Just Mary

by Mary O'Rourke

  I took it upon myself then to start to write to Paddy. In turn he would reply to my letters — although usually after a long interval! — telling me among other things that since he had been away, he had learned some wonderful poems by the folk poet, Robert W. Service, and in particular, ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew’. I wrote to ask him if he could send me the words of this poem, as I wanted to learn it off by heart as a future party piece. Paddy duly obliged and by return of post, I received the words of what I referred to as ‘Dangerous Dan McGrew’. Once I had learned these and had all the words and various intonations off just so, I sprang a surprise rendition upon my family. They were completely amazed, particularly when I told them that Paddy had sent me the poem. It was a funny little interlude, but a measure, I think, of the friendship and rapport we shared.

  After he had been in England for a few years, Paddy started to come home for summer holidays. He was always tall, but now he had broadened out and was a fine, strong young man — the hard work in the mines had seen to that. He certainly seemed to have toned down his wilder inclinations: again, perhaps that too was down to all the hard work. I guess that even then, when there would have been a shortage of workers in the mines, you had to be on top of your game to keep your job. On one trip home, during the time we were all still living at the Hodson Bay Hotel, Paddy met Brid O’Flaherty, a fine young Connemara woman who had trained in Cathal Brugha Street in Dublin as a chef and was now head cook in the Hodson Bay Hotel. She and Paddy hit it off well, but he went back to his work in the mines in Worksop and she stayed in her job directing the kitchens in the Hodson Bay. Soon, however, Paddy started to come home more regularly and we all knew that the reason was his attraction to Brid O’Flaherty. And so it was no surprise when he eventually came home for good, married Brid and set up in business with the Athlone Transport Company, which I helped him to run. Paddy drove the haulage lorries, while I kept the books.

  When he came back to his home town, Paddy got involved in Fianna Fáil and went on to become a member of the Fianna Fáil National Executive. He famously fell out with Charlie Haughey over Neil Blaney and the republican movement. Of a strongly republican bent himself, Paddy had taken the part of Neil Blaney at a National Executive meeting. After this incident, he decided to leave the Fianna Fáil organisation and continued on his political path as an Independent Fianna Fáil Councillor on Roscommon County Council. Was this a cause for any embarrassment to my father or Brian Snr, who were both then advanced in their political careers? No, not a bit of it!

  I always loved Paddy dearly, and all in all, he was a really good brother to me. He and Brid went on to have a lovely family: Pádraig, Gráinne, Caoimhín and Finbarr. Young Caoimhín was autistic, at a time before the causes or effects of autism were known about as fully as they are now, and Brid and Paddy and all of the family would have immense challenges to face in this regard. A lovely young man, tragically Caoimhín died very young in a swimming pool incident. Pádraig, who is my godchild, joined the Irish Army and then went on to become a lecturer in history in both NUI Galway and the University of Limerick. Gráinne (my dear friend, whom I mentioned at the very opening of this book) became a secondary school teacher after a few years of adventuring in Algeria and various other exotic locations. Finbarr qualified in medicine and now practises in Edinburgh.

  Anyway, back to the late summer of 2010, and before Paddy’s deteriorating health necessitated his admittance to Roscommon Hospital, there had been an earlier happy interlude for the whole family. It was during one of the holiday weekends in August, and Paddy was still at home, king of his own domain, at ease and happy to see the family, and Brian Jnr in particular, who had come down to Athlone with Patricia, Tom and Clare for a few days. The occasion was the relaunch of my father’s sailing boat, the ‘67’, at the Lough Ree Yacht Club, and I had asked Brian to do the honours at the event.

  Just to explain, my father had had a very fine sailing boat which he left to the Lough Ree Yacht Club for the use of young people who might not have the means to go sailing: he had asked that the club would provide sailing lessons in his boat for what we would now call disadvantaged young people. The club had duly carried out his wishes for some years and it had all worked out very successfully. Following a conversation between myself and Alan Algeo, Commodore of the yacht club, we had decided to have the boat refurbished, and this was the rationale behind the re-launch.

  Brian duly performed the honours at the Lough Ree Yacht Club. Before he did so, Harman Murtagh, on behalf of the club, bade him welcome, in a most wonderful and moving address. Harman is a renowned historian and art collector and his father and mine had been friends long ago, not from political circles, but through sailing and the common bond of living in Athlone.

  After the ceremony, we all went on to a lovely dinner in the Wineport Lodge. The memory of that dinner and of the happiness we shared on that August weekend will forever be in my mind, bright and strong. Brian was in great form and at the dinner he particularly enjoyed talking to our close friends, Hugh and Celine Campbell. Hugh has an encyclopaedic knowledge of European and Irish history, but needless to say, Brian was able to match Hugh memory for memory and word for word! Patricia was in great form, as were Tom and Clare, and the family had booked themselves into the Hodson Bay Hotel. In a way, I now realise that it was Brian’s farewell to Athlone, although he would be there on two occasions yet to come, which I will tell of in due course.

  On the Saturday morning after the launch of the ‘67’, Brian walked from the Hodson Bay Hotel up the road to see Paddy, who lived in the first house on the avenue near the Hodson Bay Road. Paddy and Brian sat together for a good hour and a half, talking and talking — of history, of the world, of the family and surely many other things. Paddy, like Brian, had words at will, and that morning must have marked for them both a special watershed in their lives.

  Later that Saturday afternoon, we all visited my son Aengus in his home at Barrybeg on the Roscommon Road. Brian was delighted to see Aengus and his wife Lisa and their lovely children. When Brian and his family left the following day for the next part of their trip — a week in London — he rang me to say how much they had all enjoyed themselves. It is so poignant to think now that this was to be one of their last holidays together as a family.

  That weekend in August 2010 had a dreamlike quality for all of us, and particularly, I imagine, for Brian. The lovely trip on the lake; the launch of the ‘67’; the coming together of old friends; the rare let-up in public pressure; the delicious meal in relaxed company in the Wineport Lodge, and so on. For the rest of us, it was easy to forget that weekend that Brian was as ill as he was. I remember how I talked about it after he had gone back, with Aengus and Feargal and his wife Maeve, who had also come down for the weekend. We buoyed each other up, I suppose, saying that maybe Brian would be one of the very few lucky ones who managed to escape the coils of pancreatic cancer. But deep within me, I knew it would not be so, and that we were of course just fooling ourselves. As for Brian himself, there was something in his face at that time, always, which seemed to betray that he knew the end was coming and that he was now resigned to it.

  Brian’s next visit to Athlone would be for the sad occasion of my brother Paddy’s funeral, in the second week of October 2010. As I have said, the family had known for some time that the end was near for Paddy, but we were all choked up with grief when he finally left us. Before he died, I had been to see him several times in Roscommon and also in Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe. No matter how ill he was, there was always the lovely light in his eyes when he would see me coming into his room. That was my beloved brother, Paddy.

  I feel it reflects so well on Brian Lenihan that, even at the height of his own very severe illness and indeed when he was nearing the end himself, he honoured his family commitments and came to pay the fullest of tributes to his uncle — by his presence in Flynn’s Removal Home, by his presence at the Mass, at the graveyard and at the lunch afterwards. I will always re
member the honour he paid Paddy.

  Chapter 20

  BÉAL NA MBLÁTH

  If that idyllic weekend of the Lough Ree Yacht Club event in August 2010 had been a magical one for us as a family, another occasion of great national significance was soon on the horizon. This was the commemoration of the death of Michael Collins at Béal na mBláth, on 22 August. Brian Lenihan would play a central part in these proceedings too.

  In July 2010, about a month prior to the event, the Fine Gael TD, Jim O’Keeffe had issued an invitation to Brian, asking if he would speak at the forthcoming remembrance for Collins. Never before had a leading member of Fianna Fáil been asked to address the faithful at what is naturally a highly significant event in the Fine Gael political calendar. This was a huge invitation and honour for Brian and, with his own historical and legal knowledge, he was even more intensely aware of the implications of such a gesture. Naturally, he accepted.

  After what would be a very memorable occasion in many ways, I wrote a short piece for publication, which appeared a year to the day in the Irish Daily Mail, and after the death of Brian Lenihan. Written as it was relatively soon after the Béal na mBláth event itself, I think it captures very well the atmosphere and tenor of that day, and so I include it here as it first appeared:

  This Sunday twelve months ago, at around 9 a.m., we left Athlone to travel to West Cork. Anyone observing us loading up so early could see we were going somewhere for a purpose and yes, indeed we were.

  Was it a GAA match? No — indeed that day Cork was meeting Dublin in Croke Park, so we were going in the wrong direction. In fact, we were going to Béal na mBláth in West Cork, where each year on the Sunday nearest the death date of Michael Collins (22 August 1922), the faithful gather to pay tribute to him. Mostly they have one of their own to give the address, occasionally they have asked an outsider but always with a purpose. On this occasion, their chosen guest was Brian Lenihan, TD, the then Minister for Finance.

  During that previous week, the papers had been full of this invitation which had been issued to Brian Lenihan from the Michael Collins Commemorative Committee at Béal na mBláth, asking him to come and to deliver the yearly address.

  A few days beforehand, Mícheál, a close friend of mine in Athlone, had called one night and suggested we should travel to Cork to hear the address and to be part of what we knew would be a forever-to-be-remembered, historic occasion. We enlisted another dear friend, Seamus, whom we asked to take the wheel and off we went, three Fianna Fáil people from Athlone, who wanted to travel to Cork to honour the death of Michael Collins. The weather was promised fair, but we loaded our umbrellas and our coats and set off through the soft undulating countryside of Offaly.

  Athlone to West Cork is a long distance, but we hardly felt it as we moved onwards and onwards. As we neared Béal na mBláth, the crowds were swelling and the attentive and careful Gardaí were on duty everywhere. We pressed on, however, keen to get an advantageous spot, which we eventually did — very near the place where the talk was to be given and where the crowds pressed most keenly in anticipation.

  Neither I nor my two companions had ever been to Béal na mBláth before. Yes, I had traversed all of West Cork further on and on, but had never taken the turn which led to this hallowed historic spot. Absorbing the scene, notwithstanding the huge crowds, it was easy to envisage what had happened in this narrow gorge 88 years beforehand. It was a spot tailor-made for an ambush, and which was now taken up by a simple platform where the Committee assembled. Bit by bit, we talked and mingled insofar as we could in the midst of such numbers, with crowds from counties all over Ireland, including a busload from Dublin West.

  Shortly afterwards, well on time, Brian Lenihan appeared to the tumultuous crowds.

  Brian spoke generous, strong words. He stood tall and well. It was easy for all of us who watched and listened to desperately disbelieve the stark health prognosis he had been given and to think that somehow he would surmount it. Anything seemed possible on such a beautiful sunlit day in that narrow West Cork spot. Today, as I write and speak, can I remember what exactly he said? No, but I can remember that it was stirring and strong, that the sun shone high, that the crowds applauded and sang and willed him to be well.

  Long after the formalities were over, Brian lingered and talked personally with every single person who wanted to meet him. They pressed in and pressed in and shook his hand and kissed him — and I know he was as stirred as they were. It is as if their collective wish was to make him remain as he was — strong, good, firm and steady — and on that day, it seemed that all old animosities died away.

  So how did the Commemorative Committee decide that Brian Lenihan should be their chosen guest for that great occasion? I have never heard the full story of why, but I do know that the retired Fine Gael TD, Jim O’Keeffe, was the purveyor of the invitation and I also know that it took Brian very little time to make up his mind to go.

  There is an old Irish proverb: ‘Briseann an dúchas trí shúile an chait’. You see, while we have been a strong Fianna Fáil family for many decades, my father, as a young man in University College, Galway, was on the side of Michael Collins and took part with other students in manoeuvres in Athenry on behalf of the Treaty side. There was never any secrecy about it. My mother, in compensation if you like, came from a strong, strong republican family in Sligo. So we were reared in a family where the two traditions were spoken of in an easy, non-threatening way.

  We set off for home and Athlone again. Back through all the lovely counties, and we made no stop until we came to the fine midland town of Birr. Mícheál and I decided that one drink was in order and that we would get our non-drinking friend a mineral, so we repaired to the County Arms and watched the 9 o’clock news. As we watched, we relived the scene once more. It is now the 89th anniversary of the death of Michael Collins.

  Do we remember what Brian said on that day? No, we can’t remember the exact words, but we have so many perfect pictures in our minds of the shining Cork sun, of the strong stirring words Brian spoke and of the tumultuous surging crowds. But most of all, we remember that we came back to Athlone with hope in our hearts.

  Of course as we all know now, it was not to be, but we have forever those memories of that Sunday Cork visit and the generosity and love of the Cork people of that region who came out to meet him with full hearts and hopes, and who gave Brian an honour which he never forgot for the rest of his short life.

  Chapter 21

  IRELAND GETS A BAILOUT

  By late autumn 2010, despite the imposition of budget after brutal budget and the enactment of a series of aggressive cuts in government spending, it became clear that a new crisis point had been reached for Ireland. Put simply, by the beginning of November, it seemed that no-one in the international financial markets was prepared to lend to the Irish banks, and so other European Finance Ministers were putting Brian Lenihan under increasing pressure to accept a bailout from the IMF/ECB/EU Troika, fearful that ‘panic’ in Ireland might spread to other countries such as Spain and Portugal.

  The reason for this critical lack of confidence in Irish banks has been summed up by Morgan Kelly, the eminent Professor of Economics at UCD, as ‘the certainty that [Irish] bank losses would far exceed the estimates of [the governor of the Irish Central Bank], Patrick Honohan’. Appointed by Brian Lenihan as Governor to the Irish Central Bank in September 2009, and thereby as the government’s chief financial advisor, Honohan was effectively in a position to take control of important aspects of our economic policy, such as the banking and finance sector. An inherent weakness in Honohan’s position, however, was that as well as his other offices, he was a member of the Council of the ECB, and thereby bound to follow their directives in key matters. And so a potential conflict of interests — between what was good for Ireland and what was good for the ECB — lay at the heart of any decision-making process he undertook.

  As Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan however was determined to hold out for as
long as he could against the pressure of seeking a bailout, in order to get the best possible terms from the Troika for the Irish people. He knew that in some ways, we were in a stronger negotiating position than might have first appeared and he was intent on exploiting this advantage, however small it might be. It was a very difficult position to be in, and he was very well aware of that.

  I remember so clearly a telling incident of the night of 17 November 2010. I had stayed late in the Dáil and was in the canteen with Terry Leyden, having something to eat. It was about nine o’clock. I saw Brian Lenihan come in and, once he had ordered a salad or something light for himself, he joined us at our table. Not long afterwards, Brian’s Private Secretary Dermot Moylan came into the canteen, looking harried. Dermot came straight over to where we were sitting and told Brian that Patrick Honohan, the Governor of the Central Bank, was on the phone from Frankfurt and wanted to speak to him urgently.

  Brian duly went away to take the call. When he came back about twenty minutes later, he was quietly fulminating. It appeared that Honohan had wanted him to call a Cabinet meeting that night, in order to say that we were going to accept help from the IMF. Brian had replied that it was not he who called Cabinet meetings — that this was only within the remit of the Taoiseach — and that therefore he couldn’t do it. Clearly, he had no desire for his hand to be forced in such a way.

  All hell broke loose the next day, 18 November when, speaking live from Frankfurt, Patrick Honohan did a radio interview on RTÉ’S Morning Ireland, in which he said that the IMF were coming in and that Ireland would need a bailout of ‘tens of billions’. That Honohan should have made such a statement without the input and agreement of the Cabinet or the Taoiseach was remarkable in so many ways. Uproar ensued, as, for example, Ministers Dermot Ahern and Noel Dempsey, who had both attended public functions some days earlier, had been put in the excruciating position of denying that the Troika were coming in — because to their knowledge, nothing official had been ratified to suggest otherwise. Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan were livid, of course. As I say, they had been holding out so that the best deal could be secured for Ireland and for some time had been trying to keep public speculation as to a possible bailout under tight control, knowing how easily this would paint us into a corner, and how dramatically such a development might affect the confidence of the markets and the public too.