0:00

Dublin in the 1940s

0:02

and 50s was an isolated and self-regarding

0:05

place, largely cut off from

0:07

the rest of the world by the war and

0:10

Ireland's neutrality. It

0:12

was a capital city but no bigger than

0:14

many provincial centres in larger countries

0:17

and though drink played a very large part in

0:19

the life of its citizens, its official

0:22

morality was narrow and puritanical.

0:25

Its literary life was cozy and complacent.

0:29

Dublin had,

0:30

after all, been the scene of a much

0:32

celebrated literary renaissance. Anthony

0:36

Cronin was lots of things in one lifetime.

0:39

Primarily he was a poet and

0:41

his name is more familiar to the Irish

0:43

public, you know the plain people of Ireland as

0:45

Miles N'Gapilin would call us, for

0:47

being the artistic adviser to Charles

0:49

J. Haughey. But he was also a brilliant

0:52

biographer. He wrote pretty definitive biographies

0:54

of Miles N'Gapilin slash Flann

0:57

O'Brien and Samuel Beckett.

0:59

Brilliant, brilliant biography of Sam Beckett. He

1:01

was a great broadcaster on occasion as we've just

1:04

heard there, a critic, a playwright,

1:06

an editor and importantly to us

1:08

today he was a memoirist and this December

1:11

marks the centenary of his birth

1:13

and seems a perfect time to have a

1:15

look at his memoir, Dead as

1:18

Dornell's. His account of Bohemian Dublin,

1:21

its triumphs and

1:22

its tragedies and of course I spent a lot

1:24

of this year involved in various

1:27

things around Behan's centenary

1:29

but it dawned on me actually some of the best insights

1:31

we have into him are from this book Dead

1:34

as Dornell's and it seems right to honour Tony

1:36

Cronin as well. We think

1:38

it's a centenary, Cronin could be elusive

1:41

with the year of his birth. Recently

1:44

the poet Derwent Bulger told me a great little yarn

1:46

of being invited to a Tony Cronin

1:48

birthday where the birthday year remained

1:51

a kind of half mystery but you

1:53

know all the evidence points to December 1923.

1:55

My guest is Jimmy Murphy.

2:00

Jimmy's many things primarily

2:03

to use that word again he's a playwright. He

2:05

was on this podcast before helping me make

2:08

sense of the ragged trouser philanthropists

2:11

but yeah Jimmy has an

2:13

obsession as I do with that time

2:15

in Dublin. He's

2:17

written Brothers of the Brush an

2:19

award-winning play about his own working life,

2:22

The Kings of the Kilburn High Road on the Irish

2:25

in London and what's left on the flag but yeah

2:27

we were both kind of obsessed with this book Dead

2:30

as Dornells and you know I got on to the Museum

2:32

of Literature Ireland Molly and said this

2:35

anniversary is coming up can we please do

2:37

something on us. A special thanks

2:39

to Ian Dunphy the sound engineer who recorded

2:41

this discussion for me. So

2:44

yeah before we get into it I should say the Landlighters of

2:46

the Phoenix Park has just landed in

2:48

the bookshop. I hope you enjoy that book. I have

2:50

an interview with the two lads, the two brothers coming

2:53

very very soon. For this

2:55

shot I began by asking Jimmy Murphy a

2:57

very important question. If

3:00

this book Dead as Dornells is the

3:02

story of Bohemian Dublin

3:04

where was Bohemian Dublin and

3:06

when was Bohemian Dublin?

3:18

Well it began essentially

3:20

at the end of the 40s but for me

3:22

the seas are all sewn in 1939

3:25

and if you look at where we are all the great

3:27

poets and playwrights have been executed in the

3:30

rising. Yeats is

3:32

sort of leading the charge

3:34

from the Abbey and but by 1939 he's

3:36

died and there's a group of writers

3:41

around the palace but they're mainly journalists

3:44

and but if you want to show your literary

3:47

credentials for some reason

3:49

you go there this is where Kavanagh goes. He walks from

3:51

Dublin in 1931 I think

3:53

and but somehow the palace is

3:56

reaching out so there's some sort of

3:58

a literary world there's definitely no sense of

4:00

a bohemian Dublin. But

4:03

in 1939, all the people who were to become major

4:05

players fully in love

4:08

sort of arrive here. 39 seems

4:10

the publication of a swim two boards. Miles

4:13

Nogappeline, he has three names, but Cronin refers to

4:15

him as Miles. I knew more than that.

4:18

Yeah, George Noel. Ryan O'Nolan, he's

4:21

Miles Nogappeline, he's the son of Ryan. George

4:23

Noel, that's a great name. Noel.

4:26

But he arrives with his new novel

4:28

and it's quite left to feel book. It's not

4:30

a Dublin book, essentially. It's a European

4:33

book. He leaves UCD

4:35

with great promises to go on to bigger

4:37

and better things. Quite

4:41

interestingly, in 1939, there's

4:43

a very influential group of painters in London

4:45

called the Woydsstag Group, led

4:49

by Kenneth Hall and Basil Ruskowski.

4:52

They flee London and

4:54

Soho and they come to Dublin

4:56

in 1939. A 16 year old Brendan

4:58

Behan leaves Dublin and goes to

5:01

Liverpool to go

5:03

on a bombing mission. Patrick

5:06

Cabinet returns from London

5:08

in 1939. So by now, so

5:11

many people who are going to inform

5:13

what's to become a literary movement are

5:16

in place. But

5:18

there's no hierarchy that the 8th is

5:20

dead, the throne is empty. And Cronin

5:24

tells us that in the palace, he sort of looks

5:26

back that what you really have

5:28

are aged Gaelic

5:31

revivalists lamenting the death of F.R.

5:33

Higgins, discussing assonance and

5:35

then going home to the suburbs. It's quite civilized.

5:39

But it's the opening act of what's to come. At

5:41

the very beginning of the book, the

5:43

first page of us, Cronin

5:46

kind of sets out who

5:49

he is or what

5:51

he isn't, I suppose, what he doesn't want to be. Yeah,

5:54

I mean, he gets to it straight away. My subject

5:56

is not myself and my doings, but it is never

5:58

any harm to establish a little circumstance.

6:01

In 1948 I had ceased to be a student

6:04

and had become for some reason a barrister-at-law.

6:07

It was a state in which I took no pride.

6:09

Indeed, I was acutely ashamed of it for

6:12

a number of reasons, some of them ideological

6:15

and connected with whatever amalgam of

6:18

anachronism and utopian communism. I

6:20

luxuriate it at the time. Some to

6:22

do with the fact that I

6:25

was a poet. Insofar I was anything

6:28

that could be named. And though the barrister-ship

6:30

consorted ill with the practice of the art

6:33

and the necessary doom that attached to the calling,

6:36

I was too ignorant to know that Beaumont and Fletcher,

6:38

Brown and of Tavistock, John Donne,

6:41

Patrick Pierce, William Cooper, W.S.

6:44

Gilbert, Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson

6:46

and amongst others had been in the same boat.

6:49

But in any case, the company and general demeanor

6:51

of my contemporaries were now repairing to

6:54

the Barre Library. For that peculiar

6:56

communal place of business in the forecourts

6:58

did not appeal to me. Among them,

7:00

I experienced what I think is probably

7:02

not uncommon, a mixture of feelings,

7:05

superiority and inferiority at the

7:07

same time. The latter for certain

7:09

social reasons, ludicrous in the retrospect

7:12

and impossible now to divine. And

7:14

by this time I felt I had dare say

7:16

looked and nutty. Besides,

7:19

I had never had any intention of practicing

7:21

the profession. Though since I have never

7:23

been good at any long term decisions, nor

7:26

very much aware of what I really wanted

7:28

beyond certain fundamentals, I had never

7:31

thought about the matter very clearly. Drift

7:33

had up to now been the order of the day. So

7:36

I got a job, ideologically of course,

7:39

as indefensible as the practice

7:41

of law in the offices of an association

7:43

of retail traders, bluffing my way

7:46

through a large field of candidates with the aid

7:48

of the barristership and some borrowed clothes.

7:51

The only use the former had ever been to me if

7:53

it was use. The job was supposed to be

7:56

a bit of a prize, although members of the senior

7:58

branch of the legal profession had applied. it, but

8:00

then hard times were in it all round. The facts

8:03

were that I earned seven pounds, three

8:05

shillings a week, paid three pounds

8:07

for digs, and drank the rest. The

8:10

burrowed clothes had been returned, my own

8:12

were in no sort of shape. I was no

8:14

good at the job, I was not happy, and

8:17

I knew it." Brilliant.

8:18

So we have, I suppose,

8:20

a middle class boy, uncontent

8:22

in the world that he finds himself in,

8:25

and not long after that paragraph, he

8:28

wanders into a public house. This isn't a

8:30

book that's entirely set

8:33

in the public house, but they are undeniably important

8:36

to the tale, and I suppose you need a map

8:39

in your mind of the pub landscape

8:41

at that time, because it's both familiar

8:43

and it's different from today. And when you think about

8:46

literary pubs, I mean, the palace

8:48

is a literary pub, Macdade's is

8:50

a literary pub, but there are different kinds

8:53

of literary pubs, and when Cronin comes on the

8:55

scene, they couldn't be more different. Yeah,

8:58

I think what's also interesting to note is, around

9:01

now, the IRA and the common them

9:04

on, the

9:06

Civil War is over, the scars are very, very

9:08

raw still, and they're all drinking

9:10

in a pub at the top of Grafton Street. It just

9:12

so happens that across the road, Des McNamara,

9:15

a sculptor, has a studio there. So

9:18

the traffic between his

9:20

studio and Macdade's, we start to see

9:22

a mixture of

9:25

the gunman, the gun women, and the artist.

9:28

Very interestingly,

9:31

in 1941, a guy called Dickie Wyman has

9:33

arrived. His boyfriend

9:35

is killed in the Second World War. He's a Soho nightclub

9:38

manager. So he arrives

9:40

at the scene. What we see is

9:42

people who have a taste for literary

9:45

endeavors, but also a bohemian lifestyle.

9:48

And in the palace, like we said,

9:50

it's more conservative, it's

9:52

very civilized. There's no sense of the

9:55

debauchery that's going to happen in

9:57

the catacombs when we get to that. by

10:00

today's standards is pretty wild am

10:03

i would think about the palaces gonna editors

10:05

font it is under the irish times

10:07

office is again the so many quince

10:09

this happens that the palace just happens

10:11

to have a very big backroom bar

10:13

as and we were seen the second one of the has just been a regular

10:15

births it would never been able to sit

10:17

in all the personalities but this is

10:20

an editor of yours times bear to smile

10:22

and he seems to whole court book

10:25

with the it the death of yeas in

10:27

forty nine there's a sense of freedom

10:30

you can discuss m covenant

10:32

one of his later poems slag them off

10:35

and that they're free to

10:37

be themselves and they were beforehand they looked

10:39

up to to to yates and

10:41

and shown of weight on starts a literary magazine

10:44

and the officer and lower com street so

10:46

what we have is a convergence of the writers

10:49

and the would be journalists and

10:51

people getting commission's write articles for the or times

10:53

started to meet in the palace and desist

10:56

gorgeous cartoon and as

10:58

a new version with you and input and all

11:00

gonna of all these different people

11:02

gather senate as i felt dublin culture

11:04

yeah i'm what was happening in the palace at

11:06

the tone of the forty six is enough

11:09

to attract thousand of back from london's

11:11

even crone of this as if we don't have been

11:14

ventures that he must have our of was coffee bar

11:16

from the start but does not going on there but

11:19

it's very much the elder statesmen

11:21

and women that it's the it's the old guard

11:24

covenant and reads yes

11:26

but calvin and and are a cronin

11:29

and the end of the same age as a state the both born

11:31

and twenty three so it's where you

11:33

go to look up to the people

11:35

you've read or been aware about what is a

11:37

real sense of weird the nukes

11:39

his and town we want to find her own place

11:42

under her out of step with conservative

11:45

middle class tobin were all the oil rain

11:47

common among women are drinking is where

11:50

the outsiders are attracted to so this

11:52

is there's a there's a definite split the

11:54

for you as you read is this script

11:57

enough of mcdaid such image

11:59

in the palace other marie It's called Dublin culture.

12:01

Yeah, it's amazing for a couple of reasons. There's no

12:03

women in it at all It's all men. Oh

12:05

man But there's certain faces you might

12:07

expect at that time to be in a pupsy no aren't

12:10

in it There's a bee in not in it, for example,

12:12

so it does get that idea to the palace Yeah,

12:14

I'm birthday smile at the editor of the Irish Times

12:17

or I'm smiling Apparently he would cycle to work

12:19

with the typewriter On the handles of

12:21

the bicycle and he would someone edit the Irish

12:23

Times from from the back bar of the palace

12:25

But the reason is that it's Dublin culture 2023 and yeah, I'm in it I

12:29

don't know if I'm proud or ashamed to be in us, but

12:31

I'm definitely in it Well, that's enough. They're gonna hang

12:34

side by side before you read the

12:36

review of the palace I mean McDade

12:38

sorry, not everyone was so hot and McDade's John

12:41

McGarren didn't like it at all and

12:44

he made his feelings perfectly clear one of

12:46

his works the character Talking about my

12:48

date says those places that

12:50

are staying everywhere Mania ego

12:52

aggression people searching mildly

12:54

in the crowd for something that's never to be found in

12:57

crowds But Croman did find

12:59

his crowd in McDade's and it sounds from

13:01

this part of the book like a very special place before

13:03

I get to There's something that he says later

13:05

on in the book that it's worth pointing out he

13:08

says McDade was never merely a literary

13:10

public strength was always its variety talent

13:12

and class and estate and Gourriers

13:15

were included ready for elevation to Pernassus

13:18

or the scaffold. No, there's a very

13:20

very definite There's you can go right

13:22

or left and we're looking at what's it

13:24

from a tree? Yeah, McDade's

13:27

is in Harry. Yeah off Grafton Street Hi,

13:29

yeah, yeah, McDade's is in Harry Street

13:31

off Grafton Street, Dublin's main Boulevard

13:34

of chance and converse It has

13:36

an extraordinary high ceiling and

13:38

high almost gothic windows in

13:40

the front wall with stained glass

13:42

borders The general effect is

13:45

church like or term like according

13:47

to the mood indeed indigenous folklore

13:50

has it that it once was a meeting house For

13:52

a resurrection sect who like Thai

13:54

ceilings in their places of resort Because

13:56

the best thing of all would be for the end

13:58

of the world to come during during religious service

14:01

and in case you would need the room to get

14:03

up steam. The type of customer

14:05

who awaited the resurrection and the life

14:08

to come has varied a little over the years

14:10

but in spite of rather weak-minded attempts

14:13

to make it so, McDade's was never

14:15

merely a literary pub. Its

14:18

strength was always in the variety of talent,

14:21

class, caste and estate, the division between

14:23

writer and non-writer, bohemian

14:25

and artist, informer and revolutionary,

14:28

male and female were never rigorously

14:31

enforced. Nearly everybody, gurus

14:33

included, were ready for elevation to Bernassus

14:35

the Scaffold or whatever. Part of that McDade's,

14:38

maybe the main part of it, was the man

14:40

behind the counter, Paddy O'Brien. You

14:42

recall Paddy O'Brien? Yeah, I remember Paddy made the leap

14:44

to Grogan's and I think the joke somebody could be him, he

14:46

would say the ship deserted the sinking

14:49

raft. When

14:51

Paddy went to Grogan's he brought with him

14:53

perhaps the spirit of McDade's. It

14:56

was a little bit ahead but what exactly happened was towards

14:58

the end of the 70s, McDade's or

15:00

at the end of the 60s, McDade's is no longer

15:02

where it was and Paddy O'Brien

15:04

wants to buy it with Eulica Connor and Luke Kelly

15:07

and they refused to sell it to him and where the Westbury

15:09

Hotel is, is a car park and the

15:11

story is that Cronan, Pied Piper led

15:13

them all to, Paddy O'Brien gets a job in Grogan's

15:16

and brings the remnants with him but

15:19

that's jumping way ahead but that's what I encountered

15:21

Paddy. Again, it's

15:24

the personalities. He's

15:27

dealing with the IRA, he's dealing with common amongst some

15:30

hard men and women who are revolutionaries

15:32

so a new arrival of poets and

15:34

painters and playwrights aren't really going to bother him.

15:38

By now we have the bell, the literary magazine is up

15:40

and running so Paddy cash

15:42

his checks and he gives credit and

15:45

he sort of orchestrates this new

15:47

generation of, not

15:49

courteous but there's a new kid in the

15:52

block and they have a tourist and

15:54

they drink quite heavily and he seems

15:57

to take to them and

15:59

welcome them. under his wing

16:01

and the old IRA, that old vanguard,

16:04

that they all start to mix together. But it's very

16:06

much his personality because you

16:08

imagine somebody else would have gone, you know, get

16:11

out of here, you're barred. I love the idea of

16:13

these two pubs existing in

16:15

very different worlds. The palace very civilized,

16:18

McDade's a bit unruly. And it's

16:20

that story that Smiley, Bertie Smiley goes

16:22

up to see what it's all about in McDade's. Apparently

16:24

he opens the door and he sees the

16:27

side of Brendan Behan standing on

16:29

a table and he's singing, I was Lady Chatterley's Lover. And

16:32

he goes back to the palace, never to

16:34

zarken the door of McDade's again. This

16:36

tension between the two pubs is

16:38

brilliant. Ultimately the book Tony Cronin writes, it's

16:41

not a memoir, it's ultimately, so

16:43

it's not a memoir of his own life, it's ultimately his memories of

16:46

three other people. And they're

16:48

all very different people, but there are three

16:50

defining characters who run through the world. Yeah,

16:53

I mean, you could be forgiven for thinking that they

16:55

were all friends and they were all mates. I mean, even

16:58

Calvin and Miles weren't great friends.

17:00

It was like- Are we gonna call them Miles? I

17:02

think they're Miles. Yeah, okay. It

17:05

seems that Cronin is a sort of a bit

17:07

of glue that holds them all together. I

17:10

mean, he meets being in

17:12

the catacombs. By now Bertie, Bertie, what's

17:15

his name? Dickey Wyman has discovered when

17:17

the Bohemian underbelly starts

17:21

to exist, he brings a load of people back from

17:23

MacDays one night to his flat in Fitzwilliam

17:26

Square. And they bring loads

17:28

of bottles of drink with them. And back then

17:30

and well up until the 70s, you paid a deposit on

17:32

your bottles. And he discovers one morning, all

17:35

these empty bottles are here and he brings them back to MacDays

17:38

and gets all this money back. So he starts

17:40

to have a regular drinking session. And this is

17:42

where Cronin and being meat, they

17:46

meet in the catacombs. But

17:49

they're completely different backgrounds.

17:52

I think Cronin is the son of a journalist. Dean

17:54

is just looking for escape from crumbling. He's

17:58

very much... character

18:01

even then. Kavanagh, Cronin

18:04

tells him he meets in Grafton Street. Kavanagh

18:06

has been ostracized from the

18:08

palace because he's been, they see

18:11

him as the peasant poet and Kappenhahn,

18:13

God love him, but Kavanagh has a tongue in his

18:15

mouth and he's not afraid to use it particularly in articles

18:18

and he starts slagging them off about their masks slipping.

18:22

So by the time Cronin

18:24

meets him, Kavanagh is lonely and he

18:27

finds it very endearing that this young poet

18:29

has taken him on, not under his wing, but he introduces

18:31

him to the world of MacDade's.

18:35

We don't know how Miles McOtolaine

18:37

ended up in, made

18:39

the short journey from Fleet

18:42

Street to there, but he's very

18:44

much part and parcel there too and

18:47

now it's sort of Act 2

18:49

of a great three-act tragicomedy. The main

18:52

players are all in MacDade's

18:55

now. When Ryan arrives on the scene, he's

18:57

a young artist, he used

18:59

to have a huge part to play in

19:01

this later on, not so much with the,

19:04

he brings out Envoy magazine towards

19:06

the end of the 40s, but they've all

19:08

drifted from the palace for

19:10

some reason and

19:13

that old generation of writers, they just seem to

19:16

get on with it, they're stuck with Bertie

19:18

Smiley looking for a commission or so, but

19:20

the focus has shifted. It's

19:23

almost so slowly that no one knows it,

19:25

but the centre of what's now literally

19:28

Dublin is in Grafton Street. There's

19:30

a great description of Brendan on

19:33

page seven and he kind of talks about

19:35

where Behan

19:38

has ended up. I mean he's a Russell Street

19:40

boy at Harris, but

19:43

by now he's somewhere else entirely. I think

19:45

it's one of the best descriptions of Brendan Behan. I

19:47

don't have it on page seven. He lived for

19:50

the most part. Oh, we do. He

19:52

lived for the most part in his parents house out

19:54

in grey spaces of Crumlin, a

19:57

working class housing estate dating

19:59

from the 40s. better than some of

20:01

the more recent experiments in ghettoization,

20:04

but not a very cheerful place all the same.

20:07

However, he was nomadic by nature and

20:09

it was frequently too far for him

20:11

to go into the small hours, so he stayed

20:14

wherever he was welcome and often in the catacombs.

20:17

Sometimes in the days to come

20:19

he would share my palais in

20:21

the wine cellar and on the occasions

20:23

we would all talk long into the mornings

20:26

and then when the pubs were open venture forth

20:28

into the streets in search of company, drink

20:31

and diversion. These days became

20:33

more frequent as my resolution such

20:36

as it had ever been weakened. My

20:38

new acquaintances developed and my hold on

20:40

the job loosened in the clouds of hangovers.

20:43

Eventually I gave it up all together and

20:46

became fairly happily jobless, though

20:48

beginning to publish poems and

20:50

ill-informed critical comment in the back

20:52

of such magazines as they were. The

20:55

next character he kind of brings in is Paddy Cavanaugh.

20:58

I think it's so strange about this

21:01

is from the very beginning there's a massive animosity

21:04

at least off the page between Behan

21:06

and Cavanaugh. I suppose in

21:08

the idea Dubliners have of Dublin,

21:11

Behan is part of this idea of the city

21:13

what makes Dublin Dublin, but he's a Gualgor.

21:17

You know he's someone who has a great graph for the language,

21:19

he's someone who will later spend a lot of time on the

21:21

islands. He's informed

21:23

by a broad sense of Irishness, but

21:26

there seems to be a kind of clash of the

21:28

world between Behan and Cavanaugh.

21:32

He drives that home. Yeah

21:35

it's still boring today the old Dublin

21:37

versus the Colchy thing and he beats that drum

21:39

continuously with Cavanaugh and like you said

21:41

he's elicited the alright by Martin O'Kahan.

21:46

He learns to speak Irish, he writes a great poem

21:48

in Irish that Jackie and LaMense Blaskett. So

21:50

there's a Brendan Behan who embraces

21:52

Irish culture. All the

21:55

flying columns, all the people he would look up

21:57

to are all countrymen and

21:59

yet he eats He has this savage

22:01

relationship with Kavanagh. He hounds him up and

22:04

down graphistry, abusing him terribly.

22:06

Kavanagh writes The Great Hunger, and

22:09

there's a moment in that, and he uses

22:12

that to berate him constantly. And Kavanagh

22:14

is terrified. And I think, being

22:17

might have been jealous, because Kavanagh

22:19

arrives, he's a published novelist,

22:22

his poems are reasonably acclaimed,

22:24

he has a column, and he seems

22:26

to be everything that being wants, but

22:28

that's the only reason why I can think why he

22:31

does this hatred, because Dean

22:33

was well-read, he loved his poets,

22:36

he loved fiction, he loved culture.

22:39

He must have read Kavanagh, he must have seen the

22:41

genius that worked there. And to turn

22:44

against that, I think privately he probably admired,

22:46

I would hope privately admired Kavanagh,

22:48

but there's only one image of them together

22:51

in a public house, and it's the most awkward

22:53

looking thing. It's like

22:56

a birthday party you don't want to be at. I'd

22:58

love to know where it's

23:01

from. Being,

23:04

by accident, a role

23:06

to play in Kavanagh, falling into Yeats's

23:09

empty throne later on, I think the photograph

23:11

is taken when being painted flat

23:14

in Pembroke Road. There's an American

23:16

woman coming over from America, obviously she's

23:18

coming from America, and Kavanagh thinks

23:20

he's in for a better look, so we get Dean's

23:23

going to rob paint from a building site and deal

23:25

with cheap nixer. That's the only

23:28

time, and Kavanagh signs a book from it, we'll

23:30

get to that later on, but I think that's the only

23:32

time they're sitting together drinking. And

23:35

it is awkward. The

23:38

description of Kavanagh

23:40

on 75, I think, is really sad, actually.

23:44

He's just beyond, I suppose, the heart of the city, but

23:46

it's crone and giving a sense of what

23:49

Kavanagh's life looks like. It's

23:51

a sad poet in a bedsuit, isn't it? Yeah,

23:53

and it was that way for about 15, 16 years. Kavanagh

23:56

lived at the time on the forest floor of a house

23:58

in Pembroke Road, an open, airy,

24:00

tree-lined Victorian thoroughfare, characterized

24:03

as the jungle in one of his poems. The

24:06

end of Bag of Street that runs into it had

24:08

then three tolerable pubs, one

24:10

bookmaker's shop and a bookshop.

24:13

This was his Querienque. Here

24:16

he prowled newspapers under a zam,

24:18

oiled baffle behind horn-rimmed glasses,

24:21

the enormous hands projecting behind each

24:23

elbow, hat on head. Often

24:26

he walked, he talked himself, or

24:28

scowling muttered at the ground. In

24:30

the local pubs he was well known to all

24:32

and sundry. And he usually

24:34

conversed with everyone, whether they would like

24:37

it or not, but usually with their consent. For

24:39

he had views and knowledge on every subject.

24:42

The more trivial the better. Seldom

24:44

had there been such a small area so

24:47

patrolled by genius. Every

24:49

gurdier in Calmartin's The Bookies, every

24:51

dark-playing docker in Tommy Ryan's, every

24:54

gin-drinking landlady, or middle-class

24:57

soak in the Waterloo was known

24:59

to him. The girls in the shops and the

25:01

students and the typists who had flats in Pembroke

25:03

Road had conversed with, indeed

25:06

he held curious flirtations with

25:08

many of them, which were nonetheless intense

25:10

for being merely a matter of street corner

25:13

conversation. Often mystifying

25:15

to the girls about matters ranging from their

25:17

progress in examinations to

25:19

the persecutions he suffered. Brilliant.

25:23

So when you hear Raglan Roads,

25:26

which of course Luke Kelly took, they met in the Bailey

25:28

and Luke made it his own. That really recalls

25:30

those words, those little chance encounters.

25:33

They said that area sort of suited him

25:36

because it was like a village, that there was

25:38

a bridge at the end of the town. And

25:40

all he had to do was to walk the one stretch. I

25:44

still pass him by there, I

25:46

always try to imagine what that must have been like. He

25:49

was content there, the flat scene to be in Rag Order,

25:52

he would go on and tell us in the documentary, the bath

25:54

is full of cigarette bottles and

25:56

empty beer bottles and all sorts.

25:58

And there's a lion. that follows from there

26:01

about, uh, Kavanagh's feeling for Dublin.

26:03

Dublin, he said, was the cruelest city on

26:05

the face of the earth, because Dublin led

26:08

you on. A city should

26:10

ignore you, like London did, which

26:12

gave you the English cold shoulder. A

26:14

city should be impersonal. But Dublin

26:17

was full of warm promises, like the

26:19

worst kind of woman. LAUGHTER

26:22

Kavanagh clearly... I mean,

26:24

he walked to Dublin as a young man to

26:26

meet George Russell. He thought Dublin was the place to

26:28

be. He ends up calling him... Clearly

26:32

kind of lost in Dublin. There's a

26:34

recording on, uh... It's

26:36

by an English journalist. It's only about 10 minutes long, and

26:38

it's on Spotify. And he talks about Malignant

26:40

Dublin and how lonely he was. And

26:43

what a waste of a life. And he has this wonderful

26:45

phrase, he dabbled in rhyme

26:48

and verse, and it became his life. And

26:50

he wasn't expecting his life to turn out

26:52

that way. Like, going back a bit, he

26:54

goes to London at one stage, hoping

26:57

to embrace the literary world there, because he's

27:00

so dissatisfied with what he sees, or

27:02

how a poet is treated in Dublin. But

27:06

he's too far down the

27:08

road to realise, this is my life, and I've made

27:10

a mistake. And also when it makes

27:12

a living selling and trading rare

27:14

books and publications. And they were

27:16

telling me, you can make a decent view quid

27:18

now for a copy of what was called Kavanagh's Weekly, which

27:21

is Patrick and the Brothers' publication. And

27:24

in another memoir, someone talks about walking down

27:26

the street by Kavanagh's flat, and this

27:28

black smoke emanating through the chimney, and

27:31

it was Kavanagh burning all the unsold copies

27:33

of Kavanagh's Weekly. And now

27:35

you can buy a facsimile, and even there, they're

27:38

bracing. But a hundred quid for a single copy. So

27:40

he didn't feel appreciated on

27:42

one level. And it gives you a sense of him that

27:45

he saw his role, I mean, he

27:47

had a column in Envoy, we haven't really got

27:50

to Envoy yet, but he's the diariest.

27:52

So it's an opportunity for him to wield

27:54

a stick. And it's, yea, it's called

27:57

the arrogance of the

27:57

artist, but to set up your own newspapers.

27:59

so you can write all the articles under different

28:02

names to have a go at the

28:04

people you see. It gives you a sense of what

28:07

he saw himself as, that

28:10

he was, that he saw himself as the new Yeats. The

28:13

last great character that we meet

28:16

is, I

28:18

was gonna say Brian O'Nolan, but with a grade of miles. I

28:22

don't think I've ever read a description as brilliant

28:24

as how he describes him

28:26

on page 110. Yeah,

28:29

it just really captures him. The

28:31

civil servant who was meant to be behind

28:34

the desk. I mean, Cronin refers to

28:36

him constantly as poor Miles, that

28:39

he never reached his full potential.

28:42

And I think we touched on his novel,

28:45

his brilliant novel, his original novel comes out in 1939, The War Starts,

28:49

and then The Offices, where all the copies are,

28:51

is bombed, and it's all destroyed.

28:56

You know, imagine that's a starting literary

28:58

career. So we're on, is it 110? Brian

29:01

O'Nolan. Brian O'Nolan was a small man whose

29:03

appearance somehow combined elements of

29:05

the priest, the baby-faced Chicago

29:07

gangster, the petty bourgeois

29:10

malt drinker, and the Dublin literary

29:12

gent. The face under the black

29:14

hat was invariably smooth-shaven,

29:17

pallid, ages in a childish but

29:19

experienced way, plus combining

29:21

elements of the gangster and the priest. The

29:24

brim of the hat was wide,

29:25

as had been fashionable among

29:27

literary men in Dublin for two generations.

29:31

But it was bent downwards in front,

29:33

which added to the baby-faced

29:36

Nelson effect, as did the general

29:38

cross-expression of the childishly regular

29:40

features and small mouth. Besides

29:43

the hat, which he would seldom without,

29:46

he almost always wore a dark

29:48

gabbardine, about which there

29:50

was something slightly

29:52

sacerdotal about it.

29:54

Even in the way the belt

29:56

invariably hung down in a loop behind,

29:59

but which...

29:59

suggested also the clerk or

30:02

civil servant garbed for the

30:04

street and relaxed converse of

30:06

the pub. And he's very much a palace man. Well, it's

30:08

near the Custom House. Yeah. It doesn't

30:10

hurt. And I remember hearing the story was

30:12

that someone seen him in the palace and said, are you

30:14

Brian O'Nolan in the Custom House? Since you've known

30:16

Brian O'Nolan out of the Custom House. He was

30:19

much happier there. But it is a mystery.

30:21

It is a mystery how someone who's so tied

30:23

to that part of the city ends up

30:25

in McDade. For me, he's

30:27

the fundamental palace writer.

30:30

Is the Irish time in the Custom House? Yeah. I'm

30:33

still baffled as to how he ended up down there because it seemed

30:35

to suit him. He's part

30:37

of that. Again, it's the new, the free

30:39

state is barely 20 years old. There's a new

30:42

Catholic middle class arising.

30:45

And he's part of it. He's able to buy a house. He's

30:47

got a pensionable job. But

30:50

he gets fired eventually for drinking heavily

30:53

in there. And he has this savage column

30:55

in the Irish Times. The British Smiley gives him the Irish

30:57

Times column in 1940. So

31:00

he's really hit the ground running. And

31:03

he seems to be very much at home. Very

31:05

much his own type of people. I

31:08

always imagine him out

31:10

of place in the palace or in McDade's.

31:13

What's going on? I doubt he was ever in

31:15

the catacombs. But

31:18

he's a brilliant self promoter. Yeah. He

31:20

has this thing going on where he's, Smiley

31:23

isn't convinced by the

31:25

letters I'm coming in. So

31:27

he begins this thing where he condemns

31:29

his own aspects in letters.

31:32

And then writes letters to those letters, praising

31:35

his own column. There's a series of maybe four

31:37

or five characters engaging in the discussion, which

31:40

Smiley clearly not pretty good at reading

31:42

handwriting. Doesn't understand it. It's

31:45

all Miles, the world of Miles. So

31:47

he's a marvelous figure. There's

31:49

a real intellect there. And there's something

31:52

really original and creative about him, because it's tolerated. Because

31:55

I'm sure someone must have gone. You know, he's right.

31:57

These are his own letters. They're so well written. But

32:01

I think people just taped him.

32:04

Even though Croner wrote a great biography, there's

32:06

still a lot to him we don't know. For

32:09

example, no one knows how many books he wrote. He was

32:12

definitely publishing pulp fiction and

32:14

he was publishing stuff under all kinds of names. There's

32:16

a number of books, seemingly published, I

32:19

think one by George Nowell, but

32:21

other ones that we'll never hear of that

32:24

he published. George Nowell is the

32:26

best student I've ever come across in literary history.

32:29

But one of his legacies is the

32:31

70th anniversary is approaching the

32:34

first Bloomsday. That's Miles' idea.

32:36

He does this weird, he

32:39

describes Joyce in his

32:41

column as an illiterate

32:43

and then organizes the first Bloomsday. But

32:46

it's described brilliantly in this

32:48

book. And I

32:49

think on one level the first Bloomsday probably is a piss

32:51

take. Joyce is a great modernist.

32:54

The idea of people gathering every year

32:56

dressed like Joyceian characters I don't know how

32:58

we take to that. Miles is also

33:00

a great modernist.

33:02

And Joyce

33:04

has read him as well. So there's a sense of

33:07

mutual respect. Envoy magazine

33:09

has a special edition and Miles

33:12

edits it. So I think, I don't

33:16

know if it's a piss take but the

33:18

ambition is ridiculous to go from

33:20

horse and cart from the Martello

33:23

Tower to Glass-Nevin. That's

33:25

the plan of action.

33:28

What we know is Miles starts drinking

33:30

in the cattle market early that morning. Cronin

33:34

says, by some secret system

33:37

known to himself as getting drunk on the journey.

33:39

But I guess maybe it was just

33:43

to mark the day because again it's these

33:46

three left to field people, people

33:48

who aren't the best of friends and the glue of Cronin,

33:51

John Ryan. They have

33:53

an extraordinary array of people. There's a guy called Joyce

33:56

who's a relation to Joyce who's never read a word

33:58

of Joyce on the jant.

33:59

He's a dentist, isn't he? It's

34:02

not even clear if he's a relationship joy, but he's called

34:04

Joyce, and that was good enough to get a place

34:06

on the journey. What Cronin tells us in the book is

34:08

that

34:09

by now there's a great deal of jealousy

34:13

and resentment in McDade,

34:15

so this is a top secret mission, and he arranges

34:17

to meet them all individually. And he

34:20

calls it the Jant, it's a Dublin version of

34:22

Jant.

34:24

But yeah, he's afraid somebody will rob

34:26

the idea on him. And

34:30

I mean, we're hoping to market next year

34:32

and follow the original horse

34:35

and cartoony, because Bloomsay is essentially being

34:37

hijacked. It's become a cartoon version

34:40

of what these lads set out to do. Yeah,

34:42

I think there'll be a memorial lecture for Phil Vossaire

34:44

if we were to do that next year. I don't know

34:46

if we make it to the end of it. But he describes how

34:48

June 16th was of course Bloomsay,

34:51

that that was a word not what you used then.

34:54

And June 16th, 1964, will be the

34:56

50th anniversary of the day, and which joins

34:58

us great fiction with a Jewish Irishman of dubious

35:01

morals, and in many ways his own

35:03

pre-proposing aspect was supposed to take place in Dublin.

35:05

Heir's celebration will be the first. In

35:08

terms of the general atmosphere of the time, it was no

35:10

surprise either. On a day or two later,

35:12

Brian O'Nolan, otherwise Brian O'Nolan,

35:14

otherwise Miles Legopoli, and otherwise Flan O'Brien

35:17

came into a pub and declared that he had a small

35:19

proposition to put to me. It

35:21

would be necessary to go somewhere else before the exact

35:23

nature of it could be unfolded. But there were too many

35:26

dangerous people-chancers and intriguers and

35:28

go betweens and Johnny Come Lakeleys

35:30

of all descriptions in the pub we were in. We

35:33

went elsewhere, but Miles was not in fact

35:35

so far gone in secrecy,

35:37

he refrained from telling me what he was talking about.

35:40

I gathered that there was something he had decided to call

35:42

the genius, which is a case

35:44

made so you know, today, quote,

35:47

your man's book.

35:48

Your man's book. He also would come on

35:51

the jant, but I was to tell nobody else

35:53

whatever about it. And I was to particularly

35:55

refrain from telling our mutual friend, Con Leventhal,

35:58

that he would be symbolically represented. the

36:00

Jewish Communacy under death in question. Well,

36:02

the day of the Jans came around. We

36:05

were to assemble at Michael Scott's house beside

36:07

the Martello Tower and in two horse cabs

36:09

retraced the route of the funeral procession and

36:12

Stephen's morning itinerary. I

36:14

travelled out with Cavanagh and John Ryan, the

36:16

horse cabs were there, horses noses

36:18

deep in the bags. Early in the morning though it was,

36:21

miles appeared to be deep in something else.

36:24

While Paddy even on the journey out appeared to have

36:26

been absorbing refreshment by some secret

36:28

chemical process, not only to

36:30

himself. I mean, they were never going to finish that

36:33

journey. Absolutely not. I've seen John Ryan's footage,

36:36

it's poetic

36:39

by the time they get to Goggins in Monkstown.

36:42

They stop off in Smiths in

36:44

Ringsend to listen to the Gold Cup and

36:46

something ridiculous happens here. They've

36:49

missed the Gold Cup and it just so happens that it

36:51

falls on the same day as the 50th

36:53

anniversary and Cavanagh and

36:56

indeed Miles knew Ulysses

36:58

pretty well off and knew that all the characters

37:01

represented someone significant. So

37:03

they're going on the retracing

37:06

Paddy Diagnum's funeral and

37:08

in Joyce's book

37:11

Bloom throws away a newspaper to a fella and he says

37:13

to throw away but that just so happens to be an

37:15

outsider in the race in the Gold Cup called throw

37:17

away and it wins at 40 to 1

37:20

and they all think Bloom has made a fortune, he's keeping

37:22

it secret. It just so

37:24

happens that an outsider in today's

37:27

race in 1954 called Elpenor

37:30

and Paddy Diagnum represents Elpenor

37:32

in Ulysses and it's 50 to 1 and

37:35

they miss the race and there's a big row

37:37

break out between Cavanagh and Cronan. The

37:40

horse wins? The horse wins at 50 to 1. It was a pacemaker.

37:43

They would have made a fortune but

37:46

because of all they carry on, I mean, John

37:48

Ryan's whole movie is astonishing. You see

37:50

them having a slash up against the wall

37:55

in Sandy Mount. There are five breaks

37:57

out between Flanall Bryan and Patrick Cavanagh

37:59

over a wall. But

38:02

they get to Davy Bourns I think

38:04

and it finishes in

38:07

MacDays and some wonderful, or in the

38:09

Bailey, some wonderful photographs of Eleanor Wilshire

38:11

who was there that day. She died recently at

38:13

age 99. She

38:15

captured some fabulous photographs inside

38:17

the Bailey and on the Jant as

38:20

well. But I think it's very striking

38:22

about those pictures, even though, I mean

38:25

he's the same age as being. It wasn't

38:27

there that day by the way. I think Cavanagh

38:29

probably only went on the agreement that

38:31

he wouldn't be. I think they very much kept

38:33

that day secret. It's documentary that

38:36

Cronin later made about that day and that's

38:38

kind of alluded to that Cavanagh would

38:40

only show up on the basis that Brendan wasn't

38:42

there. But it

38:45

does strike me, Cronin looks remarkably young

38:47

in those pictures. The horse and parrot

38:49

outside Davy Bourns. Yeah, and remarkably

38:51

sober compared to the rest of them.

38:54

Because he talks about drowning his sorrows

38:56

later on. I think what we haven't got to, which

38:58

we should go back a little bit, is the

39:01

libel trial. You come into that

39:04

because this is what essentially turns

39:06

Cavanagh into the new poet laureate.

39:09

Yeats' throne has been empty since he dies.

39:11

In

39:12

the very first issue of Envoy, there's

39:15

a number of poems. On the front page is Cavanagh

39:17

and a guy called Valentin Armonger,

39:19

another poet. And there's an anonymous

39:22

article published in the

39:24

lead or the standard in 1953 and

39:27

stupidly Cavanagh decides

39:30

to take a libel case. What

39:32

he took umbrage with was saying

39:36

he's coddling drinks of young

39:39

poets

39:40

in MacDays. He's hacking up, he's

39:42

coughing, he's spitting, he's uncouth. But

39:44

it's actually not that bad. I mean if you read

39:47

it, it's sort of saying he's a great poet and

39:49

he's done this and he's done that. But he's

39:51

always on the lookout for the big payday and

39:53

he takes this case on.

39:57

Remarkably, there's a The

40:00

leaders council for defense is a fellow

40:02

called John A. Costlow. Costlow

40:04

was a former tea shock. You might remember in 1948, Finnegan

40:07

are going to

40:09

make a coalition government. They

40:11

sort of, they've come out with more seats. But

40:14

the leader of Finnegan would be

40:16

considered a war criminal today, Richard Mulcahy,

40:18

because of the hangings in the Civil War.

40:21

So he's deemed by, I think it's Sean McBride's

40:23

party, unfit for government. So

40:25

John A. Costlow becomes tea shock. They

40:28

lose the election a couple of years later and he goes back

40:30

to law. And he destroys

40:32

Cavanagh in the witness stand.

40:35

Cavanagh has developed cancer at the time. He doesn't

40:37

know this. But he's really worn down

40:39

with a cross-examination. And

40:41

on one occasion, on the Friday,

40:45

he's asked if he knows Brendan Behan. And he vehemently

40:48

denies this. And he gets very angry and get

40:50

gracious and as furious

40:52

and says, I don't know Brendan Behan. I don't like the man.

40:55

I want nothing to do with him. And

40:57

Cavanagh's all over the newspapers. And

41:01

sadly, Brendan Behan's two brothers,

41:03

Rory Forlong and Seamus Bean, read

41:05

this.

41:06

And they realize they have a copy of a book

41:08

that Cavanagh signed to Brendan Behan when he painted

41:10

his flat when the American lady was coming over. So

41:13

they get word to John A. Costlow that

41:16

Cavanagh is lying.

41:18

And Cavanagh is given Costlow blow

41:20

for blow. He's standing his own.

41:22

He's defending himself, but he's been worn down. Monday

41:25

morning arrives, Brendan is drunk

41:28

in the forecourt for some reason. And this

41:31

lends to a big fallout between Crone

41:33

and Ambean later on. The

41:37

cross-examination resumes. And

41:40

then left a field, Costlow

41:42

comes out and says, do you

41:44

know Brendan Behan? Are you sure you don't know him? And Cavanagh,

41:46

again, completely denies it. And

41:49

he picks up a book and goes,

41:51

is this your handwriting? And Cavanagh

41:53

goes,

41:54

it is mine, surely. It turns

41:56

out according to the jury, he's

41:58

a liar and he loses the case. case and

42:01

even though he's wounded and he's

42:04

physically drained from the trial, been

42:07

on the front of the newspapers for five days for

42:09

almost a full week, he's like he's

42:12

elevated into the status of

42:14

the poet. Everybody knows him now

42:16

so even though he's lost the case he's,

42:19

Krollan tells us that he's quite chuffed that he's now

42:22

seen as the national poet and

42:25

that's 54, that's just after the Bloom's

42:29

Day thing. It's a very interesting year, 54 is

42:31

where we see the beginning of the end

42:33

for Brendan Beane, it's the start of the queer

42:36

fellow. You know he goes to jail for

42:38

attempted murder, he gets 14 years for carrying

42:41

out his own death sentence and

42:43

then writes a remarkable play that's about, you

42:45

know. And Beane is dangerously famous.

42:48

Yeah. I always found like that book

42:50

in court, you know, to my dear friend Brendan

42:53

on the painting of my blast, it's hard to forgive

42:55

isn't it, bringing that book forward. Yeah,

42:59

it ended up on blows outside Davey

43:01

Bourne's. Krollan talks in the book about

43:03

a fistfight that gets quite savage and

43:06

the relationship is never the same. There's a fallout

43:08

in Paris, when they go to Paris in the 40s something

43:11

happens, there's a big falling out, they sort

43:13

of pick up from where they left off. Krollan

43:17

says Beane gets down on his knees, he's crying,

43:19

he swears it's not him and it's only when

43:21

John A. Costlow's letters are given to you CD

43:24

do we realize that it was Seamus, Beane

43:26

and Rory Farland. But it destroys

43:28

the friendship

43:29

and you know you see

43:31

that towards the end of the book when Krollan

43:33

goes over, you know, the

43:35

work of each other and he essentially

43:38

dismisses everything Beane wrote. Ultimate

43:40

thing, this book kind of ends in

43:43

tragedy, you know, he encounters

43:46

Cavanagh in a pub around the corner

43:48

from McDade's, just about banned

43:50

from McDade's at the time and Krollan

43:52

is about to go to America and

43:54

I just think this one one of the saddest pieces

43:57

of Irish memoir I've ever read. that

44:00

year I went to the University

44:02

of Montana as visiting lecturer in English. The

44:04

day before I left I went into Sheehan's which

44:07

is up the lane from McDade's. Kavanagh

44:09

was seated at the counter all alone.

44:11

As it happened I was barred in McDade's and

44:14

so because of some disagreement about Chex was

44:16

he.

44:17

After an instance hesitation I went to the

44:19

counter. What'll you have? he

44:21

asked. I said I'd have a small scotch and

44:23

he ordered me a double. So you're off

44:25

to America he said and

44:28

there won't be any conversation now if you come back.

44:31

It was not the only such remark he ever made.

44:34

There's a general rule I've not recorded them and

44:36

only do so now because this is the last conversation

44:39

we ever had. I mean this is not

44:41

a Kamali, Weren't we all great in

44:44

the holiday book. It's a very very sad book

44:46

and I think it's worth emphasizing that. I mean, Settersdorn

44:49

Ailes

44:50

is not a guide to life. Yeah I think

44:53

I often wonder is it an antidote because John

44:55

Ryan brought out another exceptional book

44:57

on the period remembering how he stood the year before and

45:01

he doesn't gloss over anything there either but

45:03

this is very deliberately a downbeat

45:06

to say look at this was not all

45:08

fun and games. Sadly for that

45:11

when he meets Kavanagh, Kavanagh is about

45:13

to have a great year. It's 1967 he's

45:18

brought a collection out at the end of the 60s

45:20

he's got a resurgence. The Abbey

45:22

are doing Tarry Flynn. It's a huge success

45:24

it's gonna make him money and he

45:27

goes on the road with it. He's in Monaghan when he gets

45:29

sick. He dies on

45:32

Oscar the same day as Oscar Wilde, 3rd

45:34

November and he gets a grant from the

45:36

Earth Council for a thousand just before

45:38

he dies. So you know he

45:40

never gets to see what's to become

45:42

that second wind of his and you

45:45

know, Fanno Bryan, Miles and Gopeline has gets

45:48

throat cancer.

45:50

He dies on April Fools Day in 1966. Being

45:53

as we know, being had

45:56

a wonderful late 50s.

45:59

the beginning of the end is the queer fellow because

46:02

it leads to a production in London,

46:04

it leads to John Littlewood, it

46:06

leads to the hostage. He's ridiculous.

46:08

He's making lots of money. He gets a house in Ball's

46:10

Bridge. Up by the end of

46:12

the, by the start of the 60s, he's

46:15

recording books and Cronin

46:17

says it in this. One of the interviews

46:19

he gives in London, he

46:22

talks about a writer's death is the same

46:24

one that Dylan Thomas has and he thinks this is the death

46:27

I should have. So you get a sense

46:29

that not just in this book that

46:31

Bean couldn't write anymore, he was unable to write

46:34

and

46:35

if you look at the footage of him towards the end, you know, that

46:37

one but the death sentence on the bridge

46:39

and the bridge. But even the show dance, there's Pat McAib's

46:42

show, there's this lovely moment in

46:44

it where you have Kevin is like, you know,

46:46

on the shoulder of Bean talking into his ear

46:49

and Kevin is imagined saying,

46:51

you know, what's the next book you're narrating

46:53

into a typewriter, into a recorder? Like

46:55

by the end of his life, Bean wasn't even writing books. And

46:57

this killed him but

47:00

he was deeply in shame by this because he knew

47:02

a writer wrote and I think he

47:04

makes reference to it that he can't even write. He's

47:06

a commission from Gayle Lynn, Gayle Lynn Commission to Write

47:09

on Gail. He can't, there's a play

47:11

called Richard's Cork Leg. I

47:13

remember drinking about Liam Brady, his cellmate

47:15

in the curate and he told me where they got the

47:17

idea they were drinking on Hartigan's and Stevens Green

47:19

because they needed to cast a check and they met

47:22

an American woman and her daughter

47:24

and they went to a graveyard. So

47:26

he was still researching stuff, he was still based in plays

47:29

and real life experiences but he couldn't

47:31

finish them. It paid the girl,

47:34

you know, his first poem in Envoy

47:36

that John Ryan publishes is

47:39

in English and Irish, Ougness, Loneliness, it's a

47:41

beautiful poem. But on top of his poem,

47:43

on top of that page, there was a poem by one of Ireland's

47:46

terribly most neglected poets, not

47:48

just a female poet but a poet Blonid Salkheld.

47:52

He used to marry Blonid's daughter or

47:54

granddaughter years later and he used to name his first

47:56

child after Blonid but even that's

47:58

not enough for him. to get

48:01

himself cleaned up. It's terrible

48:04

sobering. So John Ryan writes, remembering

48:06

how we thought or the joke was when it came out, remembering

48:08

how we felt. And it's a funnier

48:10

book because he's a funnier, like he's a lighter character.

48:13

And yeah, John Ryan tells a great story about himself.

48:15

He says he he went to an auction

48:17

once to buy an electric toaster

48:20

and he came back to public. He

48:22

bought the Bailey instead. And

48:25

he could read John Ryan's book, remembering how we thought

48:27

and think that was a great time. I wish I was around for that

48:29

time. You'd certainly not come away with that feeling from

48:31

that as well. Just to note that John

48:34

Ryan, his family had a series

48:36

of cafes called the Monument Dairies. And

48:39

we're a Borger King now in Grafton

48:41

Street is where Envoy magazine. Dangerously

48:44

closed. Yeah. Yeah. So

48:47

you know, his accidental

48:49

buying of a pub, the Bailey, the Bailey was a tough,

48:52

you know, was where a lot of this took place as well.

48:54

Yeah. Bailey is where Luke Kelly meets Paddy Capnits. Yeah.

48:56

Yeah. It's fundamental to the story, but they're very different

48:58

books. Remembering how he's not a jolly air. I

49:01

mean, this what I find sad

49:04

towards the end of this, that that that Crone and Crone

49:06

and sort of sums up the work.

49:09

He essentially says everything being wrote

49:11

was rewritten for him by somebody else. And he mentioned

49:13

his plays and then bracketed goes all

49:16

two of them as if that's nothing.

49:18

You know, the query follow isn't a bad play.

49:20

People sort of knock it saying that

49:23

you don't see the main character for a start. God,

49:26

it was the same with Becca. You don't have to see the main character.

49:29

Bean had seen so many plays as

49:31

a young flea. His uncle was the manager of the Queens.

49:34

Actually, Bean used to boast that he'd seen so many plays

49:37

that he needed didn't need to go to the second act anymore

49:39

because he knew how they'd all end. But

49:41

he writes this remarkable play about, you

49:44

know, how futile the death penalty

49:46

is. And yeah, it's

49:49

his work is imprint. And again, this is remarkable.

49:51

All the work is still in print.

49:53

That doesn't happen by, you know, accidents. People

49:56

read your books. I think Cronin's biography

49:59

is of

49:59

We

50:02

never got around to JP Dunleavy and

50:04

Gaynor Crith. They were two fundamental characters.

50:07

Well, in the closing minutes that we have to do, I think

50:09

it's get beyond this book and say, you know, Cronin

50:11

was more than this book. And

50:14

there are many people in the country, in fact, probably many people

50:16

in this room or many people on this stage

50:18

who owe something to him. Yeah. In

50:20

terms of the life he created for. His

50:23

DNA, I mean, if Cronin hadn't existed

50:26

so much of where

50:28

we are culturally, would collapse. He's

50:31

involved in Emma. He becomes Charlie Hye's

50:34

cultural advisor twice. He

50:36

recommends the Irish Writers Centre. In 1972,

50:40

Patrick Collum dies in exile

50:42

and sort of echoing O'Donovan

50:45

Ross's The Grey Scene. If you wanted to show

50:47

your Republican credentials, you went to O'Donovan Ross's funeral.

50:50

Patrick Collum comes home in 1972.

50:52

And

50:54

at the graveside is Charles Hye.

50:56

And he's a remarkable figure. This is before the

50:58

arms trial. In 1967, he's brought

51:01

in free transport for old age pensioners. And

51:04

in 1969, tax-free status for writers.

51:06

So as Cronin's approaching the graveside,

51:09

he's more than the prayers for the faithful in his mind.

51:11

And the seeds for a stauner

51:13

are planted at the side of, this

51:16

is from Dermot Bulljaw, at the side of Patrick

51:18

Collum's grave. It takes another eight

51:21

years for a stauner to come in

51:23

for fruition, but it changes the lives

51:25

of people. Stephen Bardel,

51:27

for instance, who comes in at the end of the book.

51:30

It gives a dignity to people because,

51:32

again,

51:34

we don't realise that the dire

51:36

poverty writers were in

51:38

towards the 50s and 60s. There

51:41

was a joke about Cronin. At the time,

51:44

there was a TV series called Dr. Finley's Casebook

51:46

and it was written by A.J. Cronin. And

51:49

people thought it was Tony Cronin, that he was making a fortune. But it's

51:51

quite, I mean, even he lived, and that's

51:53

why he sort of thought he was a neglected

51:56

poet and in a way he was, but he

51:58

had to spread himself around to make a little.

51:59

living. So he didn't end up in dire poverty.

52:02

But I was a painter and decorator

52:05

in 1998, 1991, living in a body of

52:07

framework, working on building sites when Aethona

52:09

had its force assembly. And

52:11

I was sitting across from cronin at his last

52:14

assembly. So for someone like me, I had a remarkable

52:16

effect. And other writers and, you

52:18

know, painters like me who, particularly

52:21

for elder ones, we don't like saying it, but

52:23

some people's best workers behind them. I remember talking

52:25

to Paul Dorkin about this, about what Aethona

52:28

means for painters from the 50s and 60s,

52:30

the ones who didn't go to McDays or

52:32

the palace. That

52:35

new generation, MacDarrar Ward's, Dorkin,

52:38

Elaine Equillalon, there was all these

52:40

people that it gave a lifeline to. It

52:44

has its critics, it has its flaws, and we're always

52:46

trying to improve it and, you know, get

52:48

new members in and widen what a creative, the

52:51

understanding of what a creative artist is. But

52:54

had cronin

52:55

not been around, how do you have taken

52:58

up law? How different would the city of Dublin look?

53:00

Emma wouldn't exist. Yeah. You

53:02

know, if you say Heaney didn't exist or

53:04

Evan Bolden or Thomas

53:07

Kinsler, the center would still hold.

53:10

Cronin, everything collapses in and of itself.

53:12

You know, Demitball just says, who he meets

53:14

at 15 and starts raving our

53:17

press over it. So his

53:19

column is usually influential to the new generation

53:21

of poets. And it influenced

53:24

him not to go to university and to become

53:25

a poet and a publisher. You're

53:28

part of the New Orleans family

53:30

now. I mean, there's so many things that Cronin

53:34

was involved in. Jack Hart says when he

53:36

became the hired advisor

53:40

for the second time, rings up Cronin

53:42

and Cronin barks in the phone, you're wasting your

53:44

time. We've no money. And he says, I don't

53:46

want money. You have Georgian

53:48

buildings and I want one to set up the right Irish Writers

53:51

Center and Cronin and that great Irish phrase, leave

53:53

it with me.

53:54

That's just an example. Well, if you

53:56

live long enough, you find yourself closing

53:59

towers so high and...

53:59

public. And

54:02

that's just happened to me because

54:05

I read Gary Murphy's big book on Charles J. You

54:07

see that main habography, you dropped

54:09

it out the window, you killed someone. Massive book.

54:11

Twice, twice Ulysses. The

54:14

only person who comes off guard in the biography of Charles

54:16

J. High is Tony Cronin. And

54:18

yeah, I mean, there's so much of the music

54:21

he made with Donald Lunny, with his poetry

54:23

to music. Like he was working till the very end.

54:25

And yeah, I hope we have

54:27

it right. I hope, as Folger put

54:29

it, we don't know exactly how old he was,

54:32

but I hope we've landed near enough to the centenary to

54:34

honour him. Yeah. And

54:36

Dermot, Deward and publish his collective

54:38

poems about 20 years ago. There's some great

54:40

stuff in there. I would hope it leads

54:42

to people picking them up on Amazon and rereading

54:45

them. So it's impossible to understand Irish literature

54:47

in the mid 20th century without reading

54:50

Deads and Stornells, that the

54:52

Chronicle of Love has prone and put us.

54:54

And just so nice to honour him and this

54:56

great memoir in the Museum of Literature tonight.

54:59

Thank you all so much. Eva Cunnings, reading the

55:00

poems.

55:25

Thank you.