Father, My Father Knew Lloyd George.”
But the Tara Street Walkers of the IRISH TIMES, led by Fintan O’Toole, are no less effusive than THE TIMES of London and may even have spilt more ink on Mr Bowie’s life, and departure therefrom, than they did in November 1968 on Conor Cruise O’Brien’s re-joining the Irish Labour Party after thirty gap years as a Civil Servant and overseas Professor.
The main front page story then was on O’Brien’s return to the Party. The best part of another page was dedicated to the speech he gave to a packed audience in Liberty Hall invoking the vision of the Insurgent Revolutionary James Connolly, and the main Editorial welcomed him as a prophet. The paper’s Political Editor, Michael McInerney, had been instrumental in effecting the reunion. A veteran Republican, McInerney had served under Rory O’Connor and Liam Mellows in the 1922 Republican Garrison in the Four Courts before it was shelled by their former comrades and the two leaders summarily shot. In 1939 McInerney was the first Editor of the Connolly Society’s IRISH FREEDOM in London, later renamed THE IRISH DEMOCRAT. Visiting Dublin, Desmond Greaves, who edited THE IRISH DEMOCRAT from 1948 until his death in 1988, once dropped in to see his old friend at the IRISH TIMES where he was cordially welcomed. “You are sitting in the chair”, said his host “where Conor Cruise O’Brien sat, when I persuaded him to rejoin the Labour Party.” When Greaves told me that I recalled, but not to him, the story of Nikita Khruschev indicating to a Kremlin guest the chair in which the feared NKVD chief Lavrentia Beria sat when arrested prior to his execution. I thought that perhaps those things were ordered better in Moscow.
I still have that copy of the IRISH TIMES 48 years later, a hereditary trait for I recall finding, about 1960, an August 1945 copy of the IRISH PRESS breaking the news of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and an article by Major Vivian de Valera explaining the significance of the New Age.
I know paper was very scarce in 1945 but the dawn of the Atomic Age seems to have been less exciting for commentators than the Second Coming of Dr Cruise O’Brien to Liberty Hall or the departure of David Bowie.
Strangely, the Second Coming of the Cruiser shared the front page of the IRISH TIMES with the story that Tony O’Reilly was leaving The Irish Sugar Company to become Boss of the Heinz Corporation’s British division at the astronomical salary of £25,000.
The Hiroshima Story shared the front page with the news that General M J Costello was leaving the Army to become Boss of the Irish Sugar Company. He had such a reputation for public service, in the IRA and the Free State or National Army and the Sugar Company, that the he was mooted as a Labour Party candidate for the Presidency.
Ever heard of paragraphs Donal? Don’t mean to be rude but it would make it a lot easier to read.
I see seven paragraphs – how many more would you like?
M.E Moore
No, I’m afraid it wouldn’t.