Rory & Ita (20 page)

‘In terms of mistakes, the only things that were absolutely sacrosanct were the births, deaths and marriage columns. These were so important that there was a standing rule of the house that, if you made a mistake or passed a mistake, you were sacked on the spot. And the union concurred with that.

‘I worked with Mick Molloy, the man who set the type for the Proclamation of Independence in 1916, and Charlie Bevin, another 1916 man, who was interned in Lewes Jail, and Paddy McKee, brother of Dick McKee, who was murdered by the British in Dublin Castle on Bloody Sunday.
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There were also British Army veterans who’d fought in the Boer War and the Great War, and veterans of the Civil War. But these matters never
intruded into the workplace, and were never referred to. There was a strange civility among the men; there was never any unpleasantness and I wasn’t aware of any undercurrent and, actually, I was only made aware of the situation later, by an older friend of mine. There was an unwritten rule that you didn’t draw on certain subjects; religion was never discussed. You’d be told that somebody was a Protestant, but just for your information, so you wouldn’t say anything derogatory about another religion and cause offence. Politics wasn’t discussed, as it was a subject that was likely to cause rows. Football was discussed, a lot, especially English soccer, and sex.
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But the overriding moral force was the strength of the companionship – the chapel.
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No outside influence was allowed to intrude.

‘I made a couple of close friends, Nick McGrath and Stephen Judge, and we’d have a different kind of conversation; we’d talk about how we’d change the world. Nick was particularly interested in socialist politics, with the result that he was labelled a Communist. But I liked him. He was older than me. Stephen was an older man too; he had eight or nine kids. He had a great store of information, because he’d been all around Dublin in lots of different jobs. He was very good-humoured. We were quite good friends. It wasn’t fighting politics we
talked, more union matters, because of the fact that we lived and worked in that atmosphere all day or night. We were immersed in printing and with printing people – the functions of the job, whether they were being overstepped – young, over-enthusiastic journalists lifting linotype slugs, doing what they shouldn’t have been doing – or being restricted; all of these matters were given deep consideration. I also made a lot of money, very good wages. After about six months, when the summer season was coming to an end, I was formally told by Tom Hopper, the overseer, “Mister D, you have been appointed to the staff.” So I asked Nick what exactly being appointed to the staff meant, and he said, “You get a fortnight’s fuckin’ notice, the same as the rest of us.”’

‘I became involved in Fianna Fáil because I was born into Fianna Fáil. I never joined; I was born into it. I never joined, and I never left.
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My father was one of the Republicans who followed de Valera when he founded Fianna Fáil in 1926. I remember Fianna Fáil as a very small child; I remember working in that famous election when we made the McEntee paste for the posters. Then the
Irish Press
arrived, and that reinforced it. A marvellous paper it was; it was a good literary paper as well as displaying a republican side of politics. And it made balanced papers of the
Irish Independent
and the
Irish Times
, who’d never given any reporting of republican matters before
the founding of the
Irish Press.
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Then de Valera came to power and said, “Don’t give the British any land annuities.” And this was great; this was really fighting talk. He did things like that – a land war, which made us feel that we were big enough and gave us a sense of national pride. It cost money but we really didn’t have much to lose, and it gave us that sense of pride that sustained us. That is his great legacy. There was no great material gain but, then, nobody had anything – the whole world was in recession. The 30s were bad years for most people. So all you had was your pride. And Fianna Fáil was a socialist party, in the real sense; the aim was to help the poorest in the country.

‘After that famous election, when we made the paste, I had very little hand or act or part in any elections, until the election held during the War.
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I became involved in canvassing and putting up posters, and suchlike. We were nearly always at the wrong end of election results in County Dublin. You could nearly write down on the register who was going to be voting for whom, and get it right to within the two or three people who might have been telling lies. There were a lot of Unionist-types and old Blueshirts in our area. We were fighting a losing battle, but we kept going. And one of our greatest antagonists, Liam Cosgrave,
^‡
came along and swept up most of the votes. He caused us great annoyance, he was so popular.

‘During 1948, I was secretary of the Tallaght cumann
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of Fianna Fáil. I went to the Árd Fheis,
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I represented the cumann at constituency meetings, and, as secretary, I organised everything. I carried out all that, and went to the College of Art, and worked, and did all sorts of other things. It’s amazing what one could do in those days. I actually attended several Árd Fheiseanna in the Mansion House, presided over by Eamon de Valera. My abiding memory is of the large numbers of tough-looking country men, wearing big rough overcoats, smelling of damp and farm life. They invariably had their breakfasts, dinners and teas in their overcoat pockets. I remember one particular Sunday, when de Valera was winding up the proceedings. These thousands of country men listened with rapt attention as Dev described for them, in great detail, a method for sewing
a fáinne
^‡
on the lapels of their coats. Said he, “Let ye get an indelible pencil and put the cap of your fountain pen on the lapel of your coat and draw a circle. Now get the little woman, with a needle and darning wool, to sew a circle over the pencil mark. Everybody will then know that you have an interest in the Irish language and you won’t have the expense of buying the silver
fáinne.
” Poor old Dev, he was an innocent. He’d be astonished to discover what his “little women” get up to these days. And so would most of his Mansion House audience.’

The College of Art friends decided that they needed a studio, ‘for our artistic advancement. But, finally, Kevin
and myself decided to take the plunge and we went in search of a suitable place. We were told that a room was available in a house at the end of Nassau Street, just at the beginning of Clare Street. The house front was set back from the street, and it had a peculiar overhanging balcony-type window. We arrived at the door and knocked, and knocked. Kevin decided to look up, to see if there was any life in the house. There was. As he stepped back from the door to look up, the window above opened and the contents of a bucket were poured over poor old Kevin. He was very annoyed, and didn’t smell too good. So, we got on our bikes and went home. We then heard of a place on Marlborough Street, and we eventually rented a room up four flights of stairs, in a very rickety building. We paid the first week’s rent and, before we’d even installed our studio equipment, we had a constant stream of visitors of the female persuasion; they’d heard that a couple of fellows were setting up a peculiar establishment, and they wanted in on the act. In spite of our best efforts, we couldn’t persuade them of our artistic bona fides and, after a week, we packed it in. We never did have a studio.

‘There was a College of Art fancy-dress hop, at the Bolero, a café-restaurant near the Stephen’s Green end of Grafton Street; there was a small ballroom at the rear of the restaurant. I persuaded Des Sharkey and Michael Kennedy to come to the hop, and when they didn’t appear, I was slightly worried. However, at the midnight hour, Mick appeared in the doorway, dressed in a sailor’s gear, and he told me that Des had had an accident. He’d been dressed up in a doctor’s white coat; he’d a large pocket watch, a stethoscope, and a black tall hat. Cycling down the South Circular Road, his wheel got caught
in the tram track and he was catapulted over the handlebars. He split his forehead and an ambulance was sent for. As the stretcher was being lifted into the ambulance, some kind soul placed the tall hat on his chest, and away he went to the Meath Hospital. He was alive and well and bandaged the next morning when we were allowed in to visit him.

‘Terence Douglas and Eddie McMahon were two other fellows I knew in Tallaght. Eddie was one of the barmen in the Fox’s Covert; he was from Monaghan, I think. Terence was one of the lads I went to school with; a good-looking fellow, and he worked in Urney’s factory. We were outside the chapel gates after eleven o’clock Mass, and Terence said to me, “Why don’t we go down to Templeogue Tennis Club? There’s a dance down there on a Sunday.”’ This was 1947, New Year’s Eve. ‘I said we wouldn’t be let in, but we said we’d chance our arms. So, we went on our bicycles. First of all, we went to the Morgue.
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At that time I had acquired a taste for Jamaica rum, so I had three or four glasses of that. I was feeling in great form. We got into the dance and, looking around, I spotted this lassie. I thought it was two of her at first, until I got my eyes focused. I liked the look of her, so I headed in that direction and, eventually, ended up beside her. I asked her up to dance.’

‘T
he earth did not move. He wasn’t quite footless, but he was on his way there. I didn’t like him one bit. I thought, “There’s nothing here, and I won’t be dancing with this fellow again.” I just didn’t like him.’

‘There were forms that we had to fill in, with the results; they’d have to be done in the afternoon. Each form had the patient’s name and doctor’s name. There was a section for the results of the tests. I often thought of the people getting these results, some positive, some negative. But, really, they were all just pieces of paper to us; it’s only years later that you begin to think of the stories that could have been behind them.

‘At that time, a lot of hospitals didn’t have their own pathology departments, with the result that swabs used to arrive into us, for examination for TB, which was rampant then, and diphtheria. Even pieces of limbs, for examination for cancer. These came from every county hospital, and from hospitals in Dublin. My job was to enter a description of each item into the day-book, for fee purposes, and to send out results as soon as they were available. I knew the various charges for each item. I remember a man coming in with a parcel one day. The parcel was tied up with string and was the shape of a leg. I wasn’t very long in the place at the time, and I said to Chris Lynch, “What is it?” And she said, “It’s
what it looks like. It’s a leg.” Some poor devil had had his leg amputated and it was to be tested for cancer, or whatever – I knew nothing about the medical side of things. Most of the limbs arrived very discreetly wrapped, but this one was obvious. The messenger had a little handle on it, made of string, to carry it. Mind you, it wasn’t his own leg. He had two.