DEP ARTMENTS

DIARY 4

:\fED IA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 5
FADE IN, FADE OUT
Gabriel Byrne writes about his days
as a seminarian .. . . . . . . . .. 14

BUSINESS FORUM . . . .. 11
WIGMORE 60
FROM BOG ROAD TO
BINGO
By Robert Allen
There are many joumalists in the
lrish Press who will tell you that
they'd rather work on a lottery tic-
ket than not work at al! . . . . .. 6

COUSIN KEVIN
By Sio bhan Crozier
It's no secret that Kevin McNamara,
Britis Labour Party spokesman on
Northern Ireland, would like to be
sitting at Tom King's desk, This puts
him apart from other Brttish MPs'
who mostly regard the NI job as the
Britis equivalent of being sent to
Siberia 12

The Glasgow Celtic Story

Eamonn McCann, in the first of a
rwo-oart series to mark the Cen-
tenary of Scot1and's most famous
football club, writes about Ce1tic's
F,b roots and its poltical and
:-eHgious tradition 42
Shamrock Rovers in Crisis
Does Ireland's number one soccer
b nave a future away from its THE DRUMSHANBO Van Morrison has given us a body
DaTIL.-m nome? Robert Allen reports HUSTLER of work to put beside that other
on me Iatest llaves in the Rovers By Paul Durcan great Irish jazzman ofthe twentieth
can~o,~- 50 Over a span of twenty-five years, century , Patrick Kavanagh ... 56
 I HEAR TALK THAT FINANCE
Minister Ray MacSharry won't be too
broken-hearted if deputies in Leinster
House are able to forget about their
petty differences and stop cheeking
and making impudent remarks about
each other for long enough to combine
to defeat his tax on the hole-in-the-wall
cash dispenser cards, This just goes to
show what a sensible fellow he is,
because if ever there was a tax which
added excise to injury, this is it.
It is a complete rnystery to me why
there has never been a serious pro blem
with vandalism of these machines - in
the same way, for instance, as there is
with telephone kiosks. Everyone knows
that the vast majority of the people
who wreck telephone boxes are per-
fectly respectable citizens who -have
been driven over the edge by the state
of the telephone service, and that the
factor involving mindless hooliganism
is quite marginal. Why, then, have these
wall-bandits escaped so lightly?
Just think about it. These machines
are employed to dispense your money,
yet they succeed in making you feel
like a beggar every time you have oc-
casion to use them.
You know the scenario. You want
to withdraw iISO, which is your full
entitlernent, but then the machine tells
you that it has run out of i20 notes
and you're only allowed to have
amounts up to i140. It's your money
and it's the machine which has made
the cock-up on the tenner front, so
why does it have to be you who loses
out? Why can't the machine say some-
thing like "I've got nothing smaller
than twenties today, love, but here's
an extra tenner in case you run short "?
And, of course, everyone will be
familiar with the experience of having
Reached Your Limit. You've forgotten
about that thirty quid you withdrew
while out on the batter over the week-
end and you saunter up to the machine
to withdraw the price of a pan loaf and
a pound of sausages for the tea. You
insert your card, dial in your personal
number and wait ... The machine hisses
malevolently as it returns your card
and practically amputates your finger
with an invisible glass guillotine shutter
which slides out of nowhere, and then
the screenlights up with a messagethat
you know can be read by the people at
the bus stop the far side of the street:
"You've reached your limito Go home
to your wife and children and don't be
out slobberin' and drinkin' and spend-
ing my money."
And the worst thing is that all you
can do is take your card and crawl
sheepishly away , At the very least
4 MAGILL MA Y 1988
Adding excise
tCJ irfury
there should be a keyboard which
allows you to put in a defence, such
as "But I'rn not married." Although,
come to think of it, the machine's
riposte to this would probably be,
"Well, you should be. It's time you
got yourself a wife and a mortgage
and faced up to your responsibilities.
G home, outa that."
I HAD A VISIT RECENTLy FROM
a team of people from the BBC
wishing, for sorne bizarre reason, to
solicit my help in making a television
programme about Dublin , Someone
had told them that I used tobe editor
of In Dublin and this gave them the
idea that I rnight be agood person to
ask.
Having attempted unsuccessfully too
persuade them that I was not by any
means a good person to ask, I sat down
and tried to think of uplifting things
which they might cover in ther pro-
gramme. Their interest was specifically
in the area of things whichyoung people
might do in Dublin, so I addressed my-
self firstly to this. Within a short time
I had come up with glue-sniffng, pros-
titution, heroin addiction, joyrdng,
breaking and entering and begging on
O'Connell Bridge.I .forgot to menton
slot machines, so I hope the people
from the BBC happen to read this. I
allowed, charitably , that my difficulties
mght not be unrelated to the fact that
I am myself of the culchie persuasion,
but I felt bound to point outthat
mainly what young people seem to do
in Dublin, as with the rest of the
country, is get out as fast as they Can.
I am not alone in this regard. Recent-
ly for their 300th issue, my former
magazine, In Dublin,' attempted a
feature on 'The 300 Best Things
About Dublin' and succeeded in'
coming up with only 191 of these.
Even if you count the four members
of U2, Dohenyand Nesbitt, McCullough
and Pigott and both of the Hand twns
you still wouldn't crank it up to even
200 Best Things About Dublin.
In any event, what the Hand twins
have to do with Dublin is not immedi-
ately clear. To my certain knowledge
neither of them has yet completed un-
packing following their journey up
fromDrogheda. For Jim Hand, at least,
Dublin remains a total mystery: once
he confided to me that he had never
been on a bus in Dublin, "because
you'd never know wherethey'd
going."
be
In the course of the same In Dublin
article, incidentally , the period in
which, as editor of that magazine, I
gave rather lukewarm support to the
party which is now in government is
described as an "aberration". An in-
vestigation has revealed that this was
written by somebody from Longford
who, when 1 first met him, used to
think that an aberration was some-
thing you went into hospital to have.
RECENTLY, WANG IRELAND AND
Hilton Holdings PLC, whomsoever they
both might be, held a lunch to an-
nounce their 'J oint Statement for the
Future'. 1 have no idea what this
statement contained because 1 didnot
attend the lunch and, in any event, 1
have an aversion to receptons, apart
from ones where 1have prior assurances
as to the availability of cocktail
sausages. The only reason I mention it
is that the invitation to the lunch ar-
rived in the form of a large plastering
trowel whch I am sure will come in
incredibly useful for sornething or
other.
If other launch organisers are con-
templating sending me invitations to
their receptions, please note that at the
moment I require the following items:
shaving mirror, brush and pan, fire
bucket, cutlery holder, flower pots,
lavatory brush and floor mop.
I have made a resolution that in
future I wilI not attend receptions
unless the invitation comes attached to
sorne usefuI item. Unless, of course,
that by attending 1 will annoy people
even more.

Ljfe outside
the lobby
1 REMEMBER MANY YEARS AGO
attending the funeral of an elderly
journalist whose working life had
spanned the turbulent decadesbefore
and after the foundation of the State.
As we left the cemetery a contemporary
of his said to me "You know, that man
brought to the grave sorne of the great-
est political secrets of his time. Now
we will never know the full story.'
1 did not doubt this assessment, but
1 was intrigued. 1 found it hard to
understand how, first of all, politicians
would confide such secrets in a journal-
ist and, even more striking, why he
had never published them or even a
hint of them. The answer, 1 suppose,
was that the price of being told was
the condition not to publish. In essence,
the journalist and the politicians were
members of the same club.
It was this recollection which put
me in mind of our "lobby" system of
political journalism and the extent to
which it enables journalists to publish
part of most stories but rarely the full
story , and to ask whether or not this
somewhat cosy system operates fully
in the public interest.
It is significant that the (British)
Independent, by now the best news-
paper in Britain with the best political
coverage, broke from the start with the
establshed tradition of politic al report-
ing by declining to be part of te West-
minister lobby system. Its reasons for
this were straightforward - though little
appreciated by the other papers and
probably appreciated even less today ,
The Independent fe1t the lobby
system inhibited it from fully report-
ng political events and allowed govern-
ment spckespersons to manipulate the
media and "manage" the news agenda.
It argued also that the lobby systern in
practice set limits to what could or
could not be reported, that it created a
cosy club-lke atmosphere and put
government spokespersons in a position
to favour those whom it regarded as
"sound" while cutting off those deemed
to be hostile.
The Independent also felt that the
lobby system conferred anonyrnity on
people who had no right to shield be-
hind such a cloak. It argued that if a
government spokesperson said some-
thing on a question of public interest
then it should be on the record with
full attribution. If, for example, Mrs
Thatcher's Press Secretary, Bernard
Ingham, told the journalists that Nor-
Maurice Manning
man Tebbit was out of favour or that
Mrs Thatcher had bawled out Tom King
in the cabinet, this should not appear
in sorne oblique way as "according to
senior sources in Whitehall" or "source s
close to MrsThatcher" but should carry
the name of the person who made the
remark. Anything less, thelndependent
argued, was manipulation of the media
by the spokesperson, since there was
no real way for the reader to verify
the accuracy or otherwise of the story
because its source was not available or
visible.
THERE WAS AN INTERESTING EX-
ample of this type of manipulation here
shortly after Padraig Flynn's green
outburst in the USA on St Patrick's
Day, Almost immediately afterwards a
number of papers, but especially the
Iris Independent, carried stories sayng
Mr Haughey was "furious" with Mr
Flynn and that Mr Flynn would be
seriously rebuked. We were not told
how the journalists knew this or what
proof they had that the re buke had or
would happen. It was all on the basis
of unattributed sources.
, There probably never was any
"rebuke". Mr Haughey's blood pressure
almost certainly never rose, but the
story allowed Mr Haughey to distan ce
himself from a speech which at that
time was somewhat inopportune, even
if mild compared to his own later
speech iir New York to the 'Friends of
Fianna Fail', The whole point of the
exercise was to enable Mr Haughey face
in two directions at once. This may be
slick politics but it is not the job of
newspapers to enable him to do it.
Those who favour the lobby system
will argue that this sort of thing is rareo
They will argue too that the systern
provides for a well structured system
of communication between journalists
and politicians, with the ground rules
wcll understood by both sides: that a
spokesman who lies or misleads once
will not get a second chance andothat
the whole systern allows for the kind
of in-depth briefing which would be
difficult otherwise.
They also argue that the natural
competition between journalists and
between newspapers will ensure that
there is no cosy cartel and that experi-
enced journalists will subject every
offical claim to the most rigorous and
cynical scrutny.
THERE IS MUCH TRUTH IN THESE
claims and 1 believe that by and large
our political journalists value their in-
tegrity and independence. But, that
said, 1 still feel uneasy about our lobby
system. It is too cosy, It does act to
exclude too many journalists who
might legitimately claim membership,
It tends to induce a "group" ethos. It
creates a situation in which its members
spend too much time talking to each
other. It produces an over-reliance on
official sources for news and, yes, it
does, from time to time, allow official
manipulation of the news by govern-
ment and politicians.
I'm always surprised that journalists
so readily accept this systern and 1
would certainly applaud the first Irish
paper to emulate the example of the
Independent and opt out of the lobby.
The quality of that paper's political
coverage and the integrity of its analysis
is proof - if such is needed - that there
is life - and healthy life - outside the
sheltered confines of the lobby.
MAGILLMAY 1988 5
 From Bog Road to Bingo
Pop goes the Press
W RITING FONDL y ABOUT
the only trade he had known
in his life, the late British
journalist James Carneron , a few years
before his death, lamented the changes it
had suffered over the decades. "Sorne of
us ageing journalists who still treasure our
days of the quill pen and carrier pigeon
can still recall the time when people
bought newspapers for the curious
purpose of reading them. It is not that the
newspaper business has diminished or
dererior ated - it has just beco me
sornething rotally different. (And you
rnust underst and that 1 mean 'it ', not
us.) I do not denounce it, nor complain,
nor moralise; it is just that 1 no longer
wanr 10 know. 1 would sooner be a
correspondent than a croupier; 1 prefer
6 l1AGILL MAY 1988
copypaper 10 computers , and I would
prefer 10 work on a newspaper than on
a lottery ticket."
What then would Camero n have made
of the changes in the Irish newspaper
business these past months, and of the
new tabloid lrish Press, which ended a
fifty-six year broadsheet tradition last
month. Observing Irish life he would
probably not have appreciated that old
traditions and cultures must not stand in
the way of material and economic
progression. As the Theatre Royal, Wood
Quay and MilItown must pass into history
so must the newspaper business adapt to
By Robert Allen
the modern environment. And there are
many journalists in the Irish Press who
will tell you that they would rather work
on a lottery ticket than not work at all.
T HE NEWSPAPER LOTTERY
ticket has been late coming to
Ireland, as indeed has the tabloid
newspaper. It has taken the Irish Press
Group over twenty years to recognise the
changing market forces and finally
challenge the astute commercialism of its
nearest rival, Independenr Newspapers.
"This myth about a tabloid war is
nonsense," said a spokesman for the lrish
Press, of the Group's new venture. "It
is about taking sales away from the Irish
Independent in the east coast."
Although the Irish Press rnanagement
tacitly decided over ayear ago that a
change to tabloid was inevitable, the
announcement wasn't made until several
months before the launch, and even then
it wasn't made official until the Press
knew they could not hide their intentions
any longer. Still it took the Independent
Group by sur prise. Al! the tal k had been
about [he joint Independent/ EXPress
Newspapers' launeh of the Star in March
and rhe prospeets of a tabloid war.
S
I:\CE THE MID-SIXTIES THE
Irish Press, the flagship of th.e Press
Group, which was founded by
Eamon de Valera in September 1931, has
floundered in the storms whipped up by
:he cornmercial success of the Irish
Independent . Back in the Sixties the
Independent began to leave the Press
oehind in the newspaper circulation war,
swiftly innovating new supplements which
appealed to advertisers and instigating
rnarket surveys which showed that the
future for newspapers was in urban
Ireland, inside the Pale. The Press
management remained intransigent to
hange and steadfast to tradition, and
from a high of over 200,000 copies a day
in the Thirties sales of the IrishPress fel!
gradual!y to less than 150;000 in the
Sixties. With the advent of television in
{he Sixties, newspaper sales al! ayer
Ireland fel! and the Independent group
discovered that, although the public were
loyal to the politicalleanings of individual
papers, converts were getting fewer and
fewer.
By the late Seventies daily sales of the
Irish Indepen den t were just short of
200,000. The Press sold 115,00Q. Before
the 1985 lock-out, the culmination of
years of industrial problerns, this had
slipped to 95,000. When the paper
returned three months later circulation
executives in the Press were amazed to
learn that they had lost no more than
6-7,000 in daily sales. "It has only been
in the last year that the Press sales have
fallen to the heavy marketing of the
Independent group," said an Irish Press
spokesman.
The Independent launched its heaviest
broadside inFebruary this year. On one
day during the first week of 'Fortuna',
the lndo's new bingo game, circulation
of the Irish Press fell to an all-time low
of 61,000 copies, againstan average for
that month 0["65,000, More significantly,
salesin Dublin fel! to 15,000. Onthe east
ccast, where the advertising revenue was
to be made, the Press was selling. only
30,000copies. Poten ti al advertisers were
not interested in the fact that the Irish
Press was a big seller in Ireland's major
ruraltowns,
As rumour and specualtion increased
about the future of the Press group, sales
increased to 77 ,000 following a redesign,
and thenthe tabloid was announced, And
although Dr Eamon de Valera, grandson
of the paper's f'ounder , talked of
maintaining the Irish Press's great
tradition on the day of the tabloid launch,
the link with the republican ethos
advocating an 'Irish Ireland' begun by his
grandfather in [he thirties had effectively .
been severed.
T
HE LATE EAMON DeV ALERA
too k the idea of an Irish newsaper
... that reflected republicanism very
seriously. "Our ideal, culturally, is an
Irish Ireland, an Ireland aware of its own
greatness, sure of itself, conscious of the
spiritual forces which have forrned it into
a distinct people having itsown language
and customs and a traditionally Christain
 philosophy of life," he wrote in the
editorial of the first Irish Press on
Saturday September 5, 1931
When the 300,000 copies of that first
issue rolled off the presses in the new
Burgh Quay offices, site of the former
Tivoli theatre and cinema, for de Valera
it was the culmination of nearly a
decade's dedication to that ideal. "Our
intention is to be the voice of the people,
to speak for them, to give utterance to
their ideals, to defend them against
slander and false witness," he wrote.
The idea for the newspaper was first
announced by de Valera at the second
Fianna Fail Ard Fheis in 1927. He said
that [200,000 would be needed. It took
four years and a lot of legwork before de
Valera and his associates raised the
money, which they did in Ireland and in
the the USA - and not without
controversy.
The depression in Europe hit America
just as de Valera began canvassing for
funds for the new paper. The minimum
subscription of 500 dollars was beyond Press certainly reflected much that was Limerick Leader and the Nationalist in
most as America headed for the Wall innovative in American newspapers. Carlow.
Street Crash. De Valera decided to accept De Valera showed that he had the right The Press was primarily perceived as
smaller amounts. Then he had an idea. combination of political and business l rural newspaper. A report in the second
In 1919 half of the five million dollars acumen to lead the lrish Press and issue on September 7, 1931 stated that,
raised in the US for the Republican anything that was dangerous to the future of the over 200,000 copies sold, 35,000
movement remained on deposit in New of the FF party was treated with suspicion had been sold in Dublin alone. The Press
York banks. In August 1922 the Cosgrave and outright opposition. Journalistically was delighted that fifteen per cent of its
government had won an injunction the new paper outshone the staid circulation was in Dublin but the paper
preventing the banks from paying any of conservative lrish lndependent and the reflected, they believed, the whole island.
this money to de Valera and his !iberalism of the mouthpiece of the In the fifties this was demonstrated by the
associates. In May 1927 the New York
success of writers like Ben Kiely, Sean
Supreme Court foiled de Valera's next
White, Edna O'Brien and Brendan
attempt and ruled that the money be
Behan, whose columns, delightfully and
returned to the original subscribers. De
Valera, however, returned to the States
In the Press all copyboys beautifully crafted, were widely read. One
were taught to be loyal to such column was 'Down Your Way' by
to promote the new paper and persuaded
'Patrick Lagan', which was shared by
subscribers to transfer that money to the the joumalistic staff and the
White and Kiely. Although Kiely now
Irish Press Corporation, which had been papero Editorial and fondly remembers that it was an excuse
set up in America to invest funds in the executive types were to be
Irish Press Ud in Dublin. to get out of Dublin for three or four
In Ireland the rernainder of the money
referred to as "Mtsrer". days, 'Down Your Way' was contrived to
keep the rural links alive. It frequently
was raised through the republican
caught the nation's imagination and when
movement and, although de Valera stated
Kiely wrote about 'The Old Bog Road'
in that first editorial that the paper "was I
in one column and identified it as being
not the organ of an individual, or a
in Kildare bet ween Kilcock and Innfield,
group, or a party", the reality was Protestant ascendancy, the lrish Times, Bord Filte subsequently marked the
different. From the beginning the Irish but as FF grew more powerful and location officially with a signpost. \The
Press was closely asociated with Fianna become part of the establishment so too song by Teresa Brayton was a favourite
Fail but there was no doubt in the minds did the Irish Press. The circulation settled with the immigrant Irish and although
of many that the purse strings were at around 150,000, and by the end of the Kiely had been told about the road by the
controlled by the de Valera family. Thirties the sentiments in de Valera's first author years before he was the first
De Valer a had been trustee and editorial were history, a part of the distant national newspaperman to write about it.
representative of the American based past.
Irish Press Corporation on the Irish Press

G RADUALL Y, HOWEVER, THE

Board and, with his own considerable

W
HEN THE FIFTIES CAME Press stopped employing
shareholding, held a controlling interest the Irish Press was well colurnnists. Behan died and the
in Irish Press Ud. He was also leader of established and had won itself others moved away and the paper offered
the FF party at the time and it was a reputation for having a fair, accurate liule more than its consistently excellent
signigicant that he later admitted that if and honest newsroom. At different news coverage, in the design the paper
he had to choose between leading the periods during the Forties, Fifties and had innovated decades before. More
party and running the paper he would Sixties the newsroom would have been change and innovation was needed as the
choose journalism. When de Valera went dominated by different provincial groups, lrish Times, edited by former Press man
to America to raise funds for the paper reporters who had earned their credentials Douglas Gageby, acquired a more
he also made efforts to gain practical on the Cannaught Telegraph in Mayo, the educated readership and as the Irish
newspaper experience and the early Irish Donegal Democrat, the Kerryman, the Independent began to loo k to more

8 MAGILL MAY 1988

aggressive marketing as a means to conceived. the appointment of Tim Pat Coogan as
improve its circulation. Almost immediately the Irish editor in 1968 the majority of Irish Press
Des Maguire was the agricultural editor Independent began its own farming editors had been men with strong
of the Press and he had suggested the supplement. Apart from being a huge republican backgrounds, rather than
inclusion of a Farming Supplement. At advertising success it grabbed a large newspaper backgrounds. Nearly al! the
this time the Evening Press, with sales of chunk of the Press's farming readership. journalists who had started with the paper
over 100,000, was the top sel!ing evening "It broke," said one observer, "the in the Thirties would have been anti-
paper and the Sunday Press was giving Press's strong rurallinks and, apart from Treaty people, loyal to Fianna Fil,
the Sunday Independent a run for its the incredible loss of advertising, it began Coogan was a departure. Only the middle
money. The decision to ignore Maguire's to destroy the tradition." ranks of the Press tended to be hard
suggestion was to prove costly, but it was Although the Fianna Fil tradition was newspapermen and mostly rural. In the
the first signs of a state of affairs which stil! strong within the Irish Press in the early Sixties something significant
was to continue until the tabloid was Sixties, this was changing slowly. Until happened to change al! that.
 I
F THE IRISH PRESS MANAGEMENT
. in the pre-Coogan.days 01' t~e Sixties
were aware that ihe f'lagship of'. the
group was shorn 01' an image and lacking
a dist inct idcntity, they did n 't believe thc
situation wax serious, They had other
more import anr executive mairers
consider. Thc people who had come
thr ough wirh the papel' since the Thirties
had either left 01' died away and thePress
managernent decided lO encourage
system 01' ernployment that would nurtur
people who would be loyal to t he
cornpany at her than ro the FFparty.
A report was prepared which centered
onthe career potential 01' the copyboy
staff in Burgh Quay, Rather than recruit
sub-editors frorn outside the papel' the
report urged that copyboys with the right
stuffbe recruited and .after a yearor so
be taken on as subs. At that lime in t he
Press all copyboys were taught to be loyal
to the journalistic staff and the paper.
Editorial and executive types were to be
referred to as 'Mister '.
Many 01' the copyboys who carne inro
the papel' around that time have how
clirnbed throughtth ranks to seriior
positions and include the present editor;
Hugh Larnbert, the deputy editor Richard
O'Riordan, t he deputy editor 01' t he
Sunday Press Ernrnanuele Keogh and
Niall Connolly, the editorial manager.
rhe current Managing Director 01' the
Irish Press Group, Vincent Jennings, a
graduate with an MA from UCD, was
encouraged to leav his teaching Job in
the prestigious Castlek nock College to
become a copyboy for ayear and
subsequently astaff sub.
The Irish Press had not changed its
design since the Thirties when Coogan
carne in, simply used larger pictures, and
created an in crease in sales.
In 1968 the North ..erupted. One day a
staff reporter phoned in copy from Derry.
He was told by the newsdesk that the
"riorthern eruption" was orily a seven-
day wonder. In the event it was perfect
1'01' Tim Pat Coogan and it made his
name. News 01' the Six Counties conflict
was reported impartially and although
Coogan began to take a strong republican
line the sales 01' the paper continued 10
rise. Gradually, though, the North
became Iess fashionable.
Coogan reigned suprerrie in the Irish
Press right up to last year, even despite
the paper carrying its infamous political
obituary 01' Charles Haughey during the
he aves against the Fianna Fil leader.
This enraged large numbers 01' the paper's
ageing rural FF leadership, and perhaps
marked the death knell 01' the newspaper
'
as the voice 01' rural Ireland.
A
T THE TURN OF THE DE CAD E
the Irish Press Group was
- recording profits 01' over il
million, but the good times were nearing
an end. Sales 01' newspapers were
dropping drastically and advertisers were
10 MAGILLMAY 1988
to
a
more cautious and selective in the placing
01' ads, opting more and more 1'01' the
growing number 01' radio stations. From
1981 until May 1985 when a dispute with
the Irish Print Union resulted in the Press
managernent declaring a 'Iock-out ' the
Press Group recorded losses 01' f5 million.
And it \las getting worse .. Only the
fi n a n c ia l b o o st from its Reuter s
shareholding in 1983 had eased the pain
1'01' the Press Group.
The editorial staff were now becoining
uneasy. Many journalists cornplained that
they didn't know who they were writing
for and the rrianagernent, it appeared, had
lost interest in the Irish Press. The lrish
Press was starved 01' resources. "It was
firing on one cyclirider ,' said one
jourrialist. Any resources the company
had were going into the Evening Press
and the Sunday Press. Yet sornehow .the
papel' survived, despite its inconsistent
editorial lineo It .seemed that the only
aspect ihe public could identify the paper
.
with was its excellent news coverage.
W
HEN THE SHAKE-UP IN THE
Press Group carne last year the
. resulting appointments sur-
prised many in the newspaper world, both
inside and outside Burgh Quay. Many 01'
those loyal to the company were
promoted into senior positions, Vincent
Jennings moved from the Sunday Press
into his executive management position.
Hugh Lambert moved from the same
paper to beco me editor and with him he
brought Eoghan Corry, who became
features editor. Baffled by the changes,
John Spain and Miehael Wolsey, who
had worked hard during the Coogan
years, crossed the Liffey to the
Independent Group. Sean Garvey,
another stalwart 01' the Cooganera,
stayed on. Immediately Larnbert, a layout
man, irnproved the image 01' the Irish
Pr ess , sirnp ly by jaz zing up its :
presentation.
Although many 01' the editorial staff
knew 01' the tabloid launch they were not
convinced 01' t he management's
comrnitrnent lO the paper's survival.
There were rounds ofunion meetings, but
in the end al! theteething problems were
solved. "Up until ihe launch 01' the
tabloid they had no idea who to sell it to,"
said One Press reporter. BUl the
homework had beeri done. "1 f we achieve
our target in the Dublin area even at the
expense 01' the rural readers it will have
been a success," said a spokesman for the
papel'. As the cornpany had known for
years it needed to attract the young urban
readers, especially women.
Al'ter the first week 01' the tabloid, sales
were reported to be touehingthe 100,000
mark, 20,000 short 01' the target. There
is no breakdown al' those figures as yet,
but a Press spokesman said that "if we
get the penetration we need in Dublin it
will be a suecess".
It already seems to be.The first tabloid
issue was seheduled as forty pages.
1nereased advertising revenue pushed that
up to forty-foir and then forty-eight.
"The goodwill towards the paper has
been remarkable," said one executive.
Yet as the new Irish Press grapples with
their new-found eirculation on the east
coast and their sol'ter 'feminine' approach
there are a few lines 01' eaution from
aceros s the road in D'Olier Stret, where
the Irish Times reeently commissioned a
readership survey. Referring to the Irish
Time'swomen's page, readers expressed
a "high level 01' dissatisfaction " because
serious issues were not treated properly.
Aftertwo weeks, the new tabloid Irish
Press is feminine but it is not feminist and
ehanging titles from 'Girls on Top' to
'Women At The Top' is, according to
several dissatisfied women journalists on
lhe paper, not going to irnprove the
readership among women.
. Perhaps the final irony lies with the
market survey whieh showed that the red,
white and blue masthead 01' the riew
. tabloid was the one the publie found
preferable. De Valera is probably turning
in his grave.

AERRIANTA
CALLING
AER RIANTA'S NEW VIP
Duty Free Shopping Service
is now in operation. Regular
travellers can enjoy the free-
dom and convenience of
purchasing items available in
Dublin duty free from their
homes and offices. All one
has to do is simply dial either
of the special VIP Duty Free
'telephone numbers. Then, by
simply quoting your credit
card number, flight details and
of course the items you re-
quire, you will find them
packaged and ready for col-
lection from the Duty Man-
ager's Shop, which is adjacent
to the check outs in the duty
free shop. This new service,
which comes along at the same
time as Aer Rianta's recent
coup in Russia, is a first for
duty free shopping,
As an added bonus, every
time .you spend LIS .00 or
over by phone, you will re-
ceive a special offer voucher
to collect towards a free gift.
Gifts inc1ude Famous Irish
Distillery prints, Philips Cafe
Compact, Lancome cosmetic
sets and special edition minia-
ture Pot Still decanters con-
taining Whyte & Makay De
Luxe Scotch whisky.
FrankHanlon, General Man-
ager of Retailing at Aer
Rianta, said "The scheme is
proving to be successful with
our regular travellers. It saves
businessmen, especially , valu-
able time in the airport and
still allows them toavail fully
of the Duty Free Shcp. We
have already noticed that once
people try the VIP Duty Free
Shopping Service they try it
again and again . : .'
For further information
contact VIP Duty Free on
(01) 426802 or (Ol) 379900,
ext. 4356, Monday to Friday
from 9 a m to 5 p m.
THE SWATCH STORY
... SOFAR
SWATCH CELEBRATES ITS
fifth birthday this year with
sales to date of more than 35
million pieces and monthly
production of 1.1 million.
These figures put all other
watches in the shade as far as
output vo1ume is concerned.
Swatch is part of the SMH
Group (Swiss Corporation for
Microelectronic and Watch-
making Industries), the largest
Swiss watch manufacturero
Other SMH brands inc1ude
Omega, Tissot, Longines and
Rado.
The Swatch .idea - the
combination of unchanging
quality and fashionab1e varia-
bility - is the core of its
phenomena1 success. Their
constant innovation and vari-
ation keeps interest at a peak.
Even at this early stage,
Sothebys has auctioned a sold-
out Swatch model as a collec-
tor's item.
In spite of sorne predictions
to the contrary, the popularity
of Swatch is not letting up.
The Swiss watch industry had
taken asevere beating at the
hands of the Japanese , but
now, ironically, Swatch is
enormously successful in
Japan.
Sales of Swatch in Ireland
are, per capita, the highest in
the world.
The models in the Swatch
Summer Collection are shock
proof and water resistant,
carrying an international guar-
antee, and are available from
all leading jewellers and de-
partment stores at f:27.95.
SOCKBROKING
THE NEW IRISH OWNED
sock shop is expanding at a
rapid rateo The first shop
opened in the airport depar-
ture 10unge in early Decem-
ber. Business has been brisk.
The second store opened at
Easter in the Powerscourt
Townhouse Centre and a
third shop is scheduled to
open in the near future.
Sockbroker sells everything
from socks to boxer shorts
and are stockists of high
quality brands such as Dior,
Dore Dore and Burlington.
Patrick Cochrane, sales di-
rector at Sockbroker, has this
to say: "When we first opened
we knew we were going into
head on competition with the
English chainstores. We sawa
gap in the market and went
for it. Sockbroker is a wholly
owned Irish company and so
far the success of the shop
has gone beyond our wildest
expectations. At present there
are plans afoot to introduce
our own label in time for
next autumn."
Cousin Kevin
N EIL KINNOCK'S
last year to appoint
DECISION

McNamara as Opposition Front

Bench Spokesperson
Kevin

on Northern Ire-
In an interview with
SIOBHAN CROZIER, British
LabourPartySpokesman
on Northern Ireland,
ponsible for the equivalent
own government

given to few ministers

land was as great a shock to McNamara
himself as it was to the commentators
who hailed it as the "greening" of the
Labour Party , The word in Westminster
was that Kevin McNamara was "gob-
smacked" by the offer, and along with
his colleague, Jim Marshall, embarked
on the job with the vigour which has
characterised his twenty-two years as
an MP.
The Irish in Britain have been left
with a nasty taste in the mouth by suc-
cessive Labour Secretaries of State and
spokespeople on N orthern Ireland:
many regard the legacy of Labour
governments as far worse than the
Tories - the spectre of Roy Mason,
commonly known as the Barnsley
Bruiser, is one which will not quickly
be exorcised., -".
The significance of this departure in
the appointment of Kevin McNamara
les in his individual record. He is the
member for Hull North and has con-
sistent1y carnpaigned on issues relating
to Ireland. He describes hirnself as a
"United Irelander", a most consti-
tutional nationalist, who regards his
interest in Ireland as a natural process
of growing up in a Lverpcol-Irish Cath-
olc farnly. "One was conscious of an
Irish identity in that you just assumed
.it, you were of Irish dcscent, Liverpool
Kevin McNamara, says
that Britain has, inrelation to
Ireland, been "insensittve and
bungling rather than specifically.
and deliberately malicious. "
was the capital of Ireland, you belonged
to the diaspora, had relatives in Cana da ,
America, Ireland, you went to ceilidhs,
had holidaysin Ireland. You voted
Labour, went to Mass and spoke at
home with your father about poltics:
the partition of Ireland was aBad
Thing."
The post of Secretary of State for
Northern Ireland is widely acknow-
ledged as the roughest job in the
British cabinet. Ambitious MPs view it
as the British equivalent of being sent
to Siberia. Prime Ministers rarely invite
their most favoured colleagues to take
it on, and many of those who accept
do so in the knowledge that it's more
frequently a job for those on the way
out than the way up. Whatever Tom
King rnght think, his opposite number
on the Labour Front Bench totally dis-
agrees with this perspective.
"It's one of the most fascinating
jobs that any poltician could hope to another matter but they know that it
have. When in government, you have a
great deal of autonomy: you're res-
of your
in Northern Ireland
and there are opportunities which are
to influence
events .to such a degree. It is possible
to put your mark upon that society:
Whitelaw certainly did that - in fact,
it made his reputation, others in not
such a beneficial way, as we can well
remember." Kevin McNamara laughs
conspiratorially, declning to name
names, but the Barnsley Bruiser is in-
voked once again.
The British Labour Party has al-
ways been uncomfortable in its position
on Northern Ireland, not least within
its own ranks. A deep chasm exists
between the opinions of the leadership
and those of party activists who cm-
paign on Irish issues. The various in-
cumbents of the leadership have long
been se en to operatea policy of bi-
partisanship with the Tories, although
Kevin McNamara is determined that he
is not falling into this chasm. "When
we had a major meeting on Ireland after
Enniskillen, there was complete en-
dorsement of the lne taken by myself
and the leadership by the great bulk of
the parliamentary party. Those el-
ements within the party who might
have fe1t frustrated in the past now
know that there is a positive line -
whether or not they agree with it is
is not reactive. It is an attempt tomake
the debate and push the governrnent

12 MAGILL MAY 1988

tojustify itself. We've been laying
down our own agenda. On job ds-
crimination, for example, the govern-
ment s having to respond to what we're
saying rather than us having to react to
them."
McNamara identifies the definite
break in bi-partisanship as the adoption
by Labour in 1981 of the policy, of
unity by consent of the majority in
the North. The official line of the
Labour Party is that this consent must
be built through harmonisation, an idea
which causes dissent among the rank
and file activists who regard it as
meaningless and unattainable, holding
the view that the leadership is incapable
of any disagreement with the Dublin
government. Kevin McNamara is ada-
mant that this is not the case. "The
first principle that we adopt is that, if
we're in favour of a united Ireland, it
is for the Irish people and the Irish
government to decide things for them-
selves. It's not for us to dictate their
reaction toevents. Therefore, when
they embark on Thatcherite policies,
for exarnple , that's a matter for the
Irish people - I'd much prefer that
Dick Spring were Taoiseach but it's
not for me to decide!"
M CNAMARA'S OFFICE IN
Westminister generates a
mass of research into all as-
pects of the state of things in the Six
Counties. He regards this as the crucial
task of preparing the conditions for
building a consensus for eventual with-
drawal and in the hope that there will
one day be another Labour government
in a: position to put his ideas into prac-
tice. He sees it as a matter of getting
people to try and grapple with the
problems and mechanics of the situ-
ation rather than "mouthing clichs".
"The worst disease in any left wing
organisation is resolutionitis - resol-
utions are fine but you've then got to
put them into policies while you're
in opposition and see how they 're
going to work, identifying all the snags.
There was a belief that if we put the
Six Counties on a silver tray , gift-
wrapped it and gave it to Charlie
Haughey, he'd be grateful - as it is
now! Many in the party don't think
what it would mean to the Republic
if it were dumped in their lap, a1though
I'm sure if 1 said it to Charlie Haughey ,
he'd say, TU take it tomorrow, Kevin
- or the day after' ".
Since last November, Ireland and
events relating to it have hardlybeer.
off the front pages of the British press.
It has been something of a trial by
ordeal for Kevin McNamara in his job
of only a few months. He considers
that the Conservatives have bungled
through insensitivity in Anglo-Irish
'relations, "1 think the insensitivity was
shown in sorne of Mrs. Thatcher's
comments after she had met Haughey.
1 don 't beleve in the conspiracy theory
.and certainly 1 think that the Northern
Ireland Office are conscious of the
extraordinary damage that's been done
by a number of things, 1 think it was
insensitive and bungling rather than
specifically and deliberately malicous."
McNamara identifies the problem as
, a failure to use the mechanisms of the
Anglo-Irsh Agreement and considers
that Dublin should have been directly
notified on all aspects of the Birrning-
ham Six decision and the move to make
the PTA permanent. "They should at
least have been forewarned and should
not have found out about the decision
on the Stalker Inquiry while they were
sitting up in the gallery of the House
of Commons while the statement was
being made to parliament. That was
just a gross discourtesy ." Kevin McNa-
mara's conjecture of the situation is
-that there was a totallack of co-ordin-
ation within the Northern Ireland
Office. "There was no-one there strong
enough - this is partly King's problem,
a1though he's improving in the job -
but no-one to coordinate things and
look at them in relation to one another
and consider how different events were
being dea1t with, 1 commented that
Thatcher should take a firmer grip
because the Anglo-Irish Agreement is
very much her baby as well."
McNamara believes that recent
events have proven the necessity of the
Anglo-Irish Agreement rather than
weakened it. He sees it as an important
factor in the Tories' break with Union'-
ism, on which they have failed to build.
"They stood up quite courageously to
the street demonstrations, riots, boy-
cotting of local councils and West-
minster; having done that and seen
them down, there was a political vac-
uum andthey didn't know what to do.
They had a marvellous opportunty
to create political initiatives, far more
so than at the beginning of the Agree-
ment, and th ey lost it. What we are see-
ing as a positive result of the Agree-
ment and the seeing down of the
Unionists are these rather coy flirt a-
tions between Molyneaux and Paisley,
the talks with John Hume and Gerry
Adams. The British government is al-
most in the back seat - eventually, it 's
got tobe solved between Belfast and
[)ublin. All any British governrnent
can do is help in creating aclimate
which will enable things to happen. The
Conservative governrnent has failed to
u~e the chances they've had since the
last election
, to achieve change."
K
EVIN McNAMARA REGARDS
the Gibraltar killings as another
very major mistake on the part
of the government. "Our main concern
is that we cannot have summary exe-
cutions on the streets - that does the
terrorists' job for thern, and they are
going to do it far better than we are.
The whole of the democratic case is
lost - people should be apprehended
and brought to justice. They had been
under surveillance for four months; if
the security forces were waiting for
the smoking gun to apprehend them,
that was amost dangerous policy, They
had their evidence to apprehend them
- if', as they say, they feared that a
timer would be set off in the pocket
and therefore it was necessary to shoot
as they didn't know whether the car at
that time did or didn't have a bomb in
it, then they should never have allowed
that risk - that the bomb could have
gone off before they shot them."
"This smoking gun business is real
brinkmanship. Nobody could but .be
happy that what could have been an
enormous tragedy was averted, but the
handling of it and what happened to
those three members of the Provisional
IRA dcesn't rebound to our credit a
great deal. It's more like what happens
in El Salvador, Guatelamala and places
like that - it's not good news and it
isn't the way that one would want to
see what used to be regarded as avery
high standard o British justice being
carried out. Unfortunately, the popular
press in this country does not make
that distinction - they said they deser-
ved it, it's the Lord Chief Justice Gibson
attitude, and it doesn't help."
Kevin McNamara perceives the job
as being to both pin .down the govern-
ment in relation to grantng real con-
cessions which will ameliorate the lot
of northern Nationalists, especially in
the field of employment discrimination,
and also to prepare workable policies
for a future Labour government. "Hav-
ing sketched out our agenda, we're
now setting up groups to look at prob-
lems of infrastructure and trade within
the whole of Ireland, the effect of
common agricultural policies. When
we come to power we will have pre-
pared ideas that we can take to an Irish
government for discussion to find out
how best the economy of the whole
island can be run, because it's in the
economic interest of both parties to
work these things out."
To many Labourvoters, the prospect
of another Labour government is fast
becoming a pipe dream. Kevin McNa-
mara has been in politics long enough
to keep the faith: he understands the
disaffection of the large numbers of
Irish voters here better than mosto If
they're to be won back to Labour and
the party wins an election, McNamara
is determined that the Northern Ireland
Office will reflect a sea change in La-
bour's policy. He evidently enjoys his
current position and carries it out with
great commitment but it's no secret
that he'd like to be sitting at Tom
King's desk rather more.
MAGILL MAY 1988 13

ChosenFew
U
NDER THE LIGHT FROM
the street lamps we were going
, into extra time in the 1963 FA
Cup Final and Manchester United were
trailing Leicester City by four goals to
three, when our goal keeper Kevo
(Gordon Banks), fearless acrobat on
concrete or grass, was called in by his
. mother.
He had just soared into the light
and brought down a dangerous comer
ball when she appeared in the dcorway.
"Ah Kevo," we begged, "leave the
ball. We're in extra time."
He ignored uso
It was not unusual for our FA Cup
Finals or even World Cup Finals to end
thus.
As always, we repaired to Mario's
for a postmortem and chips. Then the
talk was Elvis and girls and Brother
Bony, our terrifying teacher of Irish,
who'd had a brain operation and as a
result now read everything upside
down.
We recognised the priest instant1y
as he passed the chipper window. We
watched as he stood outside my house
checking the number.
"Jazes, he's going in your gaff,"
somebodyexclaimed.
Within minutes my litt1e brother
burst through the door of the chipper,
breathless from running and excite-
mento
"You've to come in, you, there's a
priest looking for you."
He was sitting in the sofa by the
window, drinking tea from the special
occasion china. "I'm Father Finnerty,"
he smiled, "you remember me, don't
you? You filled in my form when I
gave my wee speech the other day at
your schcol." He took a Marietta from
a plate and broke it carefully in two
like 'a host.
"Sit down, sit down like a good
mano I won't take a lump out of you."
He smiled and peered at me over his
glasses.
14 MAGILL MAY 1988
fode in,fode out
"So you'd like to be a priest?" he
asked. I remembered him standing
under the map of the world in our class-
room and, with the geometry ruler,
pointing out all the places where his
order had missions, Trinidad and To-
bago, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ecuador,
Bolivia, Peru, BraZiJ. and Papua New
Guinea. I repeated the names silent1y
to myself', over and over in my head
like a little poem. Names full of mys-
tery and magic that set the pulse racing
with excitement and danger.
He passed a book of pictures.around
the elass. Two boys, suitcases in harid,
were opening a gate which led to a lake
surrounded by trees. The boys standing
on steps being greeted by smiling
priests in front of an ivy covered build-
ing: the boys playing snooker and
soccer and music. Then a photograph
of seminarians, older now, studying
in their own rooms, a crucifix behind,
the shelves lined with books, sunlight
streaming through the windows. Then,
aman blessing his proud parents on
the day of his ordination and, finally ,
the same man in shirt-sleeves and a
straw hat sitting on a horse surrounded
by smiling black children in the shadow
of a cloud-topped mountain.
"O yesFather, I'd like to be one Clery's. My mother stitched my num-
alright."
"And tell me now, why would you
like to become a priest?"
I thought for, a moment of myself
on a horse in Papua New Guinea in a
strawhat.
"To save souls, Father."
"Y ou have a vocation to the priest- '. body's insistence sang his favourite
hood. Do you know what that word
means, vocation? From the Latin
vocare, to callo God is calling you," he
said, breaking another biscuit. "And
you must answer thatcall."
I looked at my father. He looked
away. In the porch, Father Finnerty
put on his hato "God bless you all," he
addressed the entire family , "and
remember, many are called but few are
chosen, but a priest in the house is a
blessing from God himself'."
I never saw him again,
T
HAT NIGHT I LAY AWAKE
with beating heart, dreaming of
, villages of straw, fire-red suns, put out of the church for laughing dur-
rivers of crocodiles and snake-infested
jungles. And me astride my horse
gallopng brave and reckless to bring
salvation to those who knew no God.
Oyes, I would be a priest alright. I was
being called. I knew it now.
Crossing the convent field Kevo
said: "Are youreally going to be one?"
"Y eh, I am."
"My oul fella says you're bleeding
mad. What about the street leagues?"
"What about them?"
"When are you going?"
"September. "
"Where do you have to go to?"
"A place near Birmingham. Sorne
English gaff - I can't pronounce it."
"For how long?"
"Seven years."
"But why do you want to be one?"
lthought for a momento "Because
many are called but few are chosen," I
replied fiercely.
"But you're only twelve. You have
to be old to be a priest."
"That's why I'm going to a novitiate,
so's I can learn how to say Mass and
give communion and hear people's con-
fessions. And then I have to go out to
Papua Ne'!VGuinea to convert all the
pagans out there. You can come out
and visit me."
"You have your glue," he said and
walked on.
A elothing list arrived: two grey
flannel trousers, black blazer with
crest of eagle soaring, six white shirts,
three pairs of black shoes and two caps
also with crest. I was measured and
fitted in Dermis Guiney's of Talbot
Street, and then for a gaberdine in
ber, 558, on to all rny clothes. Ilooked
in the mirror and saw a stranger in
stranger's clothes and turning the white
collar to the front gave myself an apos-
tolic blessing. -
The night before I left we had a
farewell party. My Un ele Joe at every-
'Goodbye Johnny Dear' and 'When
You're Far Away'. Don't forget your
dear old mother far across the sea. /
Write a letter now and then. / And
send her al! you can. / And don't [or-
get where e're you roam / That you're
an Irishman.
My Auntie Mary was helped from
the room in tears, the worse for several
bottles of Mackeson's Milk Stout.
"Sure he's only a Trawneen. He'll
be et alive beyond. O why couldn't
he join up with the Brothers at Black-
rock?" she snuffled.
"Tis G ... G ... God's will, Mrs,"
stammered Father Clery who had me
ing the Stations of the Cross.
E
VENING DARKENED OVER
Dun Laoghaire. Aman on the
, quayside, head rocking from
side to side like a metronome, played
an accordion, and the Legion of Mary
handed out leaflets to people as they
stepped on the gangplank. Gulls
wheeled and bickered over the mail
boat and a cold wind knifed along
the docks. 1 waved goodbye to my
family and friends and 1 stood and
watched till the spires and roofs and
hills of Dublin became only a line that
joined the sea and sky. Downstairs in
the cafeteria, 1 joined my new friends,
my fel!ow seminarians, al! my own age,
al! dressed identically. In charge of us
was an older, flame-haired youth from
Cavan. We sat around him, a flock of
frightened crows.
"1 am your guardian angel," he an-
nounced , "and yous are my chicks.
That's what yeer known as in yeer first
year. Ye will al! be under my wing till
we get beyont."
The boat thudded and heaved
through dark waters. A nun vomited
politely into a paper bag, the white of
her veil framing her face in the
She staggeredaway holding theraillike
a drunk. A necklace of lights was strung
around Holyhead as we slowed towards
shore. Disorientated from sleeping only
fitful!y on the wooden deck benches,
we trooped in a line behind our leader,
hauling our cases through customs, past
Welsh bobbies, stern-faced and reprov-
ing under their bizarre helmets. "They're
not like real guards at all," 1 thought.
The doors of the long red train were
open and it snorted, anxious to be away
from the crowded platform.
Soon we were hurtling through
Wales, the blackness broken here and
there only by a light from a house in
the mountains, and al! the towns were
sleeping now. But once 1 thought 1 saw
or dreamed 1 saw a solitary figure stand
and wave to our speeding train. 1waved
back anxious that he should know that
1 had answered his lonely salutation.
Our guardian angel rose from his seat
and removed the bulb from the ceiling.
"We will all kneel and say the rosary
for our Blessed Mother to deliver us
safe." In the silence 1 heard his beads
rattle.
"I've always had a great devotion
to OUT Blessed Lady myself and of
course to Dominic Savio, the patron
saint of young boys," he said.
He began to intone the first joy-
ful mystery and we answered in half-
hearted unison, but my mind made its
own prayer to the rhythm of wheel on
track: 1 want to go home, 1 want to go
home, 1 want to go home.
Later a megaphoned voice announ-
ced that we had arrived at Crewe
station. A black porter was sweeping
the deserted platform.
"Look, it's Shang Mohangi," said
one of the boys. A light snow was falling
over the tracks and on the roof of the
train, as we followed our leader from
our compartments.
"Right, boys, remove your over-
coats."
He stood before us inshirt and tie
for a moment and then began to jump
up and down clapping his hands over
his head with every second jurnp.
People watched from the carriage, rub-
bing the windows. They pointed at us
and laughed. 1was heartsick with shame
and regret. Snow was falling heavier
now, blown by the wind, like a scatter-
ing of wild, white insects beneath the
platform lights. Finally we picked up
our sodden coats and followed him
back to the train. There was sorne snow
on his eyebrows and head, as he settled
himself against the seat.
"Now 1 bet yeer the better of that,"
he said.
Dawn whitened the sky as we pulled
into New Street station, Birmingham.
In a cafe near the bus terminus we de-
voured fried bread and eggs and mugs
of warm tea. A waitress collected our
money , throwing back the Irish coins.
"It's -getting up grand now, thank
God," our Guardian Angel said.
, "1 don't know where you've come
from, my love, but this is the worst
frigging winter in living rnemory."
He ushered us to the door.
"Goodbye now and thanks very
mucho That was a grand bit of break-
fast." She turned her backand did not
reply.
Through the dismal streets of Bir-
mingham our bus inched its way.
"Take courage.? a sign on a hoard-
ing said.
"1 will, 1 will," 1 said to myself.
Now the city gave way to a sheeted
landscape of chocolate box houses
with black timber and stone. At last
we reached a village, a strange, silent
place with signs 1 would never forget,
Uriah Crump and Son, Undertakers,
The Barley Mow Inn, Mrs Turnbull's
Tuck Shop, names that seemed to me
as bizarre as anything Dickens would
have invented. We passed a graveyard
where a woman tending a grave stared
at us for a few minutes and returned
to her work. A lorry appeared in the
distance. Halfwithout hope, 1extended
my thumb. It halted.
"Who stopped that lorry?" snapped
our Guardian Angel.
l felt a cbward's relief as we clam-
bered, cases and all, into the back.
THE GATES OF THE SEMI-
nary opened to reveal a frozen
lake 1 recognised from the
photographs. The branches of trees that
edged the ribbon of road that led to
my new home were traced in silver.
Birds cried in alarm and rose up from
the bare trees and only the soft sound
of OUT footsteps foHowed us, 1 fe1t no
excitement, only fear and an aching
loneliness, and thought how different
it all seemed to the photographs passed
from desk to desk that day at school.
Suddenly.a huge.grey building, bearded
with ivy, loomed before uso It seemed
to possess a dark personality of its
own that resented the intrusion of
strangers. There were no smiling priests
to greet uso Instead, we waited like the
horseman in Wa1ter de la Mare's poem
'The Listener' as the knocker echoed
deep within the house. The door swung
open and a small priest with glasses, in
a stained soutane, stood before uso 1
noticed he was wearing Chelsea boots.
"Ah," he laughed, "the Irish Bri-
gade." We followed him through dark
statued corrldors, up stairways of un-
even stone, hung with paintings of as-
cetic, long-dead priests. The air smelled
of boiled cabbage and disinfectant.
Somewhere a piano was being played.
He showed us our dormitories. No
bookshelves here, no sunlight streaming
through windows, only rows of narrow
 beds with red woollen covers, our
numbers sellotaped to the frames.
Around the walls, wooden lockers with
your name. and year,
Later in the refectory hundreds of
boys sat around long tables. One of
thern was reading aloud from the New
Testament in an English accent. On a
raised dais three priests sat. Then one
of them, removing his napkin from a
silver circle, said something in Latin
and we were allowed to talle A wave
of noise drowned the silence. When
the meal was finished all the Irish boys
had to stand and we introduced our-
selves amongst clapping and whistles
and banging of spoons on the tables.
Sorne of the English repeated our
names to each other and laughed. The
priest rang a small bell on his table to
quieten them. Before the sacred taber-
nacle in the f1ower-filled candle-lit
chapel we sang 'Soul of My Saviour',
the win dows open to the night,
"You are embarking on a most diffi-
cu1tjoumey ,You have chosen a narrow,
dangerous road. Temptations will be
many. Sorne of you will not reach your
joumey's end;" the rector told us from
the altar. I glanced at our Guardian
Angel. His mouth was tightened in a
smile.
"Discipline and prayer and work
will be your companions. They will be
your strehgth. For you are now mem-
till I was woken by the sound of bells
agan. I knelt on the cold floor to pray
in my Clery's cotton pyjamas but I
bers of a special family and you must could find no prayer, only thoughts of
tum your back on the ernpty pleasures Irene and the roundabout and Mario's
ofthis world, the better to serve Him." one and ones with loads of sa1t and
I th ought of Irene in her purple vinegar, and Mr Goodshow from the
coat, her lovely face smiling at me paper shop saying "good show" as he
across the table in the chipper. Irene, gave you your change and Uncle J oe
my first love from Drimnagh, I must singing on an evening that seemed so
turn my back on her forever. The boy long ago now, his head thrown back,
beside me wet himself, a stain spreading and the firelight in his whiskey glass.
in his grey f1annel trousers.
At the entrance to the dormitory,
a priest stood reading his breviary in
the half light. We extended our hands
to show we had washed. Re waved us
in one by one without a word.
I lay in my thin bed as the lights
were extinguished. I listened to the
new sounds. The clearing of throats, the
whispered conversations, the breathing
of sleep, the creaking of springs, Moon-
light slanted white over the beds and
the stone flcors and somewhere a bell
rang slow and lonely. I heard the swish
of a soutane as it brushed the floors
between the beds and the squeak of
his shoes in the shadows. A boy cried
out in his sleep. AH was quiet again.
Sleep would not come for hours, but
when it did it was dreamless and deep,
THE STORY Uf THE O'GRADY KIONAP , ., ~ '. .

By Michael O'Higgins
The Gardai had in their possession a c1ue which could have led thern to the O'Grady
kidnappers and their captive some ten days earlier. A card found in a rucksack after the
Midleton shoot-out led thern directly to the gang once they checked it out - but this was ten
days later, by whichtirne John O'Grady had lost two of his fingers.

where the alarm and console for opening and closing the
l. The O'Hare Gang comes calling front gate in the driveway were located. O'Grady had diffi-
culty convincing O 'Hare that the alarm had not been switched
on because it had been rnalfunctioning recently.

J OHN O'GRADY WAS STANDING AT THE TOP

of his stairs when Dessie O'Hare, attired in a grey
. suit and black balaclava, carne smashing through the
wooden framed g1ass panels of his front door with sledge-
hammer. Up to that point it had been an unremarkable day.
He had retumed home from his dental surgery in Wellington
Road at six o 'dock, a little earlier than usual. He had dinner
with his wife Marise and three children, Darragh, aged thir-
teen, Anthony, twelve, and Louise, six. After dinner he went
up to visit his mother Kitty O'Grady who was sick. He re-
tumed horne just before nine o'clock. The children were
already in bed. John and Marise O'Grady decided to have
an early night. They were in bed watching television when
at around half past nine they heard the sound of breaking
glass. They thought it might have been Anthony and Darragh
playacting. John O'Grady got up in his pyjamas and went
to investigate.
Confronted with a stranger breaking down the door with
a sledge-harnmer, John O'Grady instinctively descended a
few steps of the stairs. Now, Dessie O'Hare was standing in
front of him pointing a gun at his head, threatening to blow
him away , There were three other armed men, al so wearing
balaclavas, along with O'Hare. O'Grady told O'Hare not to
panic, that he (O'Grady) was not going to do anythng.
Other members of the O'Grady household were aroused
by the noisy incursin. They were ushered at gunpoint by
O'Hare nto the bedroom of Anthony O'Grady, Anthony
was already on the phone attempting to contact the gardai.
"You little bastard ," ranted O'Hare who prompt1y took the
phone frorn him. The family was ushered into the bedroom
of Louise O'Grady, the youngest of the O'Grady family,
John O'Grady was taken downstairs to the front porch
O'Hare wanted to know where Dr Austin Darragh, the
head of the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, was. He was
told that Dr Darragh had not lived in the house for three
and a half years. O'Hare went back upstairs. There was a
telephone in Louise's bedroom too. Marise O'Grady had
dialled 999, got through to the exchange and was awaiting
connection to the police. At that moment O'Hare entered
the room. He flew into a rage and called Marise O'Grady a
bitch and swore at her. The 'phone was ripped out of the
wall. Dessie O'Hare said that there had been a "fuck up"
and that they had got the wrong man. He told Marise O 'Grady
that a previous kidnap in which he had been involved had
been bung1ed and it was important that they should not
lose face.
John O'Grady was by this time handcuffed. He had had
to walk barefoot out to the porch through the broken glass.
He was taken into the kitchen where he met Fergal Toal
who was armed with a pump action shotgun and who he
noticed was very nervous and breathing heavily. Dessie
~Hare told O'Grady to open the safe, All that the safe con-
tained was birth, baptism and marriage certificates, pass-
ports, a TV licence, other personal documents and jewellery
worth just over a thousand pounds. O'Hare took everything.
Marise O'Grady was upstairs in one of the bedrooms with
her three children. They were under armed guard by another
member of the gang, Tony McNeill. Marise O'Grady found
that McNeill was reasonable. He acceded to all her requests,
Attempts to draw him into conversation, however, failed.
McNeill put his finger up to his lips to indicate that she
should be quieto . .
Downstairs Dessie O'Hare was in a foul tempero He su m-
moned Marise O 'Grady. O 'Hare was trying to think of a ruse

18 MAGILL MAY 1988

that would entice Dr Darragh 'out to the house. One of his
suggestions was that John O'Grady should ring him and tell
Dr Darragh that Marise had fallen down the stairs and broken
her neck. Marise O'Grady told O'Hare the plan would not
work. O'Hare kicked her on the backside. On theway back
upstairs he called her a "lying cunt ". The kidnap gang held
a conference over tea and biscuits. O'Hare lamented thefact
that Q 'Grady was not a son of Dr Darragh. He took the view
that J ohn Q'Grady would be "expendable". The idea of
taking Marise Q 'Grady was dscussed but O'Hare was against
taking a woman. John Q'Grady was summoned downstairs
again. The fourth member of the gang, Eddie Hogan, pro-
duced a video camera. He filmed John O'Grady , flanked on
either side by Dessie Q'Hare and Tony McNeill who had
guns pointed at his head. Afterwards they asked O'Grady
where his video cassette player was, to check if the camera
worked. 'Manar House ' has a1most every modern convenience
imaginable but John Q'Grady told an incredulous O'Hare
that they did not own a video cassette player. The reason,
he explained to Q'Hare, was that he didn't want his children
to watch video 'nasties.
J ohn O 'Grady was taken upstairs to rejoin the rest of his
family , He lay down on the bed beside his wife Marise. He
was aware that the gang had discussed the possibility of tak-
ing one of the children as wel1 as himself. He talked it over
with Marise. John Q'Grady decided Anthony would be the
one they should take along with himself. All the time Tony
McNeill was sitting, armed with a shotgun, on a chair in the
comer of the room watching them. After an hour or two
J ohn O 'Grady was taken down to the playroom where he
was made to sit on a swivel chair. Eddie Hogan talked with
him for a while about Dr Darragh'swealth. Before the family
was a1lowed go to bed for the night a ransom note demand-
ing 1:300,000 was drafted.
2. Not tbe smootbest of operators
I
NTHE MORNING DESSIE O'HARE TOOK JOHN
O'Grady downstairs. Marise O'Grady was told to get
warm clothes, socks and wellington boots for her hus-
bando He was to be kept in a field, she was toldo J ohn O'Grady
MAGILLMAY 198819

was in the playroorn with Tony McNeill guarding him.
Shortly before nine o'clock one of the gang carne in and
blindfolded him with a lint and gauze dressing. O'Hare led
him, still handcuffed, out to the back of the house to a car
and John O'Grady was ordered to get into the boot.
O'Hare retumed to the house. The 'phone rango O'Hare
stood over Marise O'Grady while she accepted an invitation
from a friend to Sunday dinner. It was another cock up:
O'Hare was not wearing his balaclava and Marise O'Grady
got a good loo k at his face. O'Hare told her that he was
leaving with her husband and wamed her not to contact the
police. The car they were leaving in had already been packed
with provisions from the house. The gang also took a walk-
man radio, walkie talkies and a polaroid camera. Two mem-
bers of the gang, Fergal Toal and Tony McNeill, remained
behind to ensure O'Hare's safe getaway , Dessie O'Hare and
Eddie Hogan drove off with John O'Grady.
They intended driving to a lock-up garage on the north
side of Dublin, but quickly lost their way. They were forced
to rely on directions from John O'Grady who was blind-
folded and in the boot. Less than twelve hours into the
kidnap it was apparent Dessie O'Hare and his gang were
not the smoothest of operators,
3. "Look as natural as possible"
T HE CAR SLOWED DOWN AND MOUNTED TWO
kerbs or bumps. From inside the boot J ohn O'Grady
could hear a roller door being opened, Dessie O'Hare
got into a second car and drove off.
The plan had been for McNeill and Toal, who remained
behind in the house, to drive off after a time in John
O'Grady's car which they were then to dump outside the
Fairways Hotel in Dundalk. This was to create the impression
that the gang had gone across the border. Dessie O'Hare
switched cars and drove off to meet with McNeill and Toal
to bring them back to Dublin.
Back in the lock-up garage John O'Grady could hear
Eddie Hogan snoring. In the boot, O'Grady munched apear
from the stock of provisions. He, too, dozed off. When he
woke he asked Eddie Hogan if he could go to the toilet. He
was supplied with a milk bottle which he filled twice. A
short time later Dessie O'Hare retumed. John O'Grady was
released from the boot and ordered into the back seat of
another caro The blindfold was removed. He was given a pair
of glasses with the lenses blacked out with masking tape.
They drove for about half an hour in heavy traffic. O'Grady
was given a cigarette on the joumey and told to pretend to
smoke it and to look as natural as possible. Their destination
was a barber 's shop at 41 Parkgate Street near Guinness's
brewery , They were met by the proprietor of the premises,
Gerry Wright, O'Grady was led to a cellar. His arm was
shaking. Wright took his arm, told him he was alright and
not to worry , The cellar was dilapidated, dusty and disused,
He was put sitting in a sweaty-smelling arrnchair in a comer.
20 MAGILL MAY 1988
His glasses and handcuffs were removed. He took stock of
his new surroundngs. The walls were bare. There was a blue
coloured blanket hanging from the ceiling separating him
from his captors. There was a black Victorian fireplace in
the comer. The only heat being provided, however, was
from one bar of a superser heater. A dinner of roast beef,
vegetables and potato was provided. Fergal Toal and Tony
McNeill, who had retumed with Dessie O'Hare, took up
guard duties. Eddie Hogan and Dessie O'Hare left.
It was Wednesday Octo ber 14. The first full day of this
kidnap was nearing a close. Gerry Wright's cellar was to be
home for the next four days.
4. The "poor old 'Border Fox' "
J
OHN O'GRADY'S GUARDS WERE PREPARED
to make minor concessions. On Wednesday evening
he was asked if he would like a drink. O'Grady
asked for, and was provided with , a bottle of Muscadet wine
and Ballygowan mineral water. The two mixed together is
known as a 'spritzer' and is a fairly popular drink in many
of Dublin's upwardly mobile bar lounges. There wasnothing
salubrious about his present surroundings, however. The
spritzer was served in a paper cup. There was a bucket to
urinate in. For most of the time he was handcuffed and
obliged to wear the pair of blacked outglasses,
Meals were strictIy functional. Tea, toast and boiled eggs
for breakfast, yogurt, fruit and sandwiches for lunch, and
burger and chips or Kentucky fried chicken in the evening.
Toal and McNeill worked in rotation, taking tums for sleep.
O'Grady succeeded in having a brief conversation with
McNeill about his Republican beliefs and getting the British
soldiers out of Northern Ireland. McNeill told him he wanted
to see a Socialist State in Ireland and every other country
that was not already communist. O'Grady was allowed read
the newspapers and was given his son's walkman to listen
too He tuned in to pirate radio station, NRG 103.
On Thursday October 15 Dessie O'Hare and Eddie Hogan
retumed. The kidnap was by now public knowledge. O'Hare
then asked O 'Grady for the names of other people whom
they could contact to make a ransom demando O'Grady
suggested a relative, an Auntie Bettie, and Hilary Prentice,
a solicitor who worked in the firm of Matheson Ormsby
and Prentice. Prentice was a patient of O'Grady's. O'Hare
asked O'Grady for details which would show his bona
lides when he contacted them to demand the ransom.
O'Grady provided details which were written down by
Hogan , The two then departed.
The following moming O 'Grady was supplied with a basin
of hot water and allowed to wash. He was also given the
three morning papers which were full of news of the kidnap.
Toal and McNeill also read the papers but didn't pass any
comment. O'Grady was given two books, 'Murder in the
Vicarage' by Agatha Christie and an adventure thriller by
Wilbur Smith 'The Power of the Sword'. He passed the day
reading and listening to the radio. Overhead he could hear
movement in the barber's shop as Gerry Wright tended to
his customers.
On the following Saturday , October 17, Dessie O'Hare
retumed alone. John O'Grady was to be moved to a new
location. On the journey the gang were in high spirits. They
joked about the "poor old 'Border Fox' being blamed for
everything". They stopped after about an hour and O'Hare
went to a takeaway to get fish and chips and curries. They
ate the food in the caro O'Hare joked to O'Grady that he
would take him for a drink except he might be recognised.
They drove on. O'Hare suddenly ordered everyone in the
car to get down and shouted "Brits". He then fired two
shots out the window. J ohn O 'Grady now presumed he was
in Northem Ireland. They had driven for three to four hours
in all.

5. Evacuation lessons
J OHN O'GRADY DIDN'T YET SUSPECT IT BUT
he was actually in Carriggtwohill. in County Cork.
For the second time in a week his living standards
were to drop sharply , But, compared with what was to
. By the time they crossed the border McIlvenna was dead
follow, the grimy cellar in Gerry Wright's barber shop would
seem a very attractive place indeed.
The first night wasn't too bad. He spent it in a cottage
which was damp with, he noticed, lots of cobwebs in the
cornero Early next morning he was taken by Dessie O'Hare
out to a shed in the yard. Entrance to the shed was through
a two-foot hole in the wall. McNeill and Toal resumed their
guard duties. Each moming they would take theirmattresses
out through the holeo They would then travel a coup1e of
hundred yards through gorse undergrowth to a clearing.
Here they wou1d remain until sundown. They put blankets
over themselves to keep out the cold. John O'Grady read
books supplied by his captors and listened to the radio.
At night they retumed to the shed. It was made from
bare cement blocks and measured ten feet by eight. The roof
was corrugated iron. The floor was mudo John O'Grady by
now was leaming to associate the intermittent appearance
of gang leader Dessie O'Hare with disruption or trouble.
O'Hare retumed on the night of October 20. O'Grady
was finding him increasingly volatile and aggressive. O'Hare
enquired of O'Grady's guard whether he (O'Grady) was get-
ting in and out of the hole in the shed quickly enough. In
reply , he was told that O'Grady was a bit slow. Chains were
produced and attached to both wrists and ankles. O'Hare
then got a scarf and gagged O'Grady. He started to kick
O'Grady in the head, legs, bottom and back. O'Grady put
his hands around his head and tried to scream through the
gag. O'Hare was shouting and cursing that he wasn't getting
out of the hole quickly enough, O'Hare stopped abruptly
and told hirn: "When 1 say go, you are to gather your mat-
tres s and get out of the hole." Once instructed, O'Grady
irnmediately gathered up his mattressand dived for the holeo
He received another kicking because he wasn't fast enough
for O'Hare. He went again, this time, much more quickly ,
His improved speed seemed to satisfy O'Hare's evacuation
requirements. Before 1eavingO'Hare with the polaroid camera
took a photograph of O'Grady in chains and a gun to his
head. John O'Grady noticed that Dessie O'Hare was wearing
his Longines gold watch and that his Cross pen, bearing the
logo of the Institute of C1inical Pharmaco1ogy was sticking
out of his pocket.
The next day was spent in the clearing. It was raining,
On the instructions of O'Hare the chains were still attached
to O'Grady's wrists and ankles.
There were nuggets of comfort. The Gay Byme radio
show had broadcast a message saying that his mother who
had been ill had recovered and that his wife and family
were well, and that he was not to worry , That afternoon
Tony McNeill, clad in ba1aclava, played a couple of games
of chess with O'Grady. McNeill was the only one of the
gang he cou1d establish any kind of rapport with. McNeill
assured O'Grady that he would see to it that he would not
be shot.
6. A gang with nothing to lose
J OHN O'GRADY BY NOW REALISED HE WAS IN
the company of dangerous and desperate meno The
newspapers had been full of profiles of Dessie O'Hare,
detailing his most notorious deeds.
O'Hare was born in Keady, County Arrnagh, in 1958. He
joined the Provisional IRA at the age of sixteen. He quckly
acquired a reputation as a fear1ess, ruth1ess hut also reckless
operator. He led a charmed life. In June 1979 he was on an
operation with Paddy McIlvenna. From a catt1e truck they
fired on an RUC station. Their retreat brought them past
the house of a prison officer who was mowing the lawn. He
had a shotgun handy and he opened up on the cattle truck.
and O'Hare injured. Fve months later, he was involved in a
car chase with the gardai. The car crashed and O'Hare 's
passenger, Tony McC1elland,was killed. O'Hare was charged
with possession of a shotgun and sentenced to nine years in
Portlaoise. At the time of his arrest he was credited by the
RUC, wthout substantiation, with invo1vement in over
twenty killings. He had not yet reached twenty-one years of
age,
He cou1dn't adjust to jail, There were severa1naive escape
attempts right up to within months of his release, costing .
him remission. He was frequently beaten up by prison war-
ders. He had few frends in jail. Eddie Hogan had been sen-
tenced to eight years in 1981 for his invo1vement in an
armed robbery. Toal was sentenced in 1984 for his part in
an attempted armed robbery in Dundalk. The three, along
wth Jimmy McDaid, who was serving a sentence for the
mans1aughter of a British soldier, formed one of the many
cliques in prison.
Dessie O'Hare was released from jail in October 1986
and Toal shortly afterwards. The INLA was in dsarray.
Initially Dessie O'Hare approached a member of the new
Army Council faction. O'Hare proposed that the list of
legitimate targets should be widened to include people 1ike
Bishop Cahal Daly - who had made a number of state-
ments critical of republicans - and Peter Suther1and, who
had been Attorney General when the Suprerne Court re-
versed its policy of not extraditing people suspected of in-
volvement in offences while on "active service". The man
Step into The Saddle Room, and you will be
transported back in time to the elegance of Ceorgian
Dublin.
As a brilliant log fire blazes at the end of the vaulted
and wood-panelled dining room, costumed waitresses
serve the very best of traditional fare in all its hearty
robustness, with top quality prime Rib ofBeef taking
pride of place. Indeed, The Saddle Room is so highly
specialised in beef that the men u is centred around
"The Story of our Beef", although we also offer fresh
fish dishes and superb game in season.
The pudding trolley offers such sumptuous delights
as Deep Apple Crumble, Syllabub, Bread-and-Butter-
Pudding laced with Cognac, and a Steamed Pudding.
Lavish, gracious hospitality in an authentic Ceorgian
setting provides an elegant atmosphere for relaxing
and is the perfect choice for business people.
Lunch: Mon--Fri: 12.00-2 p. m.
Dinner: Mon -Sal: 7. 00-11.30 p. m.
Ely House, 7/8 Ely Place, Dublin 2. Tel: 761751
MAGILLMAY 1988 21
 to whom O'Hare proposed this was appalled, gave him f,500
and told him he would be in touch.
In early December of that year he was involved in an
attempted bank robbery in Shercock, County Cavan. In
dramatic fashion the doors of the bank were smashed down,
but the gang left empty-handed. He was arrested shortly
afterwards under Section 30 of the Offences against the
State Act and taken to Dundalk station for questionng.
Detectives interviewing him were impressed by his agile
mind. He told them that he was now a pacifist.
Over the next ten months he killed, or had killed, five
people. O'Hare had contacted the GHQ faction of the INLA
and had been instructed to form a unit. This unit's one and
only action against the security forces, carried out on New
Year's Eve, ended in disaster. The target was a member of
the UDR, but the assassins missed and shot his seventy-two
year old mother who died soon afterwards.
The INLA feud erupted at the end of January when
John O'Reilly and Thomas "Ta" Power were shot when
they attended the Rossnaree Hotel for what they assumed
were peace talks. O'Hare was first into bat for the GHQ
faction. O'Hare was nvolved in abducting Tony McCloskey.
McCloskey had his finger, nose and ear cut off before being
put out of his misery by a bullet. In the coming weeks
O'Hare was to kill twc others, both INLA members, one for
alleged informing and another in a personal vendetta. In
June he attempted to assassinate Official Unionist Party
representatve Jim Nicholson. Funds were low and in August
he robbed a bank in Ballybay, County Monaghan. In August
he robbed two banks within minutes of each other in Castle-
pollard, County Westrneath,
O'Hare was formally expelled from the INLA and the IRA
were also looking for him in connecton with guns he had
stolen from them. He was now totally marginalised. The
three bank ro bberies had yielded only n,000. He could
count those he could rely on in single figures. Eddle Hogan
was released from jail in October and immediately took up
wth O'Hare.
Tony McNeill was the most unlikely member of the gang,
From Belfast, he studied for a diploma in electronic engin-
eering and carne south in 1980 after the RUC allegedly
issued a death threat to him through hs sister. He got a jo b
as a nurse's aide in Palmerstown Hospital. It was McNeill
who was friendly with Gerry Wright whom he introduced to
Dessie O'Hare in early October. Wright was not a member
of any group but had "sympathies". He considered the dif-
ferences between the Official IRA and the INLA and the
Provisionals to be only notiona1. His brother had been a
member of the Official IRA in the 1970s but had been shot
dead by a fellow member of the organisaton after he made
a statement in police custody implicating fellow members
in a bank robbery. He agreed to cooperate with O'Hare when
O'Hare said he wou1d shoot Billy Wrght's killer, whose
identity was well known. Wrght was obsessed with his
brother's death. McNeill only joined up wth O'Hare on
October 1. Four days later the gng killed Jimmy McDaid.
O'Hare alleged that he had misappropriated money. His
family claims that he was shot because he wanted to dis-
associate himself from O'Hare.
Dessie O'Hare liked to think of himself as leading a dis-
ciplined group who acted under military orders. The reality
was far different.
7. "A bunch of amateurs"
T HEGARDA INVESTIGATION, NOW WELL INTO
its second week, had yielded little. After Fergal Toal
and Tony McNeill had left John O'Grady's house at
1.50 p m on the first day of the kidnap, Marise O'Grady
contacted her father Austin Darragh , They discussed what
to do and after sorne deliberation decided to contact the
22 MAGILL MAY 1988
gardai. The first garda arrived at the house shortly after
nine o'clock that night. Manor House, on Brennanstown
Road, is in the area for which Dun Laoghaire garda station
has responsibility and this became the station from which
the hunt for the kidnappers was to be coordinated. Every
piece of information which was tumed up was to be collated
and analysed at Dun Laoghare.
At eleven o'clock the next mornng, October 15, Detec-
tive Sergeant Neill visited Manor House and showed Marise
O'Grady a dozen photographs. She quickly picked out Dessie
O'Hare.From the account given by Marise O'Grady the
gardai believed the gang to be "a bunch of amateurs". Many
detectives spoke of an early breakthrough. Dessie O'Hare
had told Marise O'Grady to pack wellington boots for her
husband as he would be kept in the open, so initially searches
concentrated on woodlands. They didn't reveal any signifi-
cant clues.
8. A ransom note
O N THE NIGHT F OCTOBER 22 JOHN O'GRADY
was asleep in the shed when he was woken up by
. Dessie O'Hare. Wearing the blacked out glasses he
was led out of the shed down a slope covered in gorse and
bushes. His chains kept catching in the undergrowth and
progress was slow. There were two cars waiting for them.
O'Grady was given a cup of tea. They drove for about ten
minutes until they reached Ballymascinley just outside
Midleton. Desse O'Hare handed John O'Grady paper, a felt
pen and a book to lean on. O'Grady was told to move his
glasses up on his forehead. O'Hare dictated a ransom note
addressed to Dr Austin Darragh, The note demanded a
million pounds sterling and half a million in punts. During
dictation Hogan was worried that the light from the car
would attract attention, even though the windows were
covered with blankets. The note wamed Dr Darragh not to
contact the police. The note instructed that <El courier be
sent to the Fairways Hotel in Dubdalk where a call would
come through for a Pat Murray , The courier was to take the
call which would give further instructions.
John O'Grady was then taken from the car and led to a
freight container where he was bedded down for the night.
Toal and McNeill resumed guard dutes. Dessie O'Hare and
Eddie Hogan left them to it.
9. A breakthrough for the Gardai
O
CTOBER 26 WAS A BANK HOLIDAY. DESSIE
O'Hare was in great form, saying that he was soon
to be a millionaire. It was also his birthday , Unknown
to him, however, the gardai were about to get their first
break in their nvestgaton,
Garda Gerard O'Donoghue succeeded in doing what every
member of the force from raw recruit to the Garda Como
missioner himself wanted to do: he located the kidnappers.
O'Donoghue was on plain clothes duty , The gardai in Midle-
ton had been informed of suspicious activity around a con-
tainer just outside Midleton in Ballymascinley. Atternpts to
contact the local patrol car failed due to radio interference.
Garda O'Donoghue went out with two of his colleagues in
one of their own cars. They knocked on the container but
got no reply , They went to an adjacent house where an
elderly woman, a Mrs O'Neilllived. Mrs O'Neill told them
she had not noticed any suspicious activity. They retumed
to Midleton garda station. The matter might have ended
there but for the fact that at 3 p m Garda O'Donoghue
received new information. On the basis of this O'Donoghue
was convinced he had located the kidnap gang, Superinten-
dent Murray arrived into Midleton station to take charge at
3.30 p.m. Murray acted quickly: he telephoned surrounding
 police stations to request back-up assistance , He then tele-
phoned Commandant Grey of Collins Barracks in Cork
City. Murray briefed him and requested a cornpany of
rroops and emergency lighting to assist the civil power.
Grey's reply was that it would take two hours to mobilise
rroops. Twenty minutes later, however, the comrnandant
rang back to saya Captain Kenneally would be in Midleton
in three-quarters of an hour with a party of nine soldiers.
By this stage Detective Inspector Carey had arrived from
Union Quay station in Cork. Over the next twenty minutes
Murray and Carey cobbled together a plan. There were six-
teen armed gardai of various ranks detailed to impement
this plan. The detectives split into three teams. Team one
was to take up a position in a field direct1y across the road
frorn the container. Teams two and three were to approach
the container from two directions behind. The ditches in
the fields around the container were to give the surrounding
party cover. The purpose of the plan, according to Super-
intendent Murray, was merely to contain the gang until the
army arrived and roadblocks were set up. Each team was
instructed to abandon their transport on farms half a mile
away from the target. The detectives left Midleton station
at 4.30 p ro to take up their designated positions. The plan
failed miserably. Its success hinged on the presumpton that
the kidnappers were inside the container. It was fundament-
al1y flawed. The most serious omission was the failure to
set up roadblocks sealing off the area. Even if the primary
aim was merely containment, it was already known the gang
was armed. If it carne to a shoot-out, which was a likely
possibility , road blocks were essential, not just to keep the
kidnappers hemmed in, but, more importantly, to keep the
civilian population out. .
10. Cock-up at Midleton
F ORTHE PREVIOUS THREE-ANb-A-HALF DAYS,
John O'Grady had only been outside the container
once for a twenty minute exercise periodo Most of the
time he spent listening to the radio and reading the news-
papers. At regular intervals during the day a man carne and
knocked on the container and gave the code word "Gero-
nirno". He would then open up the container and pass in
meals. The container was locked from the outside: O'Grady's
guards were as much prisoners as himself. Eddie Hogan had
eturned to the container on the previous evening, Sunday ,
16 i\1AGILL MAY 1988
That morning Eddie Hogan and another gang member left
early , Sometime during the morning O''Grady and the re-
maining guard heard someone outside the container. Soon
afterwards, Eddie Hogan arrived and told John O'Grady to
dress quckly. He again put on his blacked-out g1assesand
was handcuffed. They moved to a tunnel close by.
John O'Grady remained in the tunnel for an hour or so
listening to the RTE 'Radio 2 marathon. Suddenly the head-
phones were grabbed off his head and he was taken out of
the tunne1. The gang had spotted Garda Gerard O'Donoghue
and his two col1eaguesexamining the container and calling
to the house of Mrs O'Neill. Hogan led him by the hand
across a couple of fields to a ditch beside the road. The fOUT
.men crouched in the ditch eating currant cake. Toal and
McNeill shared a cigarette.
Meanwhile, the three teams of detectives were moving in
to take up their positions, unaware that the kidnappers and
John O'Grady had vacated the container. Team number
two played no part in what followed. The first team, led by
Detective Inspector Carey who had helped draw up the plan,
took up its position in the field across the road from the
house. The second team, led by Detective Sergeant Michael
Scanlon, also moved int position, approaching from the
rearo Radio silence was observed until all three teams were
in position, At 4.50 p m the team led by Detectlve Sergeant
Michael Scanlon radioed into base that they were in position.
They were taking cover behind a large ditch overlooking the
container. The kidnappers and John O''Grady were hiding
inside this ditch. They heard the message being given over
the garda radio. It was then that Detective Michael Scanlon
noticed that they weren't in fact in their correct position.
There was another field between them and the container.
He ordered his men forward. Detective Garda Gerard Cor-
bett went to climb over the ditch which was covered in
dense undergrowth , The sound of a branch cracking beneath
his weght was clearly audible. The kdnappers, a few feet
below Corbett, made a break for it out onto the open road.
Luck was on their side. A Hi-Ace van was approaching.
The occupants of the van, Charles and Mary Terry , were
otdered out at gunpont, Using Mary Terry as a shield, one
of the gang fired two shots at Detective Corbett while rcar-
ing "Get down you scum". More shots were exchanged. A
Renault 9 pulled up behind the Bi-Ace van. The kidnappers
changed their minds and hi-jacked this car instead. All the
time one of the gang was firing shots. Another gunman was
shouting: "Bring thehostage". To the gardai the gang seemed
well militarily drilled. Tlre gardai were unable to return fire
because Mary Terry was between them and the kidnappers.
The kidnappers took off in the Renault, driving down
the road towards the container where the garda team one
was positioned. Detective Sergeant Michael Scanlon quickly
radioed Detective Inspector Carey to tell him that the kid-
nappers and hostage had escaped and were headed in their
direction. In the confusion he told them they were travelling
in a Hi-Ace van. The kidnappers, driving the Renault 9, were
on top of Carey and his men before they knew it. Carey
recognised Eddie Hogan in the Renault and shouted to his
meno Garda Gerard O'Donoghue was in a crouched position
on the grass verge beside the road with an Uzi machine gun.
There was a gunman pointing a gun out the back window
which he had broken with the butt of his rifle. Garda John
Gleeson was beside O'Donoghue with a Smith and Wesson.
There was an exchange of shots. One struck the boot of the
car. The other grazed the neck of Fergal Toal, the driver.
The Renault swerved and went around the comer. Gardai,
with the exception of Garda Gerard O'Donoghue - whose .
lead had pnpointed the kidnappers - proceeded to run on
foot to their cars parked a quarter of a mile away. O'Don-
oghue flagged down a civilian car and gave chase. The kid-
nappers were already gone. The developments were radioed
back to Superintendent Murray back in Midleton garda
station. Murray had detailed eght uniformed gardai to set
up roadblocks but none were yet in position. Meanwhile,
Army support had just arrived. The kidnappers were already
miles away ,
11. "Nothing personal"
s sausage, double egg and pint jug of tea. After break-
A
IT HAPPENED THE GANG DID MEET A SOL-
dier that afternoon. Private Mark Nugent had
travelled by car to Cork with three friends to see
Cork City play Waterford in a League of Ireland match. The
four had stopped at Cobh Cross to go to the toilet. They
were spotted by the gang who decided it was time to
change cars. They took the car at gunpoint. Hogan told
Nugent that if he had any objection he would "blow his
fucking brains out". As the gang approached Mallow it
was decided to change cars again. They called to the house
of John Hannon. When he opened the door Hogan pushed
a gun to his face and pushed him into the living room onto
his couch. Hannon thought it was a joke and went to pull
the balaclava off Hogan's head. Hogan told him it was no-
thng personal but they needed his caro Fergal Toal, who
had been grazed by a bullet at Midleton, cleaned his wound.
John Hannon, his wife Nuala and Colin, their seven-year-old
child, were tied up. John, the seven-month-old baby, was
left in his pram beside his parents. McNeill questioned the
wisdom of tyng up the mother who would then not be
able to give the baby attention. Hogan told him : "Tie her
up. That's an order." As an afterthought Hogan made up a
fresh bottle for the baby before leaving,
John O'Grady remained outside in the car: for the first
time in twelve days he was left unattended. The gang re-
turned after a few minutes and took off. A few miles up the
road they needed petrol. John O'Grady was shoved into a
ditch under guardoThe car returned in a few minutes with a
full tank. The gang drove on to Dublin, staying clear of
main roads to avoid roadblocks, They arrived at 260 Carn-
lough Road, the house of barber Gerry Wright, shortly
before midnght. John O'Grady slept in an ordinary bed for
the first time in almost two weeks. It had been a trying day.
There had been almost nothing to eat all day. AH he got
before going to sleep was a glass of water. He slept soundly ,
When he awoke the following morning it was already bright.
12. The calm before the storm
"THAT MORNING, TUESDAY OCTOBER 27, JOHN
O'Grady got a decent breakfast: hamburger, bacon,
fast he was moved downstairs and put in an alcove under
the stairs in the living room. He was told that once inside
he could remove his glasses. His handcuffs had already been
removed. There was a mattress on the flo or, a light bulb
hanging from a waterpipe and a radio. The electricity supply
was controlled from the living room outside. The alcove
was bg enough to sit in comfortably but not large enough
to stand. O'Grady wasgiven a selection of Wilbur Smith
MAGILL MA Y 1988 27
 novels, a book on Liam Mellowes, the writings of Bobby
Sands and a book by Nora Connolly O'Brien on the develop-
ment of Ireland since 1916. He was told to study them
carefully as he would be asked questions later.
The newspapers were full of accounts of the shooting
incident in Midleton. It was the first time he knew that he
had been in Midleton though from listenng to the radio,
which had a lot of Cork based ads, he had suspected that
Dessie O'Hare's shots at supposed British soldiers was an
attempt to disorientate him.
There was criticism in the newspapers over the garda
handling of the operation at Mid1eton. Public disquet over
the way the kidnap was being handled was growing. There
was sorne consolation for the gardai, however. Because
there had been no contact with the O'Grady family many
gardai feared that John O'Grady was dead. Secondly, the
gang had left plenty of fingerprints behind in the container.
The gardai were now able to harden up their suspicions and
positively identify the remaining gang members.
Dessie O'Hare turned up at Carnlough Road the nght
after the shoot-out, Tuesday October 27. The gang bought
beer and celebrated. In the alcove under the stairs John
O'Grady could hear Dessie O'Hare and the others talkng
about the escape in excited tones. Dessie O'Hare was ac-
companied by a woman. O'Hare never carne near O'Grady
that night,
O'Hare next vsited the house on Saturday Octo ber 3 1,
but again he never carne near John O'Grady. In the inter-
vening days O'Grady had been allowed to have a bath and a
change of clothes. The other gang members didn't bother
hirn either. Fergal Toal carne into the alcove on one occasion
and John O'Grady examined the graze on his head, which
he diagnosed as being not serious. He cut away the hair
around the spot the bullet had grazed. He told Toal to bathe
it in lukewarm, salted water and then apply Sudocreme.
Compared to what had gone before, his days at Carnlough
Road were idyllically spent and incident free. It was to be
the calm before the storm.
13. The note under the sta tu e
F ROM THE ALCOVE UNDER THE STAIRS WHERE
John O'Grady was there may well have seemed to
be a lull in activity. But away from Carnlough Road
there were a number of significant developments ..Since the
kdnap there had been several articles in the newspapers
speculatng on Dr Austin Darragh's wealth. One of the
articles valued his assets att27m. Dessie O'Rare had upped
his ransom to tl.Sm. A week earlier he had dictated a note
to John O'Grady demanding ransom whch named the Far-
ways Hotel in Dundalk as a liaison pont, but had never
followed through on this plan. On Thursday October 29 he
decided it was time to collect. He rang solicitor Hlary Pren-
tic e of Matheson Ormsby and Prentice, whose name had
been gven to him by John O'Grady as one of the people
who could act as a go-between. O'Hare told Prentice that
his name was John Mohen. He established his bona lides
from the information supplied to him by John O'Grady, by
giving her details of work carried out on her teeth by John
O'Grady. He told her that she was to contact the wife of
ear, nose and throat specialst Dr Walter Doyle who was
known to John O'Grady as Auntie Bettie. Prentice was to
tell Auntie Bettie to go to Limerick Cathedral. There, under-
neath a statue of Our Lady, beside the thirteenth Station of
the Cross there was a note wth instructions. O'Hare warned
of the consequences if Dr Darragh contacted the gardai,
That evening there was a conference in Dr Darragh's apart-
ment attended by Hilary Prentice, Detective Superintendent
Noel Conroy, Dr Austin Darragh and members of the
O'Grady family, The following morning Auntie Bettie was
driven to Limerick Cathedral by Dr Darragh's chauffeur.
28 MAGILL MAY 1988
She searched all around the statue for twenty-five minutes.
All she found was a petition to Our Lady askng her to help
Sean's nerves. Auntie Bettie returned to Dubln with the
petition which she handed over to Detective Superintendent
Noel Conroy. The note to which Dessie O'Hare referred was
indeed in the cathedral, but Auntie Bettie would have had
to lift the statue up to find the note which was underneath.
The note instructed a courier to go to the Blarney Hotel in
Cork on Tuesday November 3 at 1.00 p m in' a car with a
car phone and the ransom. At the hotel he was to take a
call under the name of Pat Murray when he would be given
further instructions.
On Saturday October 31 Dessie O'Hare made another
phone call, this time to the offices of the Sunday Tribune.
He gave an interview to the newspaper. He told them that
John O'Grady was safe and would remain so provdng cer-
tain instructions given to Dr Darragh were followed carefully.
14. "Think of the seasons, think of
Spring. "
a
YER THE NEXT DAY OR TWO DESSIE O'HARE
discovered that the Blarney Hotel was useless as a
contact point. It was closed for renovations. On
Tuesday November 3 O'Hare rang Hilary Prentice. He was
unaware that Auntie Bettie had failed to find the ransom
note in Limerick Cathedral. He wanted Prentice to get
Auntie Bettie to contact by car phone the courier who
O'Hare presumed was sitting outside the Blarney Hotel.
O'Hare told her there had been "a fuck up". The hotel was
closed. Auntie Bettie was to instruct the courier to proceed
to the Killeshn Hotel in Portlaoise - this was-to be the new
point of contacto
Hilary Prentice hadn't the remotest idea what O'Hare
was talking about. O'Hare said he would ring back shortly
after two o'clock. During this call Hilary Prentice told
O'Hare that Auntie Bettie had gone to Limerick Cathedral
as instructed and had found no note. It was at this point
that Dessie O'Hare flipped his lid: "1 am going to fucking
chop his fingers off," he told her ... "How many fucking
cathedrals in Limerick are there?" There was more conver-
sation between O'Hare and Prentice in which Prentice as-
sured O'Hare that his instructions had been followed. In the
middle of the conversation O'Hare said "Fuck this" and
hung up,
O'Hare then returned to 260 Carnlough Road. He turned
on Eddie Hogan whom he blamed for the mix-up over the
Blarney Hotel and a swearing match ensued. Next O'Hare
put on a balaclava and went to talk to John O'Grady under
the stairs. He dictated a new note to O'Grady, instructing
the courier to go to the Silver Sprngs Hotel in Cork with
the money, car and car telephone. O'Hare returned a few
minutes later. He put two pillow cases over John O'Grady's
head. O'Grady was led down to the kitchen. O'Hare tied his
legs together. He gagged him and covered his head wth
another two pillow cases. His left hand was splayed out and
.a bread board inserted underneath hs hand. His small fnger
was then hacked off with a hammer and a chisel by O'Hare.
The fnger was then cauterised three times with a hot knife
to stop the blood flowing. O'Hare then did the same to the
little finger on O'Grady's right hand.
The pillow cases were removed and the blacked out
glasses were put on. Dessie O'Hare than took three photo-
graphs of John O'Grady using the polaroid camera. He told
O'Grady to "think of the seasons, to think of Spring" and
to keep his hands up beside his ears. The blood was trickling
down hs sleeve. Ampliclox antibiotics, Ponstan pain killers
and kSO sedatives were on hand to give to O'Grady. Tony
McNeill had been upstars when O'Grady's fingers were,cut
off. He carne with a basin of hot water and dressings. "Jess
Christ, Jesus Christ" he repeated and lef_~t-,-. _
it fell to Eddie Hogantoapply the dressings, which
proved inadequate. Q'Grady instructed the gang to cut up
a linen sheet and bol it for one hour to sterilise it. He told
them to bol a scissors in the same way. Under Q'Grady's
guidance Hogan redressed both fingers and applie.d a tour-
niquet to both fingers. Q'Grady then fell asleep holding
his hands up to stop the bleeding.
15. "There's two fingers Iying in
Carlow Cathedral."
D
ESSIE Q'HARE, MEANWHILE, HAD LEFT CARN-
lough Road and was back on the telephone to Hilary
Prentice. He wanted her home telephone number
so that he could ring her later to tell her where John
Q'Grady's f'ingers could be picked up.
During the call it was c1earthat Q'Hare's temper had not
improved. Prentice began telling him that Auntie Bettie had
searched the area around the statue carefully: "Its just cost
John two of his fingers. Now 1 am going to chop him up
into bits and pieces and send fresh lumps of him every fuck-
ng day if 1 don't get my money fast." Q'Hare told Prentice
to send someone back to the cathedraland "to smash up,
the fucking statue if necessary " to get the note.
Dessie Q'Hare rang Hilary Prentice at home that evening,
Prentice told him that she had been in contact with the
Q'Grady family and they were anxious to cooperate: "Well
they would want to now, "O'Hare told her, "bcause there's
two fingers lying in Carlow Cathedral." Hilary Prentice gave
O'Hare an aircell telephone number where he could speak
directly to Dr Darragh. Q'Hare wanted to know if there was
a tap on the aircell number. Prentice said she didn't know.
"They must be very naive," Q'Hare told her. "Tell them to
wake up - tell them to contact the Security Risk crowd,"
O'Hare told her before hanging up. He rang backimmediately
and made more threats. Preritice emphasised that the family
wanted to cooperate. Q'Hare told her that the fingers were
in the mortuary chapel in Carlow Cathedral. The Q'Grady
family were to put the note in Limerick and the note in
Carlow together and that would instruct them how and
when to pay the ransom. Inside the envelope in Carlow
there were three envelopes, one containing the fingers of
J ohn Q'Grady, another containing photcgraphs of John
Q'Grady showing his fingers severed, and the third con-
taining a note. "Now, if they haven't got the ransom, 1
don't know what 1 will do - I'll chop this fucking bastard
up. I'm reaching the end of my tether," O'Hare told her.
"Don't forget to go to Kilkenny to get the other message,"
he repeated - she would need both messages. Q'Hare then
hung up. Hilary Prentice was more nonplussed than ever.
Where did Kilkenny come in? Immediately the phone rang
again, !t was Dessie Q'Hare. When he sald Kilkenny he really
meant Limerick.
Hilary Prentice updated the Q'Grady family on the latest
developments. The gardai were also informed. Detective
Chef Superintendent Murphy of the Central Detective Unit
in Harcourt Square contacted Superintendent John
McGroarty in Carlow garda station to ask him to organise a
search of Carlow Cathedral. Murphy's record of the call is
that he made it at 8.45 p m. McGroarty asked Detective
Frank Duggan to locate Rev. Toro Dillon, the keyholder, on
the basis of a phone call he received at 10.15 p m. At 11 P m
McGroarty and Duggan were let into the cathedral by Rev.
Dillon. They had no difficulty finding it. McGroarty re-
turned to the station and telephoned Detective Superintend-
ent John Murphy in Harcourt Square. Murphy told him to
open the package. Wrapped in blood-stained tissue were
John Q'Grady's fingers. Also in the package were the photo-
graphs and note referred to earlier by Dessie O'Hare in his
conversation with Hilary Prentice.
Detective Superintendent Murphy told Superintendent
McGroarty to get the package to Portlaoise garda station
where he had a1ready made arrangements for someone to
take it to Dublin. McGroarty handed the package to Duggan,
ernphasising that he get Q'Grady's severed fingers to Port-
MAGILL MA Y 1988 29
 laoise as quickly as possible. The package reached Detective
Superintendent Murphy at 2.00 a m. Only then,three hours
after they carne into the possession of the gardai, were the
fingers put on ice, before being rushed to Jervis Street
Hospital.
16. Painkillers and beer
W
EDNESDA y NOVEMBER 4 WAS THE GLOOMI-
est of the twenty-three days of the kidnap for the
gardai, the O'Grady family and John O'Grady
himself. John O'Grady awoke around 8.30 a m. Afterbreak
fast he took 'more painkillers, removed the dressings and
washed his fingers in a basin of lukewarm water. There was
a large clot on what remained of the little finger on his
right hand. He snipped the clot with a scissors. Hogan
helped apply a second tourniquet to the finger stump on
this hand. In the afternoon he noticed the clot on the finger
had worsened. He decided he would have to remove this
clot to stop the flow of blood. Immediately there was a
spurt of arterial blood. O'Grady managed to stop it by using
pressure with a linen dressing in his left hand. He realised
that the finger would have to be cauterised again ; otherwise
he rnight bleed to death,
Dessie O'Hare wasn't in the house, John O'Grady called
Eddie Hogan and told Hogan what had to be done. He was
brought into the kitchen. On this occasion John O'Grady
and gang members worked in tandem. There was no need to
tie his legs together. He was put sitting in a chair and gagged.
One of the gang held his right arm which was put on atable.
Another one held his left armo O'Grady wrapped his feet
around the chair. Hogan cauterised the wound fve or six
times with a red-hot knife. The flow from the artery was
checked and blood loss reduced to a trickle. John O'Grady
.was returned to the alcove under the stairs. Hogan gave him
more painkil1ers and two bottles of beer to wash them down
with. O'Grady then fell asleep,
17. Enter Fr Brian D' Arcy
D R DARRAGH HAD DISPATCHED HIS CHAUF-
feur back to Limerick Cathedral. The chauffeur
lifted the statue right up off its wooden plinth and
discovered the note underneath. Taken together, the ransorn
notes instructed that a courier go to the Silver Springs Hotel
in Cork at one o'c1ock the fol1owing day, November 5. The
car was to be equipped with a car phone. At the hotel re-
ception the courier would get a call for a Pat Murray. On
taking this call there would be further instructions. The
notes also gave the standard warning about contacting the
police. The family were resigned to paying the ransom and
spent the day raising the money. This presented difficulties
in itself. Though Dr Darragh is a person of considerable
means, he did not have that kind of money in cash. But by
now they realised that Dessie O 'Hare was not bluffing, The
gardai were fully aware of the family's intentions.
That evening there was a meeting of the Cabinet sub-
committee on security to discuss the situation. The meeting
was attended by Taoiseach Charles Haughey, Tanaiste Brian
Lenihan, Justice Minister Gerry Col1ins, Defence Minister
Michael Noonan, Garda Commissioner Laurence Wren and ..
senior civil servants arid advisors. The Cabinet sub-committee
was concerned about the decision by the O'Grady family to
pay the ransom. But, in view of Dessie O'Hare's well-proven
capacity for mutilation, they found their position under-
standable. The meeting decided that the best course of action
was a "hands off" approach. The Silver Springs Hotel was
to be staked-out by the Special Branch but no effort would
be made to intercept payrnent.
It was hoped to trail whoever picked up the money cov-
30 MAGILL MAY 1988
.ertly and later, after John O'Grady was released, arrest the
recipient. Fr Brian D'Arcy was chosen by the O'Grady family
to act as their courier.
The gardai still had not made a breakthrough in their
attempts to locate the kidnappers. One of the main searches
that day concentrated in the woodlands of Meath and West-
meath. The search was instigated after somebody had seen a
car with a Northern Ireland registration number acting
suspiciously. Nothing carne of this, however.
18. The cine the Gardai overlooked
O N THURSDAY NOVEMBER 5 THERE'WAS, IT
seemed, a light at the end of the tunnel, On October
26 the gang had left Midleton, County Cork,in a
hurry, During the shoot-out the gang had stopped a Hi-Ace
van with the intention of hijacking it , but then changed
their mind and tooka Renault car which carne up behind
the Hi-Ace van. In the confusion a rucksack was left behind
by the gang in the Hi-Ace van. The rucksack contained fifty-
one items. All these items were clues in the kidnap investi-
gation. The clues could be neatly classified into three cate-
gories.
Category one cornprised twenty-two items which were
readily identifiable as belonging to John O 'Grady , The only
immediate value of these to the investigation was finger-
print evidence which might be used to obtain a conviction.
The second category contained sundry items. Among the
twenty-six items inc1uded in this group were a copy of the
Sunday World, a length of chain, a map of Cork and Kerry,
a par of socks with the label "Trackers', a hacksaw and a
leaflet on combination locks. These, too, might yield fnger-
print evidence but were unlikely in themselves to add any-
thing of substance to the investigation .
The last category was by far the most important. It con-
tained just three items - a letter to a Mr B. Jennngs, a
bank deposit book with an address on the northside of
Dublin and a Guinness Bi-Centennial pass card made out in '.
the name of Paul O'Sullivan, Traffic Department Staff No.
23726.
It might have been expected that the gardai would check
out these items immediately. On Friday Octo ber 3O, however,
al1 fifty-one items in the rucksack were still in Midleton
garda station. They were col1ected by Detective Sergeant
Tom Foley of the Fingerprint Section and taken back to
Dublin for examination, On November 3 there was a con-
ference held in Dun Laoghaire garda station, the HQ of the
kidnap operation. Detective Sergeant Henry Spring was as-
signed the task of checking out the Guinness Bi-Centennial
pass. He collected it from the Fingerprint Sectionthe follow-
ing day, November 4. There was no difficu1ty checking out
the identity of Paul O'Sullivan. He has worked in Guinness's
for twenty-five years. On November 5 Detective Sergeant
Spring and Detective Martin O'Connor called to Guinness's
brewery to see Paul O 'Sullivan. O 'Sullivan identified the card
but said he had not seen it for a number of years.
The clue the gardai were fol1owing was an obvious and
vital one in the kidnap investigation. They had not acted on
it for ten days, In the meantime John O'Grady's fingers had
been hacked off. The kidnappers had shown themselves to
be inept and sloppy. The Guinness Bi-Centennial card left .
.at the scene of the Midleton shoot-out was almost as good
as a forwarding address. Paul O'Sullivan told the gardai he
had given the card to an acquaintance, Gerry Wright, who
ran a barber's shop a few doors away ,
Spring and O'Connorwent down to Wright 's barber shop,
When they went in Gerry Wright, who was reading a news-
paper, jumped up and asked: "Which of you is first?" The
detectives introduced themselves and asked Wright about
the cardo Wright told them that he had used it as an admission
card to get into the Guinness leisure centre and use their
 A detective gives chase to one of the gang at Carnlough Road.
swimming pool. He also told them that he had lost the card
a long time ago. He could not help the gardai in their in-
quiries as to how it had been found at the scene of the
Midleton shoot-out. The detectives questioned Wright
further. He told them he lived at 260 Carnlough Road.
O'Connor asked himwas there anybody else there. "No,"
Wright repled , adding "You can look if you like." Spring
saidthey would need a search warrant. Wright started bluf-
fing. He told them that there was nothing or nobody in his
house and the gardai were we1cometo search it without the
necessity of getting a warrant.
Spring, O'Connor and Wright then got into the unmarked
patrol car. It was nearly twelve noon. Fr Brian D'Arcy had
ear1ier called to the Bank of Ireland in Baggot Street to
collect the fJ .5m ransom , He was already well on his way
to the Silver Springs Hotel in Cork to make the delivery. Dr
Austin Darragh was in Leinster House locked in a heated
exchange with Justice Minister Gerry Collins. Darragh had
been critical of the media coverage of the kidnap, which he
considered reckless and irresponsible. That morning the lead
story in the Irisn Independent broke the news that the kid-
nap gang had increased their ransorn demando The Iris
Times had also got the story from garda sources but had
agreed to a news blackout. The Independent had apparently
got their inforrn ation from a Department of Justice source.
O'Hare had made it abundantly clear to Darragh that John
O 'Grady would suffer further if Darragh informed the gardai
about the ransom demando Now it was all over the front
page of the Irisn Independent,
Back in the patrol car the two detectives made small talk
with Wright about boxing and scuba diving, both sports in
which Wright had a passionate interest. Wright was hoping
against hope that the gang would have left when they reached
his house.
19. "He's calling for reinforcements."
A
T THE HOUSE GERRY WRIGHT MADE A POINT
of ratt1ing the keys in the lock when opening the door.
As he walked from the patrol car to the house Wright
started to change the original story he had given to the gardai
in Parkgate Street. He told the gardai that there were a
couple of people staying in the house but they would be
out on an AnCO course. The rattling of the keys gave the
gang the briefest of notice of the gardai arriving. They were
forewarned and forearmed. Eddie Hogan grabbed his shot-
gun and ran in under the stairs beside John O'Grady. Tony
McNeill ran upstairs and jumped into bed , fully clothed.
Toal went to the rear of the house.
Wright led the detectives into the living room, spread his
hands out and said: "See there is nothing here ," The detec-
tives looked around the room. There was a two-bar electric
fire on as well as a fire in the grate. The television was on.
On one of the chairs there was what looked like a walkie
talkie. At that moment Fergal Toal walked into the room.
Wright told him the two men with him were detectives,
looking around. He asked him why he wasn't at his AnCO
course. At this point Detective O'Connor went upstars
with Wright. Detective Spring asked Toal what AnCO course
he was doing. "Labouring," Toal replied. O'Connor foun d
Tony McNeill in bed. He asked Wright who he was while
shaking the bed. "This is one of the lads from AnCO. He
must not have gone to school." O'Connor asked McNeill to
get up. He noticed McNeill was fully clothed. He felt the
bed and noted there was no heat from the bedclothes.
John O'Grady was still unaware the gardai were in the
house. Immediately after the rattlingof the door Eddie
Hogan had landed in beside him. Hogan. was armed and
was breathing heavily , O'Grady heard strange voices con-
versing outside in the living room. O'Connor, Wright and
McNeill went downstairs to the living room where Spring
and Toal were talking. Spring and O'Connor exchanged
glances, They didn't need tosay anything. O'Connor turned
to Wright and asked what was going on - how it was that
he was able to have lads lying around doing nothing ID the
middle of the day. O'Connor then left the house to go to
the patrol car. Wright followed him. O'Connor asked Wright
if he was paying tax on the money he got for rent frorn the
lads in the house. O'Connor sat sideways into the patrol car
with his legs on the street, radioed base and asked for urgent
plainclothes back-up at 260 Carnlough Road. -Wright ran
back in and shouted "He 's calling for reinforcements."
McNeill, who was standing with his back to Detective Spring,
turned around with a gun in his hand and shouted "Get
down you bastard." Spring was forced to the ground at
gunpoint. Hogan jumped out from under the stairs. Spring
was kicked repeatedly in the head and body. He was
momentarily stunned. Hogan dragged John O'Grady out
from under the stairs. McNeill ran out after Detective
O'Connor, followed closely by Toal. Spring, who was un-
MAGILLMAY 1988 31
 EIlled, escaped : the back door and over a back wall. He
ran up the gar en ro a nearby house but - despite pleas
that he was in danger of being shot - he was refused entry ,
21. "1 am John O'Grady."
He smash'ed one of the windows in the house to get in.
Meanwhile .'cXeill carne up to O'Connor, who was still
at the patrol CM and put a gun to his chest. J OHN O'GRADY HAD FOLLOWED THE SAME
route as the kidnappers. He had removed his blacked-
out glasses and ran up Carnlough Road to the junction
where it meets Kilkieman Road. At the comer he saw a
20. The shooting of Detective man and a woman at a hall door. He asked them if he could
come in but the couple closed the door in his face. He ran
O'Connor down Kilkiernan Road. He saw a house with a plywood gate
at the side. He jurnped over the gateo The garden was over-

O
grown. He got down on his hands and knees and climbed
'CONNOR'S RADIO CALL HAD BEEN PICKED
into a space in the middle of a patch of brambles. A few
up by two or three different patrol cars. All were
minutes later he heard two men come into the garden. He
now racing towards Carnlough Road. Toal and
thought they might be gang members. In fact they were
McNeill were now trying to disarm O'Connor. O'Connor
two detectives who had pursued O'Grady who they sus-
was struggling with McNeill over the gun and Toal was
pected was a gang mernber. Frorn their conversation John
punching O'Connor in the face. He put his fingers into
O 'Grady realised that they were garda. He raised his ban-
O'Connor's mouth and began twisting his lips and head.
daged hands in the air and said "1 am John O'Grady."
An ESB meter reader saw O'Connor's head bobbing up .and
down and approached the car. He vas told: "Fuck off and
mind your own business. This man is trying to steal our car." 22. The Tipperary escape
Hagan emerged out of the house with John O'Grady, Hagan
told McNeill and Toal to back off so that he could shoot
O'Connor in the knees. O'Connor stood up and Hogan waved
him towards the wall. O'Connor put his hands on his face
which was sore. He could feel blood. O'Connor was about
two feet from the barrel of Hogan's gun, He was so uncom-
B ACK AT 260 CARNLOUGH
had called an ambulance
ROAD SOMEONE
for Detective Martin
O'Connor. O'Connor was on the ground calling for
his wife Rosy and praying. He thought .he was dying. Gerry
Wright had gene into the house and got a blanket to cover
fortably close he could make out green masking tape around
him and had remained standing over O'Connor. Detective
the stock of the gun. Hogan fired. The shot blew a hole the
Sergeant Henry Spring had hoped to telephone for support
size of a fist in his stomach. His bowel was peppered with
in the house he broke into, but there was no telephone. He
gunshot pellets. O'Connor, who felt the tear in his stomach
made his way back to 260 Carnlough Road to find his
and asevere buming sensation, staggered backwards. He re-
calle ague . Martin O 'Connor on the ground with gunshot
fused to go down. Instead he pul1ed his own gun and fired
wounds. He turned to Gerry Wright who was standing close
at one of the gang. Hogan shot him again in the shoulder,
by and said, "You bastard, you walked us into this."
shattering his collarbone. O 'Connor fell to the ground and
J ohn O 'Grady was put intoa patrol car. He had read in
crouched in a ball clutching his stomach. Hagan advanced
the newspapers that his family had taken rooms in the
again on O'Connor. O'Connor asked him not to shoot again.
Blackrock Clinic in anticipation of his release and he asked
Hogan kicked him in the side and said, "Give me your gun,
the garda to take him there. The news of his release was
you pig." Hogan held O'Connor's gun aloft, head high.
broadcast onRTE radio within minutes. Dessie O'Hare was
At first it was almost an action replay of Midleton. A Hi-
en rout to Cork to supervise the payrnent of the ransom.
Ace van carne down Camlough Road and was stopped at
O'Hare was listening to the radio and , according to a passen-
gunpoint. J ohn O'Grady was pulled by one of the gang over
" ger in the car who later made a statement to the gardai, he
towards the passenger door. At that moment the first of
beat his fists onthe dashboard in rage.
the patrol cars which had responded to the call was arriving,
Meanwhile the kidnap gang had escaped the gardai for a
Detective Garda Gregory Sheehan had been in Phibsboro
second time. Hogan and Toal abandoned the Corporation
when he heard the call on th radio. He approached from
lorry in Blackhorse Avenue and ordered awoman to drive
the same direction in which the Hi-Ace van was travelling,
them to Clondalkin. There they called into a house owned
Sheehan got outof' the car and shouted, "Arrned garda _
by Una Dermody who was having coffee with a friend, Maria
halt." Immediately he heard the sound of bullets whizzing
Hennessy, They demanded a change of clothes. One of the
over his head. Sheehan fired six shots from his Smith and
women cleaned the graze on Fergal Toal's lego The gang took
Wesson. The gang member who had been ushering O'Grady
the Saab car belonging to Una Dermody and the two women
into the Hi-Ace van dived for cover. John O'Grady took his
one chanceo He rano as hostages, and drove to Limerick by back roads. On the
way Hogan talked about art and paintings. Hogan and Toal
All it needed was for one patrol car to arrive from the
conversed among themselves in Irish. The two women let
other end of Carnlough Road and the gang's escape route
off Hogan and Toal at Mount St Laurence cemetery, just
was blocked. Tony McNeill hijacked a car at gunpoint. He
outside Limerick. The two women then reported what had
calmly drove up Carnlough Road and turned left out of
happened to the first garda car they meto It was about six
sight. Hogan and Toal also hijacked a car about fifty yards o'clock in the evening.
up the road. They were just getting into it when the second
patrol car, manned by Detective Garda Dick Fahey and At approximately 7.30 p m Hogan and Toal hired a taxi
Brian Coade appeare d There was an exchange of fire. They to take them to Tipperary. They passed through three or
reversed the hijacked car back up towards Kilkieman Road four garda roadblocks without incident. J ust outside Tipper-
and immediately crashed into a bus. Toal and Hogan pro- ary the taxi passed another roadblock manned by Garda
ceeded up Kilkiernan Road on foot, They retreated military John Conway , Conway waved them on. However, he became
style, one giving covering fire while the other ran a few yards suspicious and contacteda patrol car which then followed
the taxi into Tipperary Town. The patrol car was manned
and vice versa. Fahey and Coade returned fire. Toal was hit
by Garda Liam Walsh, Garda Tom Neville and Garda Dan
on the knee. Hogan and Toal then hijacked a Corporation
Collins. In Tipperary, the gardai instructed the taxi driver
roadsweeper van. Fahey and Coade had been joined by two
to pul1 in. Walsh loaded his sub-m achine gun.
more colleagues. Once again the gardai on foot were power-
The description that the Tipperary gardai had of Hogan
les s to do anything. They commandeered a civilian car but
by then the gang had disappeared. and Toal did_not match the two men in the taxi. They
searched Hogan and Toal and found them unarmed. How-
34 MAGILL MA Y 1988
 after him. Merrigan and Fallon followed. Toal crossed the
reception to a door leading out to the narrow hallway to
the eritrance of the station. Moriarty caught hold of Toal's
shirt. To Moriarty's "great dismay" the shirt ripped 'and
carne away in his hand. The hallway was too narrow for the
other gardai to get past. Toal jumped the seven stepsleading
up to the station and rano lt was the third time that Toal
and Hogan had escaped from the gardai.

23. "They tore the bloody shirt off my

back."

C
ATHERINE RYAN HAD SPENT A PLEASANT
evening with her friend Charles Barret. They had
dinner, met friends and finished off the night in
Shaughnessy's lounge in Kilfinane. They left at 10.30 and
Ryan dropped off Barret at Buttevant. As she drove towards
Tipperary she heard on the late news that the search for
t. two kidnappers was concentrated in Tpperary. She stopped
8. in Ard Patrick and rang Barret. He reassured her that there
lJ.)

fE. was nothing to worry about. Ryan ended the call by saying
.~ she would ring when she got home safely ,
a- Just outside Tipperary the road was blockedby a tree.
~ She stcpped to clear the tree out of the way , Fergal Toal
'" appeared and took the car, and Ryan as a hostage. Toal
o wanted to drive to Dublin but, after driving around back
t@ili~ roads for three hours, he still hadn't left County Tipperary ,
Detective Martin Q'Connor arriving at the Special Criminal Court Toal chatted away with Ryan in the car. When he found
ever, Toal was speaking with a fake Cork accent and traces out she was a nurse he asked her to examine a cut on his
of his northern accent were coming through , Both men litt1e finger which he was concerned about. The finger was
were polite and cooperative but, because of the suspicions grazed and a litt1e bit of the skin was off the knuckle. The
of the gardai and "the state of the country at the time" it one o'clock news gave details of his escape. Ryan asked him
was decided to take them to the station for questioning. The if the report was accurate. "They tore the bloody shirt off.
car stopped forty feet from the station entrance. As they my back ," Toal replied.
were walking in, Hogan bolted. Garda Neville threw his At one point Toal drove through a roadblock and wthin
garda cap on the ground and ran after him. Gardai Walsh minutes was "spotted by a patrol car which gave chase. Toal
and Collins rushed Toal into the station. They handed Toal crashed the car which tumed over on its roof and skidded
over to the station orderly , Garda Andrew Moriarty and for forty yards. He got out of the car and threatened to kill
Garda Fallon, in the presence of Sergeant Patrick Merrigan. Ryan, Toal was surprised from behind by Garda Pat Whelan
Walsh and Collins shouted, "Hold him, another man has es- who put one arm around Toal's neck, put a machine gun to
caped ." They ran off to help Garda Neville find Hogan. his back with the other. For Toal it was all over.
Hogan had run down the road into the Clanwilliam Rugby
Club. He ran the length of the pitch and crossed the goal
line with Garda Neville in pursuit. It was a good try by 24. "Twas the luck of God 1 didn't
Garda Neville but Hogan had already disappeared behind
the cover of trees beside the pavilion. He escaped over a kili him.'
wall and disappeared. The Clanwilliam rugby team, who

were training, formed an impromptu search party but with-
out success.
Meanwhile Fergal Toal was back in the station in the
custody of the gardai. All the gardai had heard the instruc-
tion to hold Toal but none, in statements made subsequently ,
made reference to being told that a second man had escaped ,
The gardai in whose care Toal had been entrusted formed
quite different opinions of him. Garda Fallon and Sergeant
Merrigan stress that "he appeared plausible and cooperative.
When Toal arrived into the station he had asked for water
to take tablets. Garda Moriarty thought he might be a men-
tal patient. Moriarty and Fallon got Toal ready to put him
into a cell. Merrigan was standing about ten feet away,
Garda Moriarty took f222 from his pocket with his left
hand. He was taking Toal's belt off with his right.hand.
Garda Fallon was helping Toal step out of his jacket. "What
are you doing with my money?" said Toal in his phoney
Cork accent. Toal's belt was caught in one of the loops of
his trousers. Moriarty turned around for a second to put the
money in his left hand on the table behind him. When he
looked back he saw Toal over at the door letting himself
out to the reception area of the station. Moriarty ran
E
DDIE HOGAN WAS AT LIBERTY FOR LESS
than twenty-four hours. Shortly after five o'clock
gardai in Cahir station received a report that a sus-
picious person had been seen walking at Ballydrehid, four
miles outside Cahir, Detective Garda Ignatius Seery and
Garda James Lynch drove out in the patrol car. Since his
escape Hogan had stuck to the fields and had only been on
the road a few minutes when the gardai met him. The gar-
dai stopped the car and shouted at Hogan, "Gardai, we want
to talk to you." By this stage it was perfect1y obvious that
whatever Eddie Hogan wanted to do he did not want to
talk to them. He broke into a runo He was caught by Garda
James Lynch. Seery and Lynch accompanied him back to
the patrol car. Hogan made another attempt .to escape. A
fierce fight followed. Hogan kicked Lynch and head-butted
him. There was a struggle in which all three men fell to the
ground. Hogan struggled with Seery , trying to get possession
of his gun. The gun went off twice within inches of killing
someone. Seery succeeded in releasing Hogan's grip on the
arm in which he held the gun. At that point Hogan bit into
Seery's right thigh. His teeth cut right jthrough Seery's
trousers. Seery roared in agony , His legs were straddled over

MAGILL MAY 1988 35

 Re-=,,-, Os saoulders. He oc....=-
o o zng Hogan on the head with
d;e G~ of his revolver. ::::"==.::uilly Hogan stopped biting.
Ly::ci: 21d Seery got Hogza ~g on his chest and managed
to :b.=::::uff him. In cusrocy Eddie Hogan drahk tea and
smo:.:cc egarettes, He ~:; me gardai there would be no
allegarions of brutality: "'I:"'"'CS either me or ye out fuere," he
told -co,nI. He inquired ,,-::ou: Detective Martin O'Connor
whorc 1:e had shot at : ''O~ Road the previous day. He
was relered to hear thaz 2s condition was stable. "Twas
the Iuek of God 1 didn'; e hm ... I'd have been gone for
twenry-ve years if I hE2 o"' The gardai asked hrn about the
cutting off of John O'G::Erly's fingers. "Its war and every-
thing is justified in W'2:"o - zaey were toldo Both Toal and
Hogan were questonec exrensvely about thcir involvement
in the }jdnapping of Jo'-,-. O'Crady. Neither man replied to
any of me questions.

25. f'The Keystnne Cops"

T RI RELEASE OF JOHN O'GRADY, THE SHOOT-

ing of Detective ~Iartin O'Connor and the eventual
capture of Hogar, and Toal dominated the news on
November 5 and 6. Offcially the gardai were sayng nothng
~
j}
about how they trace':' zhe kidnappers to Carnlough Road. fE.
RTE seeurity correspo:::;dentTom McCaughren was the first .~
to get any hard info::nation. McCaughren was prodding a a-
source, asking -b1 ha,," me ;ar'dai had come to visitCarri" -
lough Road. The sotrrce let it slip that the detectives had ~
been foTIowing up 2 Iead on a Guinness ticket. When
McCaughren pressed :oi further details, his source prevari-
cated and dried up. The Guinness Jazz Festival had ben on
down the road , shouting, "Come back you bitch." O'Hare
in Cork on the same weekend as the shoot-out in Midleton.
then went over to the car and took out a shotgun. He fired
The nine o'c1ock news that night carried a story in wlich
a shot into the chipper where astonished customers were
it was said that it was believed the breakthrough carne frorn
looking on. A passer-by was told to "get out of the fucking
a ticket for the Gunness Jazz Festival found at the scene
way" if he didn't want the same. Claire O'Hare meanwhile
of the Midleton shoozing, The following day the story
had run for cover into the Millrace pub. O'Hare jumped
appeared as fact in an eznbellished form in the newspapers.
into the car. The proprietor of the pub carne out to the
The papers went as ::>r as describing how the gardai had
door to investigate. O'Hare fired more shots at the pub
traced the buyer o the jazz ticket which had led them to
from the car, shouting "Get the fucker out." He fired one
Gerry Wright, The entirely erroneous.impression was sown
or two more shots into the pub before driving away.
in the public rnind that the gardai had cracked the case of
Claire O'Hare was hysterical. Later she was taken to
John O'Grady through dogged detective work.
OUr Lady's hospital in Drogheda for treatment. Theie she
The gardai did nothng to correct the reports. After the
was arrested under Section 30 of the Offences against the
escapade with Hogan and Toal they were being lampooned
State Act and taken to the Bridewell in Dublin'.
in the British tabloid press as "Keystone Cops", It would
have been embarrassing to explain that they had sat for ten There was another meeting of the Cabinet Committee
days on the information which led them eventually to John on Security, this time attended by the Minister for Finance,
O 'Grady, by which time John O 'Grady had lost his little Ray Mac'Sharry. There were fears, given his state of mind,
fingers. that O'Hare might make an attempt to kill John O''Grady .
1 In Blackrock Clinic J ohn O 'Grady underwent surgery on The Cabinet sub-cornmittee offered a tI 00,000 reward for
his cauterised finger stumps. It was not feasible to re-attach the capture of Dessie O'Hare.
the fngers, Nevertheless, a spokesperson for the family told The gardai, meanwhile, were raiding houses of known
the media representatives that John O'Grady was in remark- INLA sympathisers, On the morning of November 11, eleven
ably good spirits. armed detectives with uniformed back-up support called to
a house in Le Fanu Drive in Bal1yfermot. They knocked on
the door and got no reply, Detective Sergeant Michael Carolan
26. "One dastardly bastard" kicked the door down. Tony McNeill was asleep in the living
room on a couch. He gave the detectives a false name. He
was recognised by sorne of the gardai who put it to him

D ESSIE O'HARE HAD GONE TO GROUND. TWO

days later on November 8 he resurfaced in Dunleer,
County Louth around 8.30 p m. O'Hare had been
driving through the town with his wife when he decided he
that he was Anthony McNeill. He made no reply. There was
a gun in his jacket. There was also a letter addressed to
"those I love, especially my mother."
poem dedicated to his three-year-old
In the letter was a
son, entitled 'A Bright
wanted a mineral. He went into Lorchide's Chip Shop and
Star'. McNeill was arrested under Section 30 ofthe Offences
ordered a tin of Coke. He attracted the attention of a
against the State Act and taken to Ballyfermot police station.
number of customers who thought he looked a nervous
There he made a half-hearted bid to escape. McNeill was
wreck. Suddenly O'Hare threw the can of Coke on the
consumed with remorse. "1 wish I was dead," he told detec-
ground , Across the road Claire O'Hare was out of the car
tives. He broke down in tears while in custo dy. He pleaded
and making a run for it. O'Hare pulled out a gun and fired a
with detectives to contact his family to reassure them that
.shot from inside the chipper. He ran out the door and fired
he had played no part in the severing of John O'Grady's
36 MAGILL MAY 1988
fingers. He told the detectives that he had argued against
cutting off the fingers and that, when it happened, he had'
prayed for John O'Grady. He was asked if he had tried to
prevent the other gang members cutting off John O'Grady's
fingers: "No," he replied, "but when he (Dessie O'Hare)
gets wired up nobody could stop him ... He acts like he is
in Vietnam." McNeill was cooperative in garda custo dy ,
freely admitting his involvement in the kidnap , He refused,
however, to discuss specific incidents. "1 will have to live
wih these fellows in Portlaoise," he told them.
One of the detectives asked McNeill "How in the name
of Christ did you get involved with O'Hare?" "1 used to
think he was a Socialist, I know now he is one dastardly
bastard," he responded. After the interviews were over he
was handed notes made out by detectives and invited to
sign them. He declined, but asked that a reference to him
going down fortwenty-five years be changed to "a long
time". McNeill didn't want to give thejudges any ideas.
Gerry Wright was also a broken mano He was arrested
immediately after the shoot-out at Carnlough Road under
Section 3O of the Offences against the State Act and taken
to the Bridewell station for questioning. He made statements
admitting providing food and shelter for the kidnappers,
In the beginning he had become involved because the gang
had promised to take care of the man who had shot his
brother. As the kidnap progressed the gang had coerced and
threatened him. He was afraid and could seeno way out.
27. "Fadna, Iadlna, Iadna
Iast.' ,
I
TWASHARD INFORMAnON AND VERY SPECIFIC.
Dessie O'Hare was expected to travel in a green BMW
car, registration number 220 EID, on the main Klkenny
to Urlingford road at lunchtime on Friday November 27.
The gardai seem to have got the information around eleven,
o'clock in the morning. Gardai were recalled from other
operational duties and told to report to the Balief Cross,
fifteen miles outside Kilkenny to set up a roadblock. The
army was contacted .just after eleven o'clock and asked to
provide a company platoon of thirty-two troops as back-up.
The roadblock was in position by 12.30 p m.
Nearly an hour later the gardai received a message over
the radio to expect the car in the next fifteen to twenty
minutes. There were two garda patrol cars and an army land-
rover blocking the road. Armed gardai and soldiers were in
position, Inspector Moriarty from the Tipperary garda
division and Detective Sergeant P.J. O'Rourke set up a check-
point about seventy yards in front of the roadblock. An un-
marked patrol car was hidden up a lane further down the
road. Once the BMW drove up to the checkpoint this car
would move out on the road cutting off its retreat. They
saw the BMW approaching in the distance. "Here we go.
This is it," O'Rourke said to Moriarty , Word spread quickly
down the line to the waiting gardai and soldiers. As the car
carne nearer it swerved, as if the driver had braked suddenly.
Dessie O'Hare was driving. Martin Bryan was in the
passenger seat. .O'Hare rolled down the window. "How's it
going?"Moriarty asked O'Hare. O'Hare nodded. He asked
him where they were coming from. O'Hare muttered "Kil-
kenny."
At this stage Moriarty did not recognise the driver as
O'Hare. He was attired in a grey suit and collar and tie. He
looked more like a solicitor than the Border Fox. Blonde
highlights were c1ear1yvisible in his hair. Moriarty's hesi-
tation may also have been grounded in the fact that the
gardai had been told to expect O'Hare to be in the passen-
ger seat. Moriarty turned rus attention to the passenger,
Martin Bryan, He asked him a couple of questions but
Bryan made no reply , Moriarty ordered him out of the .
car. Bryan moved as if to open the seat belt and produced
a gun. At that very moment Sergeant Joseph D'Arcy, who
was behind a wall covering Inspector Moriarty, recognised
O'Hare and shouted, "That's him. Get him out of the car."
Moriarty jumped back when Bryan produced the gun. De-
MAGILLMAY 1988 37
 tective Sergeant o 'Rourke a1ready had his hand on his
revolver. The BMW rushed forward in a wheel-spin , From
their concea1ed positions the army and gardai opened fire.
The BMW carne to a ha1t when it crashed into the garda car
and the army landrover spread across the road.
There was a pause. Dessie O'Hare pointed a gun out the
window and started firing at army and gardai to his right..
One of the two shots he managed to fire grazed an army
lieutenant's lego The firing recommenced. The BMW was hit
thirty -six tim es in all.
Dessie O'Hare was slumped over towards Martin Bryan
who was already dead. Inspector Moriarty ordered his men
to stay in position. Moriarty and O'Rourke approached the
caro "O'Hare," Moriarty shouted. "Put both your hand on the
steering wheel where 1 can see them." O'Hare's left hand
carne slowly onto the wheel. Moriarty shouted again to him
to put the other hand up. "1 can't," O'Hare replied, "It's
busted." Meanwhile Detective Sergeant P.J. O'Rourke had
sneaked around the back of the car. He emerged at the
driver's window and put his Smith and Wesson into Dessie
O'Hare's neck. It was over.
O'Hare was given a glass of water. He was rnuttering,
"Fading, fading, fading fast." It was when he was being
transferred to the ambulance he uttered the immortal and
infamous line: "Easy , easy , You're hurting me." On the
journey O'Hare held Inspector Moriarty 's hand and corn-
plained of pain. At St Luke's Hospital his blood-spattered
clothes were cut off with scissors and he was taken to sur-
gery.
A wallet had fallen out of his pocket when he was being
moved into the ambulance. The contents included a photo- An artist's impression of Dessie Q'Hare reading his speech from
the dock
graph of John O''Grady , taken immediately after he had
severed his fingers, and a list of safe houses, vehic1es and were devoted to rebutting criticism made by the media. It
people. Later that night O'Hare was transferred to St was conceded during the Templemore meeting that the
Vincent's Hospital where he was put on a respirator. need to refer all information to Dublin resulted in the in-
vestigation being slowed up. The outcome of the meeting
28. The aftermath was the setting up of a team of inquiry , led by three Assistant
Commissioners known as the Three Wise Men. The Report
was ready within weeks. It passed the buck upwards. The

T HE GARDAI WERE JUBILANT. ALL THE PRIN-

cipals involved in the kidnap were now in custo dy,
Dessie O 'Hare was discharged from St Vincent's
Hospital on J anuary 8 of this year. Before being brought to
the Specia1 Criminal Court he was arrested under Section
30 of the Offences against the State Act and taken to the
Bridewell garda station for questioning. He refused to ans-
wer any questions. The on1y member of the force he ack-
nowledged was Inspector .\Ioriarty who had arrested hirn in
Urlingford and travelled in the arnbulance with him after
the shoot-out, When Moran)" intro duced himself O'Hare
smiled and nodded his head from side to side before shaking
Moriarty's hand. Then, for no apparent reason, O'Hare
stood up , shook his fist in the air and began to shudder. He
then sat down and started smiling again , During his period
in the Bridewell O'Hare objected to going on an identity
parade. When the volunteers for the parade were brought in
O 'Hare removed his shirt and trousers, exposing dressings
covering his wounds. O'Hare, it appears, was worried that
the parade was likely to adrnit evidence thar might prejudice
a fair tria!.
Shortly afterwards the new Garda Commssioner, Eamon
Doherty , called a secret meeting of all Chief Superintendents
at Templemore in Tipperary to discuss what had gone wrong
during the kdnap. The Irisn Times the following day had a
detailed report on the "secret" meeting. The Minister for
Justice had also called for a report from the gardai to estab-
lish what had gone wrong, The Opposition parties had called
for an independent inquiry ,
But the meeting held at Templemore was not concerned
with probing, The mood was self-congratulatory. The Chief
Superintendents from Dun Laoghaire , Midleton and Tipper-
ary addressed the meeting. Key sections of their speeches
faults during the kidnap , it concluded, were due to the out-
dated structures the gardai were operating. The responsibility
for this lay with the Department
Minister, however, was unimpressed
of Justice. The Justice
with the report and
was particularly annoyed about the fact that the report had
not examined specific bungles during the investigation.
When' the trial opened on April 13 the decision by the
accused to plead guilty was greeted with surprise. But, given
the weight of evidence against them, this was inevitable.
McNeill and Wright had made statements in custo dy , ad-
mitting involvement. There were dozens of fingerprints of
the gang in Carnlough Road and at the site of the container
at Midleton. At Carnlough Road the gang got bored and
Hogan and Toal took photographs of each other armed
with shotguns. They hadn't even bothered to wear bala-
clavas.
Dessie O'Hare was unrepentant. McNeill, Hogan and
Toa1 were acting under military orders, O'Hare told the
court. Wright had been duped into helping them initially
by the pro mise to shoot the man responsible for killing his
brother and later by threats. Claire O'Hare, he told the
court had been as much as a hostage as John O'Grady.
Claire O 'Hare, who is also charged with the kidnap, had opted
for a separate tria1.
During his speech from the dock Dessie O'Hare told the
court that the on1y justice in Ireland carne through the
barrel of a gun, He faltered at one point when he looked up
to the packed public gallery , The family of Jirnmy McDaid
was staring intently at him.Tressie O'Hare and Eddie Hogan
got forty years. Tony McNeill received a fifteen year sen-
tence. Fergal Toal got twenty years. The court treated the
fourth accused more leniently. Gerry Wright got just seven
years.

38 MAGILL MAY 1988

 In the lirst 01 a twopart article,
EAMONNMcCANNtraces the Irish
rootsol Glasgow Celtic, one 01 the
world's most lamous lootbll
clubs, anel looks at the early days
01 a tradition which has at least
as mu'chto do with politics and
religion as it has with soccer.
I N THE END IT WAS MAGIC,
the last half hour a swooping,
roller-coaster ride of the emotions
and with a clmax that Hitchcock
would have been thrilled to contrive.
But for the first hour of its ninety
minutes the Scottish Cup semi-final
between Celtic and Hearts at Hampden
Park in Glasgow on the ninth of last
month wasn'tmuch of a match.
42 MAGILL MAY 1988
~
.~7'.
~~
~~ .~!'
The first half was a nervous sham- ~
Hearts inexplcably went ahead. Former
bles, full of aimless punts upfield, passes
Ce1t Brian Whittaker lobbed a high,
to nobody in particular and panicky
hopeful ball into the Celtic pena1ty
scrambling at the edge ofpenalty boxes.
'Keeper Pat Bonner observed its flight
Only Paul McStay, radiating calmness intent1y from his vantage pont on the
in the Ce1tic mid-feld, truly graced the
goal-line, like a bird-watcher noting
occasion. When McStay was on the the colouration ofa rare species as it
ball, ripples of class eddied through
came closer, was momentarily distrae-
Ce1tic.
ted by the inrushing Davie McPherson,
Fifteen minutes into the second half then g1anced back up as the ball drifted
 gently over his head and nestled into
the neto
In response, Celtic were shaken to
'go at last into overdrive. Full-backs
Chris Mortis and Anton Rogan galloped
repeatedly along the wings to fire in
crosses that pleaded for a head or foot
to make contacto McStay controlled
a bobbling ball with a single deft touch,
turned inside two Hearts defenders,
looked up, turned back again, dummied
elegantly past a third Hearts man and
drilled the ball forty yards onto the
toe-cap of McAvennie in space a dozen
yards from the Hearts goal. But the
ex-Hammers striker, perhaps non-plus-
sed by the audacity of the manoeuvre,
managed to scoop the ball wide.
McGhee, Walker and McAvennie again
all failed to connect with crosses inside
the six-yard area. The minutes slipped
past until there were only three left.
Hearts fans, massed behind the Celtic
goal, whistled desperately to the ref
for release.
Then their 'keeper Henry Smith
carne for a curling Tommy Burns cor-
ner and caught it cleanly before drop-
png it at the feet of Roy Aitken who
passed it square to McGhee who speared
it through a flailing ruck of defenders
and into the neto One-one with a
thunderclap suddenness and the sullen
Celtic terraces were transformed in a ,
twinkling into a carnival of colour and
roars of joyous relief.
Less than three minutes later the
Celtic following was catapulted even
higher into ecstasy , Smith, his confid-
ence collapsed by the culpable disaster
of the equalising goal, flapped and
dithered as a long cross from the right
seemed to hang in the airo McGhee
gratefully bopped a header diagonally
across the goal-line and Walker stormed
through a rooted defence to blast it
high into the net. Two-one.
Hearts re-started dejectedly and the
final whistle blew, signalling bedlam,
Transported in the space of three min-
utes from the depths of an existential
gloom to the giddy heights of beatific
happiness, the packed Celtic fans on
the steep Hampden terraces disappeared
beneath a seemingly solid, oscillating
expanse of green-and-white as scarfs
were held triumphantly aloft and
swayed to and fro. From within the
dense canopy of scarfs scores of tri-
colours protruded and, here and there,
a few intriguing Starry Ploughs. As the
broken Hearts players slumped forlorn-
ly off-field, the Celtic squad skipped
and danced, one turned a cartwheel,
and in varying combinations formed
cavorting huddles of hugs in the middle
of the field as they were swamped in
the adulation of multitudes. The noise
was astonishing, If there were chants
being chanted or songs sung they were
not individually decipherable. The ele-
mental sounds from fifty thousand
open throats merged into a white noise
which carne in torrents 'down from the
terraces to fill the stadium to the brim.
It lasted longer than a leader's ovation
at a Fianna Fail Ard Fheis and this was
genuine delight to the point of near-
derangement. The playera had to come
back out again after they'd left the
field, sorne of them barefoot, dripping
wet and only wearing shorts, having
been summoned from the showers, to
take a final salute before the compres-
sion on the terraces loosened and began
to drift towards the exits. It wasn'tjust
that Celtic had reached yet another cup
final in dramatic fashion. It was that
the dream Celtic has nurtured all season
of doing the league and cup double in
the centenary season, the perfect, dar-
ing dream which had surely died and
turned to dust when Hearts were one
up and the final whistle imminent, was
now suddenly closer to realisation
than it ever had been, and beckoning
brightly ,
C ARMYLE, WHERE A LOT OF
Irish settled in the early years
of ths century, is a nondescript
industrial suburb to the east of Glasgow
but, separated from the city by the
course of the Clyde and the main rail-
way lines across to Edinburgh, it has a
village air about it too. "There's a good
sense of community here," says John
Gillan, secretary of the local Celtic
Supporters' Club. "You could say, a
.good Republican community."
The supporters' club is based in the
Cue-Ball Club, which is a square, breeze
block building at the bottom of a hill,
housing a bar and a snooker room with
three snooker tables and a couple of
pool tables. It's a friendly , functional
sort of place where the woman behind
the bar, having established that you've
never been before, says, "Well, let me
bid you welcome, then."
From around noon club members
begin gathering, bedecked in Celtic
regala and badges of political cornmit-
mento Green and gold lapel buttons
bearing a likeness of James Connolly
are much favoured. The bus won't leave
until around one-thirty but alcohol is
banned from football grounds and
supporters' buses in Scotland and it's
necessary to tan k up before setting out.
One notes yet agan that the Scots are
rare people for downing hard liquor.
Young women are on large whiskeys.
From a table in the bar comer
Gillan dispenses match tickets to mern-
bers as they arrive. "This is the pope's
corner," he confides. Pressedas to the
religious significance of this appellation
he expands: "Ah, no, it's just that
there's a few old fellas tend to sithere
after matches, pontificating."
Gillan is a long-time union activist
and was among the leaders of the four
month sit-in last year which tried vainly
to save a thousand jobs at the Cater-
pillar planto The strike was broken by
Thatcher's laws and the machinations
of the union bureaucracy. He's un-
employed now and studying for a
university course. "There's a lot of us
have gone back to the school-books.
The way it looks, there'll be plenty to
discuss literature on the dole queue."
The social security changes imple-
mented that weekend vie with the
match as the major topc of discussion
as supporters coIlect their tickets.
"Were you talking to Jimmy? They've
told him he'll be down 21.95."
"Fucking Thatcher."
"They've hired a whole squad of new
security men in case of bother at the
buroo."
"Fucking bastards."
The fuIl complement of supporters
is finally cajoled to finish up and board
the bus. The back window is covered
with a tricolour about six feet by three.
It's pointed out as a matter of sorne
significance that this tricolourhas a hem
along the side with a thin rope threaded
through it which once attached it to a
flagpole. "There was a fellow over here
from Dublin and we asked him to send
us back a proper Irish tricolour, so he
cut that down from sorne public build-
ing. It's the genuine artcle,"o_o __
As the bus lurches out into the
main road the PA system is playing the
Beatles' 'Let It Be', which instantly
draws howls of disapproval. "Get that
shite off!" "Where's the WAR music?"
Nobody will own up to having f'orgot-
MAGILL MAY 1988 43
 ten the Wolfe Tones' tapes. The back
seats essay their own renditions, 'The
Broad Black Brimmer', 'Roddy McCor-
ley' and so forth.
Only three of the around forty on
the bus are women, all of them ac-
companied. There's a couple of burly,
stan dard-issue workers who one sup-
poses, probably wrongly, are shipyard
workers or the like. It's a bright, crisp
aftemoon, notwarm, but nobody at
all on the bus carries an overcoat. Most
are in their teens or twenties, with ieans
and thin leather jackets and such, sorne
with rock-band logos on the back, a
few earrngs here and there, sorne tat-
toos. They have the pinched look of
proletarians that is usual in any de-
pressed regon, In shape, size and orna-
mentation they'd pass easily for natives
in the Creggan or north inner city
Dublin. There's a certain jaunty swag-
ger about them and a ready casual wit
that they take open delight in. With
reference to a recent Rangers' cup
humiliation: "What's the connection
between the assassination of J ohn P.
Kennedy and Dunfermline Athletic?"
"In years to come folk everywhere will
be able to tell their grandchildren
exactly where they were when they
heard Rangers were out of the Cup."
As we approach Harnpden the bus
noses its way gently through the green
and white throng now thickly filling
the streets. A solo voice from the back
is giving a not-bad rendition of 'Billy
Reid'. The radio said there 's another
shot dead I And he died with a gun in
his hand. I But they didn't say why I
Billy Reid had to die. I He died to free
Ireland,
Are they all really Irish republicans?
Or is this just a way they've come to
express support for Ce1tic at football?
Or what?
"To be perfect1y honest with you,
Eamonn, it's a wee bit complicated."
C ELTIC'S GROUND AT PARK-
head was openedinMarch 1892,
four years after the club's for-
mation. The first sod was laid by
Michael Davtt, the former Fenian and
leader of the Land League. The sod
had been transported from Dungloe in
Donegal. Davitt had been elected joint
patron of the club in 1889. The other
patron was the Catholic Archbishop of
Glasgow. Davitt was to return to Ce1tic
Park on a number of occasions but al-
lowed that it was better he didn't
attend Ce1tic matches too frequently,
lest "he would foreswear politics for
football, so much had it impressed
'him."
Ce1tic had been formed two years
before the Scottish League carne into
exstence in 1890. Only cup compet-
tions were "official", In these, and in
frendly , challenge games, Ce1tic from
the outset were strikingly successful.
44 MAGILLMAY 1988
They won their first match, against a
depleted Rangers side, five-two, on 28
M~ 1888. In the same season they
reached the final of the Scottish Cup,
Just three seasons later they had come
from nothng to be acknowledged as
the strongest clu b in Scotland and won
all three cup competitions. (It was this
feat which prornpted the legendary
telegram from one Ned McGinn to the
Vatican: "We have won the three cups,
y our Holiness." Outraged at receiving
no response, McGinn moved a motion
of censure on the Pontiff at the Glas-
gow branch of the Irish National
League. It was defeated.)
At the club's ha1f-yearly meeting in
1891 committee member Thomas
Flood declared: "Irishmen in Scot1and
in past years have been made litt1e of
because we have very few of our num-
bers in business or in positions of res-
ponsibility, but we have lately demon-
strated that not only in commercial
life can we be successful, but we have
proved the possession on our part of
an amount of pluck and perseverance
by which we have risen to the top of
the ladder in the football world. The
Ce1tic team is the pride of the Irish
race. "
The association of Ce1tic with Irish
Catholicism has persisted to this day.
The: tricolour is dsplayed not only on
the terraces but takes pride of place
aboye the main stand at Parkhead at
all Ce1tic home games. The Archbishop
of Glasgow, Cardinal Winning, was the
chief guest at this year's centenary
banquet. This, and the complementary
association of Rangers with Protestant
Loyalism, has been the basis of the
longest-running and most bitter sport-
ing feud in hstory. The Glasgow police
.assgn a hundred officers to each
"ordinary" soccer game, two hundred
and fifty to any match involving Ce1tic
and Rangers, and five hundred to
Ce1tic-Rangers clashes.
Three Rangers and one Ce1tic player
went on triallast month for disorderly
conduct and breach of the peace during
an "Old Firrn " match last October. A
police chief superintendent told the
Sheriff's Court: "Soon after the gates
opened ... fans started filling up the
enclosure at either side of the players'
tunnel, facing each other and singing
songs, The songs were oaths against
the Pope and the IRA from the Ran-
gers side, whle the Ce1tic versions
were against the Queen and the UDA."
The city's assistant chief constable
referred to "an unrivalled hatred on
the faces of sorne of the fans. It is
different from any other football game
I have ever attended."
the Bamey' was a popular garne in the
A ,
T THE BEGINNING OF THE
last century Scotland was the
most Protestant country in the
world. A complex interplay ofnationa1,
clan and class factors had made the
Reformation spectacularly complete.
Pockets of Catholicism continued to
survve in the Highlands and Islands but
a census in 1780 recorded only 6,000
Catholics below the Hghland Line.
Mainstream Scots Protestantism was in
the Calvnst tradition of J ohn Knox
and vgorously anti-Papist. In 1790
there were thirty-nne Catholics in
Glasgow and forty-three anti-Catholic
societies.
Glasgow was a great city. Justifiably,
it had a very well-developed sense of
its own qualities and importance. It
was, in an almost literal sense, self-
made. The Cly de is not a naturally
navigable river. Between 1769 and 1773
the brilliant Glasgow engineer James
Watt supervised the construction of
more than a hundred jetties so pos-
itioned as to make the river scour out
its own bed. Glasgowthus became a
rnajor port. It handled half of the total
American tobacco crop and vast quan-
tities of cotton and sugar. Ships plyng
the Atlantic route carried back rope,
leather, glue, nails, tools and a wide
range of manufactured goods. Industry
developed rapidly , Glasgow, as a result
of the dynamism and genius of Scots
Protestants, became "the second city
of the Empire ".
The Irish had been coming to Scot-
land as migrant, agricu1turallabourers
at least since the middle of the eighteen-
th century , From the tum of the cen-
tury they carne, first in a trickle, then
a stream, to settle and find work in
the developing economy , They were,
of course, overwhelming1y Catholic.
By the y ear of Catholic emancipation,
1829, the thirty-strong Catholic corn-
munty in Glasgow had grown to
25,000. The 1841 census showed that
16.2 percent of Glasgow's 274,000
citizens were Irish-born, The stream
was swollen further by the potato
famine towards the end of the decade.
As with all such alien in flux es, their
arrval was resented, partcularly by
those among the natives who had sound
reason for apprehension. The Irish mi-
grants had been used by farmers to
undercut the wage rates of local
labourers. Later, they were used to
the same purpose, and as scabs, by
construction bosses, mine-owners and
all-purpose entrepreneurs. The threat
to "brng in the Irish" carne commonly
from bosses faced with an obdurate
Scots workforce. A petition in Glas-
gow against Catholic emancipation was
backed not only by the elders of the
Church of Scot1and, but by twelve of
the cty's fourteen incorporated trade
unions. Around the same time 'Hunt
Glasgow area.
The Irish were resented, not only on
account of the economic threat they
were perceved as representing, but also

because of characteristics associated
with Catholicism which, not unreason-
ably , Scots Protestants scorned. Scots
Protestantism, of both Church of Scot-
land and evangelical tendencies, was
notably democratic and made a virtue
of sober self-reliance. In the Kirks,
ministers were elected. Pastors of the
free churches established their auth-
ority by dint of their own qualities
and effort. Church of Scotland policies
were established by public debate. Pas-
tors of smaller churches could and did
polemicise sharply with one another
over doctrinal and other issues. In con-
trast, the largely illiterate Catholic
Irish - and this in one of the most
literate societies in Europe - were
characterised by a pathetic attachment
to superstitious ritual and an abject
obsequiousness to a totalitarian Papacy
and its incense-irnpregnated priesthood.
They drank a lot; even th eir priests
frequented ale-houses. AH this, to the
Scots Protestant mind, made the
Catholic Irish unworthy of equal
status. If Protestants tended to have
better, cleaner jo bs, this was merely
earthly confirmation of the hierarchy
made in heaven. Moreover, the fact
that the sprinkling of native Catholics
in central Scotland had been quite
swamped by the Irish inf1ux meant that
by the middle of the century Cath olic-
ism in Scotland was a distinctly Irish
phenomenon: this to a much greater
extent than in any area of England.
And the sense of Irish identity was to
persist through the generations, not
least because the "Irish Question" re-
mained a major, mainstream ssue in
internal British politics until the 1920s.
It should not be forgotten either
that the unchallenged leaders of the
Catholics were their priests and bishops
and in Scotland, as everywhere, the
Catholic clergy had no nterest what-
ever in encouragng "its" community
to assirnilate into wider, non-Catholic,
society.
The Catholic Irish had no specific
political aims in Scotland. They were
not, for example, seeking to detach
Scotland from the Union. Thus, while
the Protestant middle class and bour-
geoisie may have been anti-Papist on
doctrinal grounds, secure in their own
positions they had no reason to fear
the Catholic Irish in any way which
might have driven them into an alliance
with the Protestant working class along
the lines of U1ster Unionismo Political
ant-Catholicism was to find specifi-
cally working class outlets - via soccer,
for example.
The irnmigrant cornmunty devel-
oped separately , retaining its distinct
Irish-oriented identty , though airning
not at achieving fundamental social
change in Scot1and but at acceptance
of itself as a 1egitirnate elemento It con-
gregated in its "own" areas, generated
its own institutions, its churches and
schools. provided its own clubs, halls
and leisure-tirne activities and thereby
acquired a layer of community leaders,
men of sorne substance - publicans,
traders, builders and so forth - who
were increasingly self-eonfident oftheir
ability, and insistent on their right, to
make a mark in the society they had
sett1edin. Glasgow Celtic was the result.
It was in 1892 that the GAA banned
soccer as a "foregn game" - the same
year as Michael Davitt stamped a sod
of Donegal into the new soccer pitch
at Parkhead.
ATE ONE NIGHT IN 1867
L Pat Welsh, a young Dublin
Fenian on the run, was skulk-
ing along the North Wall when he was
arrested by Clare-born Sergeant Tho-
mas Maley of the North British Fusil-
iers. Welsh pleaded that he was finished
with vio1ence and had been trying to
find a ship to take hrn to G1asgowand
a new start in Iife, Ma1eypondered, ex-
tracted a :firm pro mise of :good be-
havour, and let the trem bling fugitive
go. Welsh set up as a tailor in Glasgow
and did well and kept in touch with
his fusilier benefactor. When Maley left
the army four years 1ater We1sh, by
then a master tailor, helped hirn and
his family settle in the Glasgow area.
The Maleys had four sons, two of
whom, Tom and Willie, were to show
promise at soccer.
In December 1877 Pat Welsh, now
a comfortably-off busnessman with a
shop on opulent Buchanan Street,
called on the Maleys. He was accorn-
panied by J ohn Glass, a joner of Don-
MAGILL MAY 1988 45
 egal extraction, and Brother Walfrd, soccer club, they are also the most pride of the Irish race" is that they de-
headmaster of the Sacred Heart School, transient element within it. The den- vastated their soccer rivals for this
born Andrew Kerins in Ballymote in tity of a football club is determined by accolade in the process of acquiring it
Sligo. The three visitors explained that its management and supporters. The and, further, unlike sorne of their
they represented a group whch had founders of Ce1tic wanted success, as rivals, were perfectly ready to recruit
met in St Mary's Hall the previous syrnbol and potential source of the non-Irish and non-Catholic assistance
month and decided to set up a football success they believed they and their so as to establish permanent sole title
club to raise money for needy Catholic cornmunty were on the brink of and to the accolade.
children. They were piecing together a
As well as Brother Walfrid, John
team. Would Tomjunior and Willie care
Glass and Pat Welsh, prominent figures
to join? Wllie Maley was to become
in Celtic 's early years included a farnily
one of Ce1tic's first stars. He sub-
of catt1e traders from Belfast, the Col-
sequently became manager and held
that position until 1940. gans, the McKillops, who owned a
number of restaurants, the Shaugh-
Tom Maley junior had been on the
books of Third Lanark, then a maior nessys, "prorninent in law and priest-
club, but in those all-amateur days hood", the Kellys, the Whites and
poaching players was fairly cornmon- McLaughlins, with interests in the
place and the men behind Ce1tic were liquor trade. They were a1l comfortably
to prove the best poachers in the off but from families which had come
business. up the hard way and whch were still
'Soccer was boorning in central considered outsiders by the local elite:
Scotland. A game whichhad begun as no better .men for riding roughshod
jousts between rival villages, with un- over the rules of an arrogant establish-
limited numbers and no rules, had ment.
gradually been organised and codified They wanted a proper league, and
by the British upper classes. The first professionalism. Their hostility was
comprehensive set of rules dates from initially directed, not at all against
the l870s. It was a simple garne which Rangers, but against the haughty
could be played on any patch of open gent1emen of the Scottish Footba1l As-
ground and with a minimum of equip- socationand the sniffy amateurism of
mento the powerful Hampden-based Queen's
And the time and place were rght, Park. '
The Catholc Irish rejoced in the
By the end of the l870s, as a result of
brash elan with which Ce1tic, from ther
trade union organisation and pressure,
inception, took on the SF A ascendancy.
, the standard working week in Scot1and
After a SF A meeting in 1896 which
had been reduced from sixty to fifty-
four hours. Daly hours remained from took sorne decision which Ce1tic re-
presentative J ohn McLaughlin nter-
6 a.m. to 5.40 p.m. But now work
stopped at noon on Saturdays, Wth preted as anti-Celtic, Mcl.aughlin wrote
Scottish Sundays still blighted by the in the Catholic Glasgow Examiner:
"Rabid and bigoted partisanship is an
dictatorship of the Sabbatariat, Satur-
exceeding1y mild term to apply to their
day afternoon was the one weekly
period of fresh air freedom enjoyed by ferocious ebulitions. Were they of the
workng class there rnght be a litt1e
men who slaved down mines or in dank
factores all week. Over the previous excuse for them, but the most of them
thirty years real wages had risen by are at any rate dressed like gent1emen.
thirty per cent. Dire p overty was still I am afrad the resemblance ends there,
the common condition. But it was A worse exhibition then these gent1e-
possible for men to afford the sixpence men favoured us withhas never been
Willie Maley during his time as manager given in Scotland. It was worthy of a
entrance money to be associated with
of Glasgow Celtic. band of drunken cannbals."
glory once a week. This is the orign of
football fanaticism in Scotland. The le ague was founded in 1890
entitled to in Scottish society. The and professionalism introduced in
A talent for soccer provided a route name "Celtc " is significant, Unlike 1893, 1argely as a resu1t of Ce1tic's ag-
to farne., if not yet fortune. The sett1ed
the "Shamrocks" and "Emeralds" it is gressive insistence. Ce1tic was already
Catholic Irish produced teams in every as Scottish as .it is Irish in its assoca- paying players "illega1ly"anyway. (In
area where they were concentrated. tions. They squashed early atternpts to 1890 Celtic's players became possbly
Most had names like Shamrocks, Hiber- write a religious qualification into the the only amateur sportsmen in history
nans, Emeralds, Emmets. Sorne laid it club rules and set about assembling to threaten strike action for higher
down as a rule that players had to be their side with, according to taste, great wages.) The opening by Davitt of the
of Irish extraction. Sorne, like Edin- panache or sheer ruthlessness.
burgh Hibernans, demanded that new 50,000-capacity ground in 1892
Tom Maley was the first of many evidenced the seriousness of Ce1tic's
players notonly be Catholics but prac- poached players. In Celtic's first year
tising Catholics. ambition. In the same year the club
no fewer than five of Hibernians' cup-. pioneered the use of goalnets. The
The men who founded Celtc had winning team were coaxed across to follo wng year they conducted the first-
no truck with such self-inflicted limi- Glasgow. As a result, Hibs went out of ever experiments with flood-Ightlng.
tations. They were consciously intent existence for a periodo Renton's two
on creating a team which would re- The year after that Ce1tic ran the first-
star players, Kelly and McCallum, were ever railway "soccer special", offering
present the Catholic Irish cornmunity. signed up. Jerry Reynolds of Carfin a 2/6d ticket to Edinburgh for a match
But they were iust as acutely aware Shamrocks was, in effect, kidnapped. against Hibs, against the standard fare
that while the players are the most Part of the reason Ce1tic were a ble to of 4/-.
obvious public manifestation of any establish themselves so speedily as "the A few years after its inception Ce1tic
46 MAGILLMAY 1988
 was both the biggest club in Scotland
and the most successful expression of
Catholic-Irish identity Scot1and had
ever known. In the process, sorne of
the clubs original, charitable ideals
were ditched. In 1897 Celtic became a
limited company, The concentration
on professionalism and business effici-
ency didn't please everybody, One
Catholic-nationalist commentator
wondered acidly how anyone could
believe Celtic players "kicked the ball
for fath and fatherland" when it was
perfectly obvious that "they kicked
the ball for thirty shillings a week".
Nevertheless, Celtic's swagger through
Scottish football was an expression of
new Catholic-Irish confidence. Between
1892/3 and 1897/8 they won the
League f'our times. Inevitably, the club
attracted to itselfmuch ofthe anti-Irish,
anti-Catholic sentiment around. A team
which would rise up and see off the
upstart Irish challenge was bound to argued that from the outset both sides
attract substantial Protestant support. savaged all before them in the Sixtes
had a business interest in bigotry. But and Seventies.
This team was Rangers. although there was no shortage of It was around the same time, in
combustible, sectarian material in Scot- the years before World War One, that
land at the time - the Home Rule the ideology of Rangers shifted slightly
NGERS HAD BEEN FOUN-
issue loomed large following Glad- but significantly. Always a Protestant
ded a decade and a half before
~ stone's abortive 1886 Bill and violence team, they became frankly, and fer-
eltic. They were a Protestant
regularly attended Orange marches _ ociously, anti-Catholic and the Celtc-
team. There was nothing particularly
thereare few reports of clashes between Rangers riva1ry acquired the razor 's
sectarian about this. Given the seprate
Celtic and Rangers fans in this periodo edge it retains to the present day.
development of the two communities
There were scuffles at matches in 1897
it was more or less inevitable that any
and 1899, but nothing worth talking
soccer team in Scotland would be
either "Catholic" or "Protestant ",
Until Celtic carne along Rangers were
no more thaa moderately successful.
about. Nevertheless, that tensions
would gather was assured. As Rangers
and Celticconsolidated their postion
as a virtual duopoly over Scottish
A LTHOUGH CELnC-RANG-
ers relations had been reason-
ably cvlsedfor the first couple
of decades of Celtic 's exstence and al-
They had never, for example, won the though the clubs had a mutual interest
soccer, the f'ervour of each set of fans in establishing a jont ascendancy in
Scottish Cupo
carne to be expressed almost as much
Rangers' emergence as the Protestant Scottish soccer, their social profiles
in hostility to the other club as in
equvalent of Celtic can be dated to were far from identical. Celtic's first
commitment to one 's own. In 1905
the 1893/94 season - the year after board of directors (1897) comprised
one commentator warned that "an
Ned McGinn's three cups. The Ibrox six publicans and a builder. Rangers
accumulation of ncidents" was build-
side beat Celtic four times and drew (1899) included two capitalsts, four
ing up a dangerous head of hostlity.
once in six matches and thereafter white collar workers and a skilled
The first major riot carne at the Cup
appears to have siphoned Protestant tradesman. Celtic's first two patrons
Final replay at Hampden in 1909 - al-
support in to itself and away from were a radical Irish nationalist and a
though circumstances suggesrthat fans'
smaller, less successful sides.However, Catholic archbishop. Rangers' was Sir
mutualloathing wasnot the main cause.
relations between the clubs were J ohn Ure Primrose. Eleven per cent of
When the replay ended in a draw and
friendly in the early years of their Celtic's frst Iist of shareholders were
it became clear that extra time was not
great rivalry. They travelled together self-described as "Iabourers", The equi-
to be played, both sets of fans believed valent Rangers figure was a half per
when engaged in away matches in the
that their managements were more in- cent. Rangers had four shareholders
same town and social functions after
tent on having a third lucrative en- described as "foreman", Celtic none.
matches in which they played one
counter than settling the issue there In his book "I'he Old Firm '," the
another were reputedly most convvial
affairs. Celtic's first chairman, John and then. Enraged, they poured onto Scottish football nut -and fine historian
McLaughlin, the possessor of a pleasant the pitch, the police baton charged Bill Murray argues convincingly that in
tenor voice, sang in the Rangers Glee and mayhern ensued, The profit motive this contrast can be found the original
Club Choir, although not, presumaby, played a part in provoking the first social basis of the "We Arra People!"
his favourite piece 'The Dear Little Celtic-Rangers riot. That season, 1908/ attitude of Rangers fans which, initially
Shamrock'. 9 also heralded the end of a period of directed against Celtic, and later also
Celtic ascendancy. Rangers had ended aganst blacks, foreigners and anybody
To the extent that each was the
Celtic's early supremacy and became at alllackingundiluted true-blue blood,
leading soccer representative of its
the more successful side in the years has earned them a reputation as "an-
"own community, it was guaranteed
around the turn of the century, But mals" throughout a long-suffering soc-
massive support. The financial attrac-
from 1903/4 to 1909/10 Celtic won cer world.
tions of this set-up were obvious, The
the league six times, the cup three Four Catholics played for Rangers'
Scottis Referee observed in 1896
times, the Glasgow Cup five times and first team between 1904 and 1910;
that the relationship developing be-
the Charity Cup twice. No Scottish since then, two. South African Don
tween Celtic and Rangers was "excep-
team was to achieve such ascendancy Kitchenbrand was only nominally
tionally remunerative-". It can be
agan until Stein's Lisbon Lions
Catholic. The other, Laurie Blythe,
48 MAGILL MAY 1988
was played by mistake. (Rangers had
been unaware that his father, a Rangers
scout, had married a Catholic and that
Laurie was of the ne temere persuasion.)
Disparate events seventy years ago
were, anyway, conspiring to thieken
sectarian feeling in the Glasgow area.
The Westminster Parliament was m--9v-
ing towards the.19l2 Home Rule Bill
and Protestant Ulster was mobilising.
Celtic was explicit1y Irish-nationalist in
politics, No "Home Rule for Ireland"
meeting in Glasgow was complete
without Celtic representation on the
platf'orm. And sorne accounts give
significance to the establishment of
a shipyard in Govan in 1912 by Har-
land and Wolff, who brought over
sizeable numbers of Belfast workers.
At the same time Catholics were being
driven from the Be1fastyard.
Rangers had always had an associ-
ation with the yards, As early as the
l870s the club had been able to secure
the sgnature of amateur players with
the entieement of a shipbuilding jobo
Rangers provided a natural focus for
the enthusiasms of the Belfast arrivals
who, in turn, boosted the sectarian
content of the club itself.
The Home Rule Bill, the Easter
Rising, the Tan War' and Partition
provided real, urgent issues to sharpen
and deepen the divide. Crowd trouble
became a standard feature of Old Firm
clashes. There was to be a riot at every
one of the traditional New Year's Day
matches between 1919 and 1939.
Ce1tie were dominant during the
First World War, but the Twenties and
most of the Thirties were Rangers',
which, notwithstanding the club's great
successes of previous decades, seems to
have confirmed Ce1tie's self-image as
underdog outsiders forced to set out
every season to storm the grim, blue-
f1aggedcitadel of Scottish soccer.
Celtie's traditional style of play can
be taken to ref1ect this perception.
Based on enthusiasm, inspiration and
feats of derring-do, they were Cavaliers
to Rangers' Roundheads.
This style, and the extent to which
the tumu1tuous events in Ireland had
become imprinted on Ce1tic, carne
through clearly in the blithe polemics
of the Glasgow Observer's Ce1tie
specialist "Man in the Know". This
from 1924: "On the (Rangers) terracing
on Saturday there was congregated a
gang, thousands strong, including the
dregs and scourings of filthy slumdom,
unwashed yahoos, jailbirds, night-
hawks, won't-works, 'buroo-barnacles'
and pavement pirates, all, or nearly all,
in the scarecrow stage of verminous
trampdom, This ragged army of in-
sanitary pests was lavishly provided
with orange and blue remnants o o o
Practically without cessation the vaga-
bond scum kept up a strident howl of
the 'Boyne Water' chorus, Nothing so
bestially ignorant has ever been wit-
nessed even in the wildest exhibitions
of Glasgow Orange bigotry ooo"
In contrast, "Man in the Know"
noted, "These complaints do not apply
to the Ce1tie brake-clubs (supporters'
clubs) whose members, reasonable
sentient human beings, are models of
decorum and possess official testi-
monials to their blameless behaviour
... They are fond of singingand to this
n o-one can reasonably object. On
Saturday the boys sang to their hearts'
contento They gave us so many rousing
choruses, 'Hail Glorious St Patrick',
'God Save Ireland', 'Slievenamon', 'The
Soldiers' Song' oo. When Cassidy's goal
made vctory sure, it was fine to hear
the massed thousands at the western
end of the Ibrox oval chanting thunder-
ously 'On Erin's Green Valleys'.
"Man in the Know" conveyed the
result of this particular match thus:
"Re bels two, Black and Tans nil."
 W HEK BONO TOLO AMERI-
can reporters last Summer
that Shamrock Rovers be-
longed to the northside of Dublin, the
district where he was born, and were
now moving away, it was, to the Irish
joumalists present, an amusing faux
pas by the U2 singer from North
Dublin , Back in Dublin it was a corn-
ment that held unhappy undertones
for the supporters of Ireland's top
soccer club, who longed for Rovers to
move out of the northside back to
their traditional southsds home at
Milltown.
A few months earler, several days
before Shamrock Rovers were to meet
Sligo Rovers in the second leg of the
1987 F Al cup .semi-final, the rumour
that it would be Rovers' last game in
Glenmalure Park .at Milltown was con-
frmed by an Irish Press reporto Just
as the property developers had gnored
public opinion regarding Wood Quay,
the Kilcoyne family - owners of Sham-
rock Rovers since 1972 - seemed
to ignore the emotional support of
geuerations of Rovers' fans to sell
off the Milltown turf, it was later re-
vealed, for property development,
Rovers" managing director Louis Kl-
coyne says: "We can't be held respon-
sible for people's dreams and memories.
We are only responsble for the future
of Sharrirock Rovers, We can't be held
responsible for the past."
Around this time of year, every year
since 1984, Shamrock Rovers have sat
proudly at the top of the Prernier
League of Ireland. When they lifted
the championship trophy last April
they also entered the record books as
the first club in the sxty-six year hs-
tory of the league to win the title four
years insuccession. The following
month they added another record,
winning the F Al cup to complete a
hat-trick ofleague and cup doubles.
This sea son Shamrock Rovers no
longer sit proudly at the top of the
Ieague, They have completed their
le ague carnpagn in fourth position,
Neither will the club play in Europe,
where the financial rewards can be
considerable. They were sensationally
dumped out of the F Al cup in the
first round by UCD. SO Rovers, who
were the first Irish club to play in a
European cornpetition on 26 Septern-
ber 1957 when they lost 6-0 to Man-
six players had been signed for the
chester United, have only domestic playng surfaces in Europe-is no Ionger
1988-89 season.

competition to look forward to next
season.
The club is now also without a
manager. Dramatically;
Rovers' finalleague garne of the season,
Dermot Keely resgned as manager in
the midst of the usual end of season
activty of re-sgnng players for the
new season. Before Keely left, only
50 MAGILL MAY 1988
il
the hallowed turf that contributed to
YEAR AFTER SHAMROCK
many memorable Rovers successes for
Rovers vacated it, Glenmalure
half a century , The stands have fallen
hours after Park is like a disused set from into disrepair and the changing pav-
an old Hollywood movie, gloomy and
ilions are wrecked. Only the floodlights,
silent, lacking only the ghostly tumble-
purchased with the financial aid of
weeds. The ground has deteriorated,
Shamrock Rovers patrons, remain in-
the crowd barriers on the stone ter-
tact, despite many months of pro-
racing have been sawn off and the pitch
tracted negofiations, which ended ear-
-once regarded as one of the finest
lier this year when the Keep Rovers At
 an obituary. In the same magazine Alan
Dalton described the scenes after
Rovers' cup-tie .with Sligo, in the man-
ner of a writer reporting the death
throes of an institution. "There was
bitterness and sadness in the airo The
thought that Glenmalure Park with its
superb surface was lost to footbal1 hurt
deeply. The thought for many Sharn-
rock Rovers fans of a move to Tolka
Park, deep in enerny territory , was un-
thinkable. 'Will Greed kill the Hoops'?'
said one of the protest banners. Is it
greed or just a move of necessity?
Few outside the inner circle believed
it had anything to do with irnproving
the club's position. They, to aman,
fe1t betrayed," he wrote. "Those who
have charge of institutions such as
Shamrock Rovers have an enormous
responsibility which goes far beyond
that of merely running a footbal1 club.
They have custody of a piece of Dublin,
they are guardians of part of the city's
very ,soul."
Yet the Kilcoyne brothers, Paddy
and Louis, in a press conference last
April, insisted that the move had been
inevitable. "If enough people felt suf-
ficiently passionate about keeping the
club at Milltown, they would have pre-
empted this move by turning out in
reasonable numbers to watch our
games," said Paddy Kilcoyne, "For
twelve of the fifteen years that we have
been involved with the club, Shamrock
Rovers incurred a deficit. These losses
-g were funded by the family without help
~ from anybody."
g A1though the Rovers support was
~ small, it was vociferous and dedicated.
ijj Many supporters harboured deep feel-
ings for the club's tradition. Although
many of the fans, particular1y the
Supporters Club, acknowledged Rovers'
dwindling gate receipts, they believed
it was not their function to tel1 the
Kilcoynes how to run the club. Con-
versely the Kilcoynes felt that they
didn't need help in running the club.
The Kilcoyne family might have owned
Rovers but it was the Milltown faithful
who represented the lifebloodof the
club.

ITHIN DAYS OF THE AN-

by Robert Allen
Milltown (KRAM) committee success-
ful1y persuaded the Kilcoyne family
not to sel1.off Glenmalure Park's most
valuable asset.
Rival supporters, not unaware of
the slow destruction ofMilltown, now
ridicule what is left of one of Ireland's
finest grounds. "Milltown is a car-park;
Milltown is a car-park; Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" they chant as they
pass Rovers' new home, Tolka Park,
pro bably on the way back from another
victory ,
When the Soccer Magazine paid tri-
bute to "Four-in-a-row" Hoops and
Jim McLaughlin's successor, Dermot
Keely , at the close of last season, many
soccer fol1owers in Ireland read what
they believed was Shamrock Rovers'
epitaph. And Sean Creedon's columns
of statistics, anecdotes and pen pies of
the "Super Hoops" seemed to read like
W nouncement of the leaving
of Milltown, Rovers fans and
former players ral1ied to form KRAM.
They included Brian Murphy, chief
executive of the Diners Club in Ireland,
Gerry Mackey, the former marketing
manager of BP - who has subsequent1y
become spokesman for KRAM - for-
mer Irish youths coach Liam Tuohy
andPaddy Coad. The latter three al1
played for what most veteran Milltown
fans regard as the best Rovers team of ,
al1time., . I
Support for KRAM was s~

MAGILLMAY 1988 51
 i68,OOO was raised in one night in
response to the call to raise money to
buy out the Kilcoynes. At the end of
last May the Kilcoynes rejected KRAM's
subsequerrt i300,000 bid. Further pro-
posals were also rejected. KRAM then
stated that their campaign to take
Shamrock Rovers back to Milltown
would continue unabated and that they
would do everything in their power to
prevent planning permission .being
awarded to Glenmalure Park,
Shamrock Rovers have leased Glen-
malure Park from the nearby Jesuit
order since they moved to Mil1town in
the 1920s. In 1986 Louis and Barton
Kilcoyne approached the Jesuits to
discuss the possibility of getting an
option to buy the four-acre site. At
that stage the lease had another twelve
years to run and the J esuits believed
that the Kilcoynes wished to own the
ground , "The question of development
didn't come up in our discussions,"
said a J esuit spokesman.
The Kilcoynes have always insisted
that they decided to vacate Glenmalure
Park because they could not afford to
stay there, yet the fact that the Kil-
coyne family make their living from a
property development company named
Healy Homes Ud has led many of their
detractors to believe that the decision
to leave Milltown had more to do with
their entrepreneurial streak than their
passion for soccer. The Kilcoynes have
denied this.
W HEN SHAMROCK ROVERS
first leased Glenmalure Park
from the J esuits in 1921 the
club was control1ed by Larry Fitz-
patrick, a fisherman and glassblower.
He had founded the club in Ringsend
at the tum of the century and, with a
gathering of local friends and players,
had set up in Shamrock Park.
In the early years the club entered
the Dublin junior league and when the
League of Ireland was founded in 1921
Rovers were admitted to the Second
Division of the Leinster Senior League.
Ayear later Fitzpatrick's daughter
Mary Jane married a Ringsend book-
maker called Joe Cunningham, who
was becoming a force in the club.
Rovers quickly became a force in
Irish soccer, reaching the final of the
F Al cup during that first season, only
to lose to St Jarnes's Gate after a replay,
Over the following eght seasons
Rovers never finished lower than third
in the league and in 1924-25 they won
their frst league and cup double in
glorious fashion. 'Juicy' Farrell hit a
record twenty-five league goals as
Rovers took the title undefeated. Four
years later they created another record
when they scored the highest victory
in League of Ireland soccer against Bray
52 MAGILL MA Y 1988
,.,.:';;;
Unknowns in Milltown. Flood and
Watters scored hat-tricks as Rovers hit
eleven without reply.
In 1931 they dropped out of the top
three for the first time and then carne
back in style the following season,
winning the league and cup double for
the second time. Rovers have now won
the FAl cup an astonishing twenty-four
times and the league on fourteen oc-
casions. Between 1929 and 1933 and
then agan between 1964 and 1969
Rovers had their name inscribed on the
F Al cup each season without a break.
Statistically Shamrock Rovers'
achievements are unsurpassed in League
of Ireland football. Rovers players and
managers have won more Personality
of the Year awards than any other club,
they have supplied more players for
Republic of Ireland teams - centre-
back Peter Eccles was the sixty-second
when he made his debut against Uru-
guay in 1986 and, until the appoint-
ment of Jack Charlton, the previous
five intemational managers all played
at sorne stage for Rovers. When the
All-Ireland Cup was launched in 1968
Rovers were the first winners. Success
was always a by-product of Rovers'
tradition and it was rare to see them
go more than two seasons without
winning a trophy.
Yet the seeds o destruction were
already sown when the Kilcoynes
bought the club from the Cunningham
family in 1972. League of Ireland
soccer was generally going through a
bad phase. Average gates for garnes
had dropped to below 5,000 and
clubs like Rovers were having diffi-
culty holding onto their talented
players, who were constantly being
poached by cross-channel and contin-
ental clubs.
Gradually -Shamrock Rovers began
to lose their shine and the gates drop-
ped further. Other clubs dominated the
league and cup and Rovers fans talked
of past glories, Paddy Coad's domineer-
ing team of the fifties and Sean
Thomas's glamorous and exciting cup
sagas of the sixties.
Then Derryman and former North-
ern Ireland intemational Jim McLaugh-
lin brought his undisputed talents from
Dundalk, where he had ruled Irish
soccer on and off for nine seasons. He
carne in the summer of 1983 and swift1y
built a new team. From Dundalk he
brought goalkeeper Jody Byrne, and
Noel King as assistant and coach. He
persuaded Pat Byrne to leave Scottish
league club Hearts to captain Rovers
tained McLaugh1in's momentum as
and from north Dublin rivals McLaugh-
lin poached Liam O'Brien, Kevin Brady
and Terry Eviston. Mick Neville carne
from Drogheda and Dermot Keely was
delighted to forego his job as player-
manager of UCD to join McLaughlin.
It was Bohemians that Rovers left
in their wake as they lifted the tit1e for
the first time in twenty seasons. Rovers
were also in the F Al cup final and were
favourites to complete the double,
again for the first time since 1964. But
after a goal-less draw at Dalymount
Park, UCD won the replay,
Alan Campbell and Liam Buckley
had been Rovers' top scorers that
season and their predatory instincts
didn't go unnoticed in Europe, where
they were subsequently transferred to
Span and Belgium respectvely. Me-
Laughlin replaced them easily with
Noel Larkin and Mick Byrne and this
time won the double.
D
ESPITE THE SUCCESS THE
Kilcoynes were said to be
worried about the game's falling
fortunes. Amazingly Rovers were at-
tracting less supporters to Milltown
during their double winning season
than in their barren years. The intro-
duction of "live" English soccer was
blamed and the more significant fact
that more and more people were play-
ing rather than watching soccer. Still
Mcl.aughln went on his winning ways,
despite losng his top players each year.
Noel King and Jacko McDonagh
were signed by two French clubs.
McLaughlin replaced them with Paul
Doolin from Bohemians and Mick
O'Connor from Athlone. They fitted
in admirably as Galway replaced Bo-
hemians as Rovers' nearest challengers.
The opposition didn't matter and
McLaughlin's team won the league and
cup again to record a historie doub1e-
doub1e. But the signs on the terraces
were ominous.
Although Bohemians and Dunda1k
challenged Rovers for the tit1e in the
ear1y stages, it was only Galway who
stayed the course and they didn't seern
to attract the same support that games
against Bohemians hado The previous
season, as the two Dublin rivals chal-
lenged for the title, their first league
encounter of the season had drawn a
crowd of 5,200 payng record gate
receipts of i9,768. Rovers won and
Bohs faded away.
Then Derry City beckoned Sham-
rock Rovers' most successfu1 manager
and in May 1986 Dermot Keely re-
placed Jim McLaughlin, who left to
attempt to repeat his Dundalk and
Rovers success with his native club.
Despite losing Liam O'Brien to Man-
chester United and John Coady to
Chelsea in mid-season, Keely main-
Dundalk failed to stop Rovers in both
the league and the cupo As Keely's
success sank: in, and soccer followers
acknow1edged Rovers' unique triple-
double, the Milltown faithful feared
the worst. The Kilcoynes had made
their decision earlier, ~rhaps when
 McLaugh1in left (there had been
speculation that the Derryrnan knew
what the future held for Shamrock
Rovers, although he has never in-
i dicated this to anyone), The Kilcoynes'
/. decisin had certainly been made be-
fore the club's last league game of the
6-'87 season when they beat Galway
Jnted to retain the championship for
a record fourth successive title. The
fact that only 2,000 turned up to wit-
ness the event seemed to vindicate the
Kilcoynes' decision.
NLY THROUGH THE SALES
of their players were the club,
according to Louis Kilcoyne,
able to reduce their deficit each
season, Rovers would have received
something in the region of f300,000
for the sale of Campbell, Buckley
McDonagh, O'Brien, King and Coady
but, as in all transfer dealings, the
money would have been paid over a
period of months and the Kilcoynes
would not have received any fees in
lump sums.
Gate receipts would have averaged
out at less than i3,500 and, at an
average of fifteen garnes per season,
the total would have fallen well short
of the il 50,000 it cost to run the club
at Milltown. Even with European com-
petition (one garue) and lucrative
friendlies against the likes of Man-
chester United and Arsenal, the short-
fall, the Kilcoynes claim, was as much
as i40,000 per season. Rovers' running
costs were amongst the highest in the
League of Ireland, because to maintain
their success they had to attract the
best players and to do that they had
to offer the best contracts. Rovers
players would have earned an average
of i5,000 e!lch.
When KRAM initially offered
f300,000 for Shamrock Rovers the
Kilcoynes were reported to have replied
that the offer wasn't "exciting enough"
and speculation that i900,000 would
have been a better carrot has also failed
to draw the Rovers management into
negotiation.
As Rovers attempted to settle into
their new home in Dublin's northside,
KRAM and the Rovers Supporters Club
maintained a boycott of Tolka Park.
It began on the openng home match
with approximately a hundred protes-
ters outside the ground, although twice
as many paid in. Over the weeks the
protests escalated, although the num-
morale at the club and as the season
bers of protesters fell away to an
wore on it was clear that Rovers were
average of fifty at each game, The
not gong to be the force of the pre-
crowds also fell away and even the
vous four seasons. Gradually sorne of
introduction of Friday evening games
the players left, Paul Carlyle returned
didn't measurably improve the attend-
to Derry, Damien Byrne took up Brian
ances, When the Evening Press's Con
Kerr's offer to .ion Patrick's Athletic
Houlihan joked that the club should
after the Inchicore club had knocked
read out the names of the crowd over
Rovers out of the Leinster Senior Cup,
the public address system, KRAM knew
Vinnie McCl1rthyreturned to Waterford
54 MAGILLMAY 1988
and Mick Byrne joned the long list of
Rovers playera to be transferred to the
continent, when Den Haag of Holland
signed him in January,
As Rovers slumped, Keely wrestled
with the pro blems on the pitch while
the Kilcoynes remained adamant that
the club would remain at Tolka Park.
On the field Shamrock Rovers failed
to display the skills that had graced
Milltown. Their slky, one-touch foot-
ball was frequently missing and in de-
fence the confidence was replaced by
confusion as Keely unsuccessfully tried
to find the rght combination. The
pressure of playing in front of virtually
no vocal support, almost as if they were
playing away every week, began to
wear the players down and nerves be-
camed frayed. "Rovers are a club with-
out a soul," said one player.
Eventually Dundalk, St Pats and
Bohemians left Rovers behind in their
quest for the title, yet the admiration
for Keely's team remained and fellow
professionals, managers, coaches and
rival supporters all agreed that the move
to Tolka Park had undermined the
champions bid for a fifth successive
title. "There is no doubt that had
Rovers stayed at Milltown they would
have been in contention for the league,"
said one manager.
Not surprisingly, Louis Kilcoyne
did not agree with this assessment. In
an interview with the Sunday Press
Louis Kilcoyne told Michael Carwood
that Paddy and hirnself were committed
to the future of Rovers and were deter-
mined to re-build the team. He admitted
that the boycott of Tolka Park was
"effective" but later he stressed to
they were winning. But the victory
Magill that "t was important to bear
wasn't wthout controversy,
in mind that KRAM and the Supporters
Sorne supporters who didn't agree
Club represent less than a hundred
with the boycott claimed they had people".
been intimidated. In October last year
"In real terms there isn't any public
before a game against Waterford United
interest in this issue and the behaviour
at Kilcohan Park in which the team
of these people has not really affected
arrived late because their coach broke
our determination to succeed at Tolka.
down, Louis Kilcoyne was attacked by
It has, however, succeeded in alienating
supporters who were identified with
the KRAM campaign from everybody
KRAM. Manager Dermot Keely had to
involved in football. We attempted to
change his phone number because he
build bridges with them but we made
was receiving abusive calls. It seemed
it clear that there was no gong back to
that the supporters did not appreciate Milltown."
his jokes about the plight of Rovers
The Kilcoynes have also announced
and his lack of seriousness about the
that they will be applying for planning
subject. Like many of the players, Keely
permission to build luxury houses on
simply wanted to get on with the jobo
the three-and-a-half acre site at Glen-
However, the move certainly did affect
malure Park and that, along with Home
Farm, they will attempt to develop
Tolka Park into a 10,000 all-seater
stadium.
The Sunday Press article incensed
KRAM and the Supporters Club,
particularly when Carwood wrote that
"the takings from league matches this
season is i21,000", just over n,ooo
per game. Louis Kilcoyne later said
th~t M1f'ho:la.l r'....
_....
7~_..J 1 1 ..
wrong '- that he had said there wasan
average of 1,000 spectators per game,
realsing approximately Ed to 1:400
average gate recepts,
Gerry Mackey, the forme! Rovers
player; who is the spokesman for
KRAM, has insisted that the Kilcoynes'
reaction to KRAM.and the Supporters
Club has been "totally inconsistent" in
relation to their concern with the future
of Rovers. "We don't wish to own the
club," said Mackey, "we just want to
see Shamrock Rovers back at Milltown.
We would not have begun our fund-
raising campaign if the Kilcoynes had
not indicated that they would sell the
club. In May last year Louisand Paddy
Kilcoyne said they would sell to us,
and only to. us, but they didn't put a
figure ort the club. Paddy Kilcoyne
said that if we raised sufficient funds
they would talk to us again."
.According to the Kilcoynes, KRAM
failed to raise fnds anywhere near the
value rthey had placed on the Club.
"After our negotiations last summer
w no longer considered thrn to be
anywhere near our requirements and
nothing has happened in the meantime
to make us change our minds," Louis
Kilcoyne said.
"If they say they are going to stay
at Tolka Park," retorted Mackey, "the
boycott wil continue. Unfortunately
we will now have to concentrate our
energies on any planning application
for the development of Milltown. Re-
gretfully it comes down to a conflicto
We are committed to seeing Glenmalure
Park preserved as the home of Sham-
rock Rovers Football Club."
On the surface it seems that the
battle lines have been drawn tighter.
In reality only time will reveal the
future of Shamrock Rovers and whether
in fact the Kilcoynes continue to own
the club. When asked if there was a
family split over the future of Rovers,
Paddy Kilcoyne emphatically said
"No!" while almost srnultaneously
Louis said "Y es!" laughngly ,
FTER THE FAILUREOFTHE
A
". '. former Rovers player a~d ex-
Derry manager, Noel King, to
raise an interest in the resurrection f
Drumcondra, the original tenants at
Tolk Park , there has been speculation
that King and his brothers would be
interested in Rovers. At this stage Noel
King is seen simply as the most likely
successor to Dermot Keely.
"If anyone gets nvolved in Rovers,"
said Gerry Mackey, "K RAM would
want to talk to them, but who in their
righ t mind would get financially in-
volved with Rovers under the present
situation? Louis Klcoyne now knows
that people know how he would run
Rovers and that we would not be pre-
pared to work with hm, but that is
not true. I don't think anyone in KRAM
would totally rule that out. We have
nevr said categorically that we would
not work with the Kilcoynes, but we
wil only work wth them under certain
circumstances and we will only talk to
them if there are no preconditions laid
down."
Yet, while Gerry Mackey stressed
that there is no "personality hand-up"
in KRAM about the Kilcoynes, con-
versely the owners of Sharrtrock Rovers
have made up their mind about the
future of the club and this seems to
exclude any involvernent by KRAM.
"If they wish to oppose our planning
application, that is fine," said Paddy
Kilcoyne, "as long as they do it
Iegally."
 11.u ,~\, . . .

rnrnrn.~rnm,: ~ {#

rnrn~m~rnr "

A Cele ration
of Van orrison
[by PAU DURCAN

-.r ~;"".1ilF .~

??-.
"I-J r"~im~;
[ .. ..;
"No other Irish poets - writing in either verse or
music -have come within a Honda's roar oi
Patrick Kavanagh and Van Morrison ... In Iect,
the only new development in recent Irish poetry
was Kavanagh's introduction o[ the jazz line and
Morrison's continuation oi it:"

The important thing to remember is that I'm not an

entertainer, I'm an artist - a musician,
- Van Morrison, Amsterdam, ]uly 1973

IVE SPENTTHE
LAST SlX MONTHS TRAVELLING ABOUT, GIV-
ing recitals from my book 'Going Home to Russia': Ireland,
the UK, Canada, Italy. Sorne day I'd like to publish a blow-
by-blow journal of this kind of living - a kind of Forked
Lightning Logbook - one-night stands from Hull to Bolton,
from Montreal to Cape Breton, from Coleraine to
Castlecomer, from Olivetti to Perugia - but, just for now,
I'd like to report that 1 brought along with me for eompany
the tapes of Van Morrison. The operative word is
eompany.
Being an artist of any kind is by definition a lonely
oeeupation. But in addition to the nature of the job there
is the faet that soeially it's lonely (1 mean soeially as well
as spiritually) beeause 1 don't like the eompany ofliterary
people or, rather, there are very few literary people in
whose eompanyI'd want to be in or, rather, 1 don't find
literary people companionable - neither their violenee nor
their holiness.
Literary people seem to me to speeialise in a unique
blend of insineerity and sanetimoniousness; it's a
combination that makes me eringe and 1 am glad to take
refuge in my Sony Walkman. When 1 wake up in the
morning in a bedroom on the seventeenth floor - after the
initial shoek - 1 reaeh for my Sony Walkman.
But it's not only the actual.Jaws themselves - it's that

\1AGILLMAY 1988 57
 whole mafia of literary wheeler-dealers comprising James Myself, if 1 was Minister for Education, I'd bring in a
Bond academics, Ayatol!ah publishers, hyster ical new curriculum in the morning and top of my list would
columnists, club critics, who bestride the one vast literary be Kavanagh and Morrison. Al! of Kavanagh and
bider on [he slopes of Parnassus; there they squat al! the Morrison - not my selection 01' Saint Augustine's selection
year round , hooded fossils, self-regarding, satisfied, 01' Barry McGuigan's selection 01' Dean Martin's selection
oblivious braoding, conspiring. but the entire oeuvre and let the audience (students are a
There are exceptions. There have been times when 1 free audience - not a concentration camp of suitable
have carried my Sony Walkman half-ways around the victirns) pick out what they like and what they don'tlike.
world without ever taking it out of my bag: with Tom Having been Minister for Education , I'd then like to be
::'IcCarthy in Yorkshire , with Anthorry Cronin in Russia, a member of the audience and 1'01' my essay in the Leaving
with Jennifer Johnston in Montreal, with Dermot Bolger Certificate Examination at the end of two years listening
in the Hague, with Seamus Heaney in Boston, with Medbh to Morrison, 1 might choose to offer the following Top
McGuckian in Saskatoon. Thirty of Morrison poerns:

TE
1. 'Summertime in England'
2 'Rol!ing Hil!s'
3 'In the Garden'
4 'Cleaning Windows'
DAY 1 5 'Listen 1'0 The Lion'
ARRIVED BACK FROM CANADA - SATURDA y 6 'Snow In San Anselmo'
MARCH 19 - was the day Ireland reached its nadir. After 7 'Rave On, John Donne'
twenty years of mucking about in the depths of our own 8 'Alan Watt's Blues'
nadir, we finally got there, ju~t after noon on Saturday 9 'A Sense of W onder'
March 19. 1 was half-asleep - having got off the jumbo from 10 'Hard Nose The Highway'
New York at 8.15 amo But strangely enough - strangely 11 'Madame George'
- it was on the evening ofthe same day that Van Morrison 12 'Queen Of The Slipstream'
from East Belfast climbed up on an open air stage outside 13 'Gloria'
the Bank of Ireland in Dublin. And not only that but there 14 'Into The M ystic'
and then he chose to col!aborate with Mchel O 15 'If Y ou And 1 Could Be As Two'
Sil!eabhin, a traditional musician par excellence who, 16 'Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart'
precisely because he is a truly traditional art ist , is morc 17 'Tare Down A La.Rimbaud' .
avant-garde t han the avant-garde. 18 'Cypress Avenue'
And not only that again but - and this is the cake beneath 19 'Foreign yYindow'
the icing - their finale was 'On Raglan Road', 20 'Tir na nOg'
Van Morrison's rendition 01' Patrick Kavanagh's 'On 21 'Irish Rover'
Raglan Road' is fitting because it brings together the two 22 'Ballerina'
finest poets in Ireland in my lifetime. No other Irish peots 23 'And It Stoned Me'
- writing in either verse 01' music - have come within a 24 'The Streets 01' Arklow'
Honda's roar 01' Kavanagh and Morrison. 25 ' T.B. Sheets'
Both Northerners - salid ground boys. Both primarily 26 'Ivory Tower'
jazzmen, bluesmen, sean-nos. Both concerned with the 27 'Hey GirI'
mystic - how t o live with it , by it , in it; how to transform 28 'S! Dominic's Preview'
it; how to reveal it. Both troubadours. Both very ordinary 29 'And The Healing Has Begun'
blokes. Both drumlin mcn - rolling hills meno Both loners. 30 'Full Force Gale'
Both comcdians. Both lovepoets. Both Kerouac freaks.
And I'd state in my Leaving Certificate essay that no
Both storytcl!ers. Both obsessed with the hegira - from
Irish poet since Kavanagh had produced poetry of the
Monaghan too the GrandCanal, from East Belfast to
calibre of those thirty compositions. Even the very titles
Caledonia. Both originals, not imitators. Bothfirst-time
are original, I'd state also that in order to introduce William
cars, not copycats. Both crazy. Both sane as sane can be.
Blake to an audience you dori't necessarily give them poems
Both asci natcd by ar once their own Englishness and their
by William Blake. You give thern Morrison's 'Listen 1'0
own Irishness. Both obsessed with audien.: and with the The Lion .'
primacy (JI' audienee in any act 01' occasion of song 01' art .
I'd write a love letter to the examiners about my favourite
Borh fascinated by the USA. Both Zen Buddhists, Both
Morrison poems. I'd tel! them about 'Summertime In
in love with names - placenames as well as personal names:
England', which to me is an Irishrnan's Hymn to the
Cypress Avenue, Inniskeen Road; San Anselmo, Islington;
Englishness thar is inall of us if wc: care to look inside
BofTyf1ow and Spike, Shancoduff; The Eterrial Kansas
ourselves - which, of course, so many of us don't, except
City, The Rowley Mile; Madame George, Kiuv Stobling:
when we're eating young English soldiers for lunch.
Jackie Wilson, Farher Mat; O Solo Mio by MrGimpscv.
John Bctjcnran on Drumcondra Ro ad.
Can you meet me in the country,
In the summertime in England,
Will you meet me)

The middle 01' the poem contains sorne of the sweetest lines
in 20th ceritury Irish poetry.
YUHEARTALK
ABOUT THE LEA VING CE.R TIFICA TE POETR Y Oh my common one with the coat so old
Curriculum. They say they might change it. But you don't And the light in the head.
hear thern saying they'l! put Van Morrison on the Leaving She said, daddy, don't stroke me,
Certificate Poetry Curriculum. 'Van Morrison, are they Call me the common one.
a group:" asked whizzkid EEC Cornrnissioner Petcr 1 said, Oh, common one, nry illuminated one,
SutherIand in a courtroom in 1982.
Oh my high in the art of sulfering one.

58 MAGILLMAY 1988
 No timr [or sltorshrnr;
fI(ml N;st thr fli,!',hl('{/v,

I'd \\Til(' ;"oul Morri,ol1', visit (o 'TIll' (:!lIIIT!l 01' l r.l.md

in his 'Ti r 11;1l1()g:;,; i l il \\'a, I kit' 0111\' clllll<!J in l rcl.u ul
'1'11('1'('\\;lS ,ju,t l!lis 01J(' ch u rch 111lr('I;ll1d .u u l 01J(' d'l\.
;:I't('I' thousaur l 01'\'(';11',. a 11Ial1,,,lo\>l)('d t!lt'n',;I ui.in "alkd
Morrison. and h wro: a \>oelll abou: it - al)Out t his s(ral1g'"
place, thi s strang'l' ,ile, t h is strang'e iJuilding calkd ''1'11('
Church 01' l rcl.md'.
Maylx- l'cl telI th.-m also that 1 lil: Morriso n \lCcause
1 know ih.u hi s work COllles Irorn i h same le\'l'l ;1Sm v ()\\11
poetry - t hr leve! odavdrcaming: Ihat hc's out lo annihilal"
ego; that hc's alter thc sanie 'nothingness' as Kavanagh was
aftcr. In this sense, he's not realIy a poet at all , no more
than I am . He's alter the musical technique ofhow to live.
I'd wi nd up by saying that in the cnd only two things
cou n t : that poetry is o l it s vcrv e"'('nCl' part 01' an age-old
oral and placcn.uu uadir ion (k nown il1 l rish as t l:
dmdserlch!l\) ane! Morrison is a modcrn l rish cxrm plar 01
that ancicnr tradition; and that , secondly, in anything io
do with anything we eare to ealI art , it is in the end alI
about audienee - so that cven ir, say, you're a writer, it
is what you rcad that eounts most, not what you write.
The reason th ar many poets writc awful poetry is bccau::
rhey don'( read 01' lisien 01' wauh ; they are too hu
listening lO their egos 01' parae!ing thcir competing
nationalism, instcad 01' bcmg part of the audienee t hat \\1'
all are. As Morrison says in 'Tore Down A La Rimbaud':

Showed me pictures in the gallery,

Showed me nouels on the shel],
Put my hands across the lable,
Cave me knowledge of myself

It's also a humorous poem and each time he sings it, down
the years, Morrison improvises; like Kavanagh, he is a
maestro of the improvised linc. In fact, the only new 1973 ON RTE
development in recent Irish poetry was Kavanagh's TELEVISION MORRISON SANC A POEM WHICH
introduction of the jazz line and Morrison's continuation he called 'Drumshambo Hustle'. 1 have never met him and
of it. Kavanagh was a great tenor sax who was content to 1 am glad to say that 1 know little or nothing about his
blow his horn in the sunlit angles of Dublin street-corners personal life - an achievement m anonymity which is as
in the 1950s. He was the King of Anonymity. refreshing as it is inspiring. 1 think of him simply as 'The
I'd tell them about the spiritual adventure of Morrison's Drumshambo Hustler' or, in his present incarnation on
poems which parallels Kavanagh's philosophy of 'not Raglan Road, as 'The Secret Signatory' who, over a span
caring'. From 'No Curu, No Method, No Teacher' I'd of twenty-five years, has given us a body of work to put
quote the poem 'In The Carden', and the lines: besieIe the legacy of that other great Irish jazzman of the
twentieth century, Kavanagh:
The summer breeze was blowing on your face;
Within your violet you treasure your summery words; I gave her gifts of the mind, I gave her the secret sign
And as the shiver from my neck down to my spine that's knoion
Ignited me in daylight - and nature in the garden. To the artists who have known the true gods of sound
and stone
I'd quote the refrain from 'Alan Watts Blues': And word and tint - I did not stint - for I gave her
poems to say .
When I'm cloud-hidden; With her own name there and her own dark hair like
Cloud-hidden; clouds over fields of May.
Whereabouts unknoton,
Paul Durcan has publshed a number of books of poetry, inc1uding:
I'd quote the pearl from 'Queen of the Slipstream': 'Endsville' (with Brian Lynch), New Writers Press, Dublin, 1967;
'O Westport in the Light of Asia Minar', Anna Livia Press, Dublin,
1975; 'Teresa's Bar', Gallery Press, Dubln, 1976, 1986; 'Sani's Cross',
There's a dream where the contents are visible,
Profile Press, Dubln 1978; '[esus, Break His Fell,' Raven Arts Press,
Where the poetic champions compose, Dubln 1980; 'Ark of the Nortb', Raven Arts Press, Dublin 1982; 'Tbe
Se1ected Paul Durcen', Blackstaff Press, Be1fast, 1982 (Poetry Ireland
I'd quote from 'Hard Nose the Highway': Choice), 1985; 1umping the Train Tracks with Ange1a', Raven Arts
Press, Dubln/Carcanet New Press, Msmchester, 1983; 'The Berln
Seen some hard times; Wall Cafe', Blackstaff Press, Bcllest, 1985 (Poetry Book Society
Drawn some bad lines; Choice); 'Going Home to Russia', Blackstaff Press, Be1fast, 1987.

MAGILL MAY 1988 59


Bertie Boy
NOW ISN'T THAT A NICE THOUGHT - COUSIN BERTIE
Ahern as the next Taoiseach when Charle Haughey steps down,
although it's doubtful if Bertie is holding his breath for that
historie momento Haughey does everything Lemass did - or as
near as he can get to it. The old Fianna Fail hands always say
Lemass "carne too late and left too early." It looks like Charlie
will not be leaving too early, even though he was a late-comer.
. Haughey wants to leave on an up-beat note like Lemass.
That won't happen in the lifetime of the present House, The
coming year is one of cuts. Cuts are negatve polities. And
with his stock soaring at the pools he can, barring accidents,
pick his own time to go to the country to renew the mandate.
Haughey as Taoiseach of the 26th Dail is, as of now, the
nearest we will get to a political certainty. It would be a creative
Dail in which Haughey would retum to something of his role
as the Minister for Finance. The rising tide would lift all the
boats now lying on the mudflats of the 25th Dail. This, at least,
is how he would like to see it.
Rehabilitation Shuffle
THE SUNDAY PRESS POLL RESULTS SHOW THAT THE
politicians up at the cutting face get a low totem poll rating,
It would be the Haughey strategy to switch them in a shuff1e
so as to rehabilitate them and even things up for a Succession
Stakes race.
Ray MacSharry used to have the Tanaiste tag laid well by
running Bertie to one percentage point as the preference to
succeed Charlie,
He has been the "Brutal Bruton" man of Fianna Fail, leaving
John in the ha 'penny place as a cutting Finance Minister. That
image would be shed in Europe were he to become our next
Commissioner. It would allow Haughey a re-shuffle so that the
Rory O'Hanlons would have a ministerial change and time to
be political1y rehabilitated. Think of Cousin Bertie as Minister
for Health!
The Gravitas Stakes
3ERTIE AHERN HAS A LOT GOING FOR HIM BUT HE'S
saort on gravitas. As a matter of fact if we are to score the
;::esent Cabinet on the gravitas scale, we would get a completely
6() MGILLMAY 1988
different set of ratings to those in the Sunday Pre ss pollo
JOHN WILSON was in the lower end of the poll, scoring
two per cent with Michael Noonan.Mary O'Rourke and Padraig
Flynn, On the gravitas scale Wilson scores 110 out of 100. He
fires off Greek and Latin tags at his ease. He has the height fo;
it and he can carry it off on a very good day.
BRIAN LENIHAN is everyone.'s favourite Fianna Fail mar
and in FF itself he trailed Ahern and MacSharry by two pero
centage points at nine, though the pollsters admitted that, tak-
ing the totality of urban and rural party men, Brian was "the
most popular man and minister". Brian knows all about the
importance of gravitas. He brings it with him in the briefcase
to Maryfield, Brussels and London, and peor Tom King, Leni-
han's biggest fan after Sir Geoffrey Howe, knows a little gravi-
tas goes a long way.
CHARLIE HAUGHEY, like Brian at selected times, suts
himself out in it depending on the days of the week. On week-
ends he's inclined to hang it up on the bathroom door to take
the creases out of it so that he can be suitably dressed for the
political week. In the last five trying months, he has favoured <.
moresolemn sense of gravitas. We live in sombre times.
PADRAIG FLYNN has the heght of it and has beenquietly
cultivating something of the grand manner - which isn't quite
the same thing as gravitas - since he entered the 25th Dail.
He distinguished himself then as the "Ioudest" backbenche:
of his day when he tumed up in a suit from the wardrobe o:
'Guys and Dolls'. It's been uphill all the way since. Nowadays
he cultivates a sense of gravitas with every major media outing
Has to be scoring sxty-fve or better.
MICHAEL O'KENNEDY has the height and the sense o:
gravitas but it doesn't sit easily on him as a politician. Wean
better as a barrister with a sure-fire briefing. Score him on sixty
Brian Lenihan: a little gravitas
gO&sa long way
RAy MacSHARRY is just a little on the slight side, figur-
wise, to score more than eighty , His intensity of gaze wher
talking person-to-person can be discornfiting if you are a spoofe:
Life is grim; life is real. Time cannot be wasted. The situatio:
is too grave and it's my responsibility to do something about j
MICHAEL NOONAN, scored low in the SP at two percent
has the potential for growth. Score him, for the moment, z
forty-eght and hope he'l1 do better with another Ministry: i:
Fianna Fail Defence is only one step aboye the Board of Works
RAy BURKE, the SP's lone one per center, doesn't hay
the word gravitas, or the concept, in his repertoire. Burke take
aboard the ministerial problems of the day and gives them h;
best stroke , to quote The Boss.
When the Boss tells him he should cultivate a bit of gravita;
Ray will agree, retum to his office, call in the Secretary of th
Department and hand him the pro blem and will expect the frs
situation paper on the matter in two days at the outside. "Tl;
Boss wants it." If and when he perceives the political need fe
it he'l1 go after it singlemindedly - score him forty for tl;
momento
MICHAEL WOODS tends to be sornethingof an apologise
 on Good Friday night was held
Fish and Veg in the West County Hotel on
the edge of the town and a
IT WAS NOT A HAPPY full attendance of councillors
Easter for Brendan, who has was reported.
in recent months been up to Mr Daly, who convened
his neck with the contro- the historie meeting, was spot-
versial and unpopular pro- ted in Ennis the following
posal to tax angling. At home afternoon ensuring that the
for Easter Brendan made sorne boycott was -effective. Un-
fresh enemies when he refused fortunately for the Minister,
to support a massive rally a vigilant woman not at all
organised to protest against happy with what many des-
the alleged run-down of Ennis cribed as a "Judas-like " per-
General Hospital. formance by the TD, displayed
The Ennis rally on Easter a talented aim when she hit
Saturday, attended by several Mr Daly with a slightly impure
Miehael O'Kennedy: seo red a sixty Gerry ollins: twentyfive (maybe) thousand people from all parts cab bage from long distance in
as well as being a little on the slight side. Lacks the Wilson of the county, was addressed the market square.
ability to inflate his own sense of self-importance and thus by doctors and nurses from Mr Daly, already in trouble
give himself the necessary stature; but deserved his place in the the hospital who complained . with the local anglers and with
SP poll, coming fifth behind the leader. Score him at thirty -five.
of third world conditions be- the GAA, decided to cut his
ALBERT REYNOLDS will be pleased to find himself near ing created for the sick and losses and drove out of town.
poor in the west of Ireland.
the upper end of the SP scale. He doesn't worry much about
his lack of personal gravitas, preferring to get on with the job Revolutionary
- but then Haughey was a bit like that in the pasto Albert
would say it comes with the job, like the ministerial medal Dev
from the President, and he might be right at that. A potential COULD THE MINOR EARTH
seventy. tremors which have been
GERRY COLLINS scored three per cent in the SP and noticed in the Glasnevin area '
must be pleased with himself: he would expect it after his of late have anything at all
blunt talking to the British. In Limerick they'd call that gravi- to do with the fact that the
tas and they'd score Gerry lOO out of lOO with an extra five colours of the new Iris Press
points for putting the boot in, holding it matched Peter Barry's masthead are red, white and
off-air (as he thought) remark as to what colour Michael Mates blue?
sported , A potential twenty-five.
MARY O'ROURKE isn't her brother Brian but she has the
same sharp Lenihan mind and if there is to be a Thatcher
Stubble
among the women in Irish politics just now, O'Rourke must be
the favourite. When it comes to gravitas, score her at seventy-
Trouble
five because she can develop that, too, to match her stamina GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
in a tough Ministry. Being a cutter cost her a two per cent were thrown into a terrible
rating in the SP. lather one eveningduring
RORY O'HANLON has too many cominatcha critics to Easter week when a mysteri-
have time to develop a sen se of gravitas, so busy is he fending ous package addressed to
off the constant shower of brickbats coming from all sides. Gerry Collins, the head bottle-
His SP 0.5 rating - half of one per cent - must be ternporary. washer at the Department of
For his application to the job in hand, recognition will come Justice, was delivered to the .
from Haughey. He has time to develop a good sen se of gravitas. civil service canteen nearby
Score him at sixty-five. on St Stepheri's Green. The
BRENDAN DALY's SP score was the same as O'Hanlon's: package was examined by a
0.5. The Irish are a very charitable people, wouldn't you say? number of officials who, after
prodding and probing it for a
while, decided to call in an
A speaker from the GAA army bomb disposal squad.
accused the government of When the suspect parcel was
'atternptng to intimidate the blown up in a controlled ex-
clubs out of attending the plosion it was discovered to
rally by threatening to with-' contain ... a shaving kit, ob-
hold funds from those that viously sent by one of Gerry's
flew their banners on the admirers fromhis days as a
streets of Ennis. But what five-o'clock-shadowed student
really got up the noses of activist,. when his designer
the traditionally loyal Fianna stubble excited only marginal-
Fail CIare folk was the news ly less envy than his prowess
that their Minister had called as a nose-flutist.
a meeting on the previous Asked to comment on this
nght imposing a whip on all close shave for the Justice
Fianna Fail councillors pre- Minister,a government spokes-
venting them from participat- woman said: "We never dis-
ing in the marcho The meeting cuss security matters."

MAGILLMAY 1988 61

Sorne survvors of the old
Liam Cosgrave "rump" sur-
faced , Kieron Crotty, Michael
Begley , Mickey Joe Cosgrave
and Larry McMahon went up
front, but otherssuch as John
Bruton , Jim Mitchell and Fer-
gus O'Brien also made it
abundantly clear that, while
they were forced to publicly
support the leader, their real
sympathies lay, not just with
Donnellan personally, but
with his basic assessment of
one Alan Dukes.
President who recognised
Donnellan talking to friends Tall Story
on the steps of Leinster House. ACTOR RAOUL JULIA WAS
They introduced themselves a worried man when ABC
to the Galwayman, reminded television executives e ast him
him they had an appointment in the part of the late Greek
with him to dscuss an up- shipping tycoon Aristotle On-
coming pece of legislation assis for the mini-series based
affecting Union members. on Peter Evans's biography,
Donnellan looked quizzi- "Aristotle Onassis was only
cally at thern and admitted: five foot six. I'm six foot
"Gentleman, 1 have to tell two," Julia told Evans during
you that 1 know fuck-all the shooting of the series last
about it." year.
The gentlemen had enough The former Fleet Street
presence of mind to press on literary gossip columnist
into Leinster House where calmed the actor and recalled
Sheehan encountered a poli- an anecdote from the Greek
tical correspondent, an old sex symbol. "People made a
friend , to whom he related mistake aboutme," Onassis
the story, inviting an opinion, told Evans. "They think I'm
only to be told: "Y ou met a little man, but I'm not.
one of the few honest men in When you write this book 1
this House: where others want you to make me six foot
would have spoofed you he two inches."
told you the truth. Count Charlie Haughey is six foot
yourself lucky." six,

FG in the Soup Medjugorje Ha trick"

ALANDUKESAROSEFROM
the shafting of John Donnellan
a sadder, if not wiser, mano
The vast majority of the FG
troops had dutifully backed
his demand for the head of
the quarefella. But ten of them
stubbomly refused to toe the
line and many others made it
clear they were only doing so
because Dukes left them no
other choice.
Theundertaking misfired
from the moment Donnellan
growled that he might well
have been out of order in
impugnng his leader's ability
to survive a soup shower. John
Bruton signalled his sym-
pathies by refusing to second
.han, the Waterford-born Secre-
the leader's expulsion motion;
Peter Barry abstained on an
amendment censurng the
Galway man; John Kelly and
Pat Cooney carne right out
and said Dukes was badly
over-reacrng.
62 MAGILL MAY 1988
A DEEPENING SPLIT IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN
Yugoslavia over the alleged Marian apparitions at Medjugorje
has attraeted remarkably little attention in the secular press
he re a1though, interestingly , the Iris Catholic devoted a full
page to the controversy in its edition of April 14. The laek of
interest is surprsing, given that Medjugorje has now replaeed
Fatima as the seeond most favoured Marian shrine for Irish
pilgrims - after Lourdes. Around 2S ,000 Irish people are
expected to make the journey to the tiny - but rapidly ex-
panding - Yugoslav village this year. Over the summer months
regular flights willleave Dublin, Cork, Belfast and Shannon for
Split or Mostar arports.
However, Bishop Pavao Zanie of Mostar-Duvno, the dioeese
in whieh Medjugorje is situated, has denouneed the alleged ap-
paritions in forthright terms. "It is a trick. There is a lot of sly-
Honest John ness and a lot of exploitation of people going on ... Who can
say that Mary will appear every day at sueh and su eh an hour?
SOONER OR LA TER JOHN
They (the pilgrirns) aet like people lining up at a box office."
Donnellan had to pay the price
The bishop says that "not one" of his dioeesan priests believes
of blunt speaking. Jack Shee-
in the apparitions.
Bishop Zanic had originally adopted an agnostie attitude to
tary of the Irish Postmasters'
the claims of the young villagers but ehanged his mind after
Union, fixed an appointment
the Virgin was alleged to have made a statement in support of
with Donnellan when he had
the Franeiseans in relation to a jurisdietional dispute between
special responsbility for
the Franciseans and the diocese. One of the "visionaries" later
Posts and Telegraphs in the
wrote to the bishop warning him about the judgment of God if
early '80s. Sheehan arrived in .
he didn't make a publie statement aeeepting the authentieity
Dail Eireann with the Union of the visions.
Two of the Franeiseans have been suspended by the bishop
but have refused to aceept the ruling. "This is the most dis-
obedient province in the world," Bishop Zanie has complained.
Although Bishop Zanic has pleaded with priests from outside
not to accompany pilgrimages to Medjugorje , lest they seem to
endorse the visions and undermine his authority, and this stand
is officially supported by the Yugoslav bshops' eonferenee,
priests eontinue to come in sufficient numbers to eoneelebrate
Mass every evening in St J ames' s Chureh where the Virgin
Mary is said to appear daily at 6.30 p.m, All pilgrimages from
Ireland appear to be aeeompanied by priests acting as "spiritual
direetors". The Papal Nuncio to Ireland, Dr Alibrandi, was
among Medjugorje pilgrims last year and told Irish pilgrims
there that he had "no doubt" the visions were authentie.