Though they didn’t know me nor did I know them, I have sat or stood within a couple of
feet of them.
For years in the 1950s I was a fellow traveller- on the Hill of Howth Tram with Conor
Cruise O’Brien. He always had his nose in a book or a paper and I never heard him
speak, nor did I know his name. I doubt very much if he knew mine. Primary, secondary
and university students of various denominations shared those spaces. I was at
the Christian Brothers in Sutton and there were other boys going to at least one other
CBS there. The “Cruiser” pontificated about the Christian Brothers, although he knew
SFA about them. My BLOG “Schools of Violence, Brothers and Arms” is relevant here.
I was from 1957 to 1959 at Rockwell College where I joined the FCA and and on a
Guard of Honour inspected by the then Minister for Education, a 41 year old handsome
athlete in a beautifully cut charcoal grey suit. Though I supported Dublin GAA teams
I knew that Jack Lynch of Cork was a renowned hurler who had shared medals to probably the best hurler of all time – Christy Ring.
In 1960 I briefly worked for CIE in Amiens St. Station, since named to commemorate
James Connolly. Name-dropping as I am, I can’t claim to have met him. I was a clerk
in a section which was gathering statistics later used to butcher the railways as Dr,
Beeching did in Britain. CIE was employing South African consultants and one afternoon
the statistician Garret Fitzgerald dropped in for a few hours.
Ireland in 1960 was not the dystopian hell which gurus unborn then get paid to describe.
In the FCA were the sons of men who were on opposite sides in the Civil War or in
the British Army from 1914-1918.
I knew who Garret was and had read the praises lavished on his father Desmond
FitzGerald by Robert Brennan and Frank Gallagher who had been his colleagues
in the War of Independence but on opposite sides after the 1922 split.
I revered every one who ever threw a stone for Ireland,
I came to revere Conor Cruise O’Brien.
Conor blotted his copybook, together with his wife Maire McEntee, in 1972. They
had worked on “A Concise History of Ireland” with apparent brilliance and integrity
for a long time. But when the book came out it stated that the unarmed demonstrators
killed bt the Paratroopers in Derry on Sunday 30 January 1972 were rioters.
The Cruiser was a turncoat traitor .
Jack Lynch betrayed and sought to imprison Cabinet colleagues and Army officers
who were playing the roles allotted to them under his direction.
Garret Fitzgerald has behaved no better. More on this later.
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