On James Joyce, Terry Wogan and Limerick by Donal Kennedy

Though Daniel O’Connell was a great man, far greater than the chancers who today invoke his name for unworthy purposes, he did have his faults. But those faults were not so disreputable as to win the love of THE TIMES of London. I believe he said that if such papers said a good word about him he would need to examine his conscience.

I’ve been perusing “GREAT IRISH LIVES” – a collection of TIMES Obituaries and come across one dated 25 October 1878, on Paul Cardinal Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin –

“His loyal attachment to the Crown and constitution of England was shown with earnest and consistent firmness in trying times in spite of popular clamour and at the risk of personal odium.”

It records that he came from Meath – “a member of a respectable family engaged in agricultural pursuits. They are now amongst the wealthiest graziers in the country, and have considerable property in Meath and Kildare.”   Raised, like John Bruton, among bullocks, perhaps the key to his character?

And I picked up THE TIMES for February 1st 2016 and read its comment on Sir Terence Wogan -“Once here he identified completely with British ideas, sentiments and assumptions.”

Wogan is credited with an appreciation of the writings of James Joyce. I’ve been re-reading one of the most powerful scenes in English literature. It’s in PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN. It doesn’t strike me as an imaginary scene, but as an exact memory of the row between Joyce’s pietistic aunt,  defending the clerical hounding of Parnell, and two furiousParnellites, Simon Dedalus (Joyce’s father) and his friend, over the Christmas dinner. The living Archbishop Logue of Armagh comes in for derision as does  the dead Cullen’s West Britonism-

“His face was glowing with anger and Stephen felt the glow rise to his own cheek as the spoken words thrilled him. Mr Dedalus uttered a guffaw of coarse scorn. -O,by God- he cried – I forgot little old Paul Cullen! Another apple of God’s eye! ”

Terry Wogan came from Limerick, where the Stone on which a Treaty was signed between Irish Jacobites and King William’s followers was signed and broken by the latter.

“Remember Limerick” was the cry on many a continental battlefield when Irishmen in the French Service fell upon the soldiers of William’s successors. Eighteen years before

Terry Wogan was born a Mayor and ex-Mayor of Limerick were assassinated in their homes in front of their families by British Crown Forces on the one morning. One of the murdered men was a friend of James Joyce and features in the “PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST.” So also does Francis Sheehy Skeffington, the pacifist murdered by Captain Bowen Colthurst of the Royal Irish Regiment in Easter Week 1916.

Bowen Colthurst’s family owned Blarney Castle, and I imagine he thought he “identified completely with British ideas, sentiments and assumptions.”

I’ve lived in London for 51 years and have seen little evidence that most Britishers would recognise, as their own, the assumptions common to THE TIMES and those it praises or champions.