In far off parishes of Cork and Kerry
Old priests walked homeless in the winter air
As Seamus poured another pale dry sherry.
For purposes of satiric contrast, he needed to juxtapose the liberals’ celebratory ‘house party’ with the homelessness of the clergy, but the contrast does not stand up to much scrutiny. What country curate or parish priest in 1950s’ Ireland ever went homeless? Was Kavanagh perhaps over-identifying with the man who took a libel case and lost?
19
TRIAL AND ERROR
(1954)
Nineteen Fifty-Four hold on till I try
To formulate some theory about you. A personal matter:
My lamp of contemplation you sought to shatter,
To leave me groping in madness under a low sky . . .
(‘Nineteen Fifty-Four’)
Neither Kavanagh nor his lawyers expected that his libel action on foot of the ‘Profile’ in The Leader would actually go to trial. Until early 1954 he had been optimistic that an out-of-court settlement would be arrived at which would net him a substantial amount of cash, but as the weeks rolled by with no sign of caving in on the part of The Leader, he became tense and agitated. For the first time he faced up to the fact that he had brought a frightful public ordeal upon himself. He had always been secretive about his private life and now he feared that under cross-examination every hidden area would be opened up to scrutiny and exposed in the press.
The only way he could deal with the horror of a public trial of his life and opinions was to psych himself up to a state of righteousness, convince himself of the invincible justice of his cause and project himself as a wronged artist, a victim of crass philistinism. His supporters had a difficult few weeks buttressing his defences, especially since every so often he would plunge back into his old insecurities about the authorship of the ‘Profile’, uttering wild accusations that named even his closest allies. At one point John Ryan, one of his main confidants, found himself a suspect. His brother Peter, then working in London, was invited to join him for the duration of the trial so that he would have a combination of moral support and whipping-boy installed in No. 62.
The libel case opened before Mr Justice Teevan and a jury in the High Court on Wednesday, 3 February. It was the newly appointed judge’s first High Court case. The writer/s of the ‘Profile’ maintained anonymity and the defendants were The Leader Ltd, Pearse Street, Dublin, and its printer, The Argus (1952) Ltd, Peter Street, Drogheda. Kavanagh’s Counsel were Sir John Esmonde, SC, Mr Thomas Connolly, SC, Mr Thomas A. Doyle, SC, and Mr Niall McCarthy, instructed by James J. O’Connor and Sons. Counsel for The Leader were Mr John A. Costello, SC, Mr James McMahon, SC and Mr W. D. Finlay, instructed by McCann, White and Fitzgerald. Counsel for The Argus (1952) Ltd were Mr W. O’B. Fitzgerald, SC, Mr Brian Walsh, SC, and Mr Fergus Flood, instructed by Branigan and Matthews of Drogheda.
This libel action was to prove one of the most sensational Irish court cases of the decade. The trial and the subsequent appeal involved an ex-Taoiseach, John A. Costello, who was to become Head of Government again two months after serving as the leading defence barrister, and a future President, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, one of the Supreme Court judges hearing the appeal. The case received extensive newspaper coverage and was treated as a major social event, with photographs of the many distinguished figures in attendance.
On the opening day the court was crowded and on subsequent days every seat was taken. A hundred people were packed into the standing space and a lengthy queue waited outside the courtroom hoping for admittance. The ‘Profile’ in The Leader of 11 October 1952 was quoted in full in the statement of claim, which alleged that the plaintiff had thereby been gravely injured in his character, credit and reputation and in his profession as a writer and journalist, and had been brought into public hatred, scandal and contempt. Sir John Esmonde presented Kavanagh to the jury as an early to bed and early to rise man who lived a quiet life and whose chief recreation, like that of many other Irishmen, was racing. He was, above all, a serious-minded writer, a serious man following a serious profession, not an eccentric or buffoon. Kavanagh was dressed to project an image of seriousness, posing for photographers outside the courtroom in borrowed dark Burberry coat, dark hat and clutching a briefcase.
He spent most of the second day in the witness-box being examined by Mr Connolly and cross-examined by Mr Costello. Connolly’s direct examination was designed to reveal him as a writer with an international reputation and to establish that there had never been any official charge of obscenity against The Great Hunger. The religious orthodoxy of Kavanagh’s work was emphasised: his long connection with The Standard and his contract with Hollis and Carter to produce a book on pilgrimages. Kavanagh summed up the religious, anti-bohemian tendency of his literary philosphy: ‘My argument has been that literature is not the activity of wild bohemians; that it is part of a religious mind; that, in fact, it is religion. A wild life is total anathema to me.’
The hearing was adjourned until Monday (8 February) and he was in the witness-box being cross-examined by Mr Costello for the whole of this, the third day. Costello revealed a formidably detailed knowledge of his writings. The cross-examination brought out the complimentary tenor of the ‘Profile’ and, despite some very artful dodging and parrying on Kavanagh’s part, demonstrated the far more vicious and personal streak in the poet’s own criticism. By 4 p.m. the once and future Taoiseach pronounced himself exhausted and the judge adjourned proceedings until eleven the following morning.
On Kavanagh’s second full day under cross-examination, topics ranged over his views on Dublin and London and his friendship with Brendan Behan. He vehemently denied any such friendship and became quite ‘hot’ on the subject. In his attempt to pin the derogatory criticism of Irish institutions in Kavanagh’s Weekly on Kavanagh, Costello was outmanoeuvered. The Weekly was registered in Peter Kavanagh’s name; Patrick did not have editorial responsibility and most of the articles cited were not his. Coming up to 4 p.m. he imitated Costello’s ploy of the day before, claiming to be very tired, and the court duly adjourned. He was, in truth, exhausted; he had not expected to be put through such a gruelling and detailed cross-examination.
On Wednesday the cross-examination returned to the friendship with Brendan Behan, which he had so emphatically denied, and he reiterated his denial. Then Costello produced his trump card, a copy of Tarry Flynn signed ‘For Brendan, poet and painter, on the day he decorated my flat, Sunday 12th, 1950.’ This badly damaged Kavanagh’s credibility with the jury, who may have had difficulty in following the heavily literary content of the cross-examination, but who could recognise what appeared to be a palpable lie on his part as to his relations with Behan. The handing over of this damning evidence to the defence was perceived as an act of base treachery on Behan’s part and exacerbated the already acrimonious relations between the two authors and their supporters. Anthony Cronin was actually physically assaulted by Behan a few weeks after the trial.1 It later emerged that it was Rory Furlong, Behan’s half-brother, who had furnished Costello with the book because he was so enraged by Kavanagh’s remarks about Brendan. Behan is said to have roundly reprimanded him for interfering between the authors.2
Costello continued to press his case relentlessly. He questioned Kavanagh closely about the speed with which he had rushed into initiating proceedings for libel, giving The Leader no opportunity to offer him space to rebut the ‘Profile’, indeed, having a writ prepared while the Leader’s solicitors were in the act of replying to his solicitors. Under this pressure, Kavanagh’s answers became increasingly apocalyptic and exaggerated: he was ‘dealing with the devil’; ‘only the pen of someone who had been down in hell’ could have written the ‘Profile’; he was not ‘evil enough’ to respond to it; it was ‘dosed with strychnine’; the purpose of the defence was ‘to wear me down and destroy me’. The strain was clearly beginning to tell on him; he sounded close to the verge of nervous breakdown. Coste
llo concluded his cross-examination just before the lunchtime recess.
Resumption of the action was delayed for twenty minutes on Wednesday afternoon because the plaintiff was, in the words of his counsel, ‘overwrought’ after ‘a very severe ordeal over a number of days’. He re-entered the witness-box after being examined by a doctor. Now that Costello had finished with him, the worst of his courtroom ordeal was over. There remained a further short cross-examination by Mr Fitzgerald for The Argus and the summings up by the prosecuting and defence Counsels. At four o’clock Kavanagh complained of feeling tired and the case was adjourned until noon the following day.
On the final day he left the court before the judge’s summing-up began. He had been in the witness-box for a total of thirteen hours. Two-hundred and fifty-six questions had been put to him in direct examination; 1,267 in cross-examination on behalf of The Leader and 71 on behalf of the Argus. He was war-weary. As John Ryan put it, ‘Old age would set in before this trial finally ended.’3
Mr Justice Teevan summed up from 2.50 p.m. to 5.11 p.m. with a break of twenty minutes. It took the jury only an hour and a quarter to decide that Kavanagh had not been libelled. Immediately after they had returned with their verdict at 6.45 p.m., his brother went to the Ormond Hotel, where Kavanagh was dining with some friends, to break the bad news.
He was stunned by the verdict and dreadfully upset. It was not just the loss of the substantial damages he had been counting on. Financial motives, while not entirely lost sight of, had been overtaken by his transformation of the trial into a personal artistic crusade. The ‘other side’ had come to represent all the oppressive forces that were out to destroy him in Ireland. For him and for some of his supporters, 11 February was the Joycean ‘day of the rabblement’: a singular genius had been defeated by the crass, philistine multitudes.
Kavanagh’s performance in the witness-box won him widespread admiration and sympathy. Hubert Butler, for instance, wrote marvelling ‘at the fine spontaneous things’ he had said ‘under circumstances that must have imposed a terrible strain’. As the loser, he was given victim status and there was a general tendency to overlook the fact that he had been the plaintiff rather than the defendant. In particular, Costello’s relentless and prolonged interrogation was perceived in some quarters as persecution rather than prosecution. There were also, of course, some who thought that the verdict was right and that Kavanagh’s comeuppance was richly deserved. The numerous phone calls to No. 62 in the days following the case were not all sympathetic.
By the weekend Kavanagh had recovered his sense of humour and could laugh heartily in private over certain moments in what he soon began to refer to as ‘the trial and error’. When two months later, 24 April, the Dáil dissolved and Mr Costello became Ireland’s new prime minister at the head of an Inter-Party Coalition Government, it might seem as if Ireland’s rejection of its poet had been made official, but the poet did not see it that way. He voted for Costello.
Although Costello had proved a formidable antagonist, Kavanagh knew that he was only doing his job and that outside the courtroom he was a decent, humane man. Once, during the case, the gloves came off momentarily and the mutual respect that had developed between cross-examiner and plaintiff was revealed. Kavanagh had just referred to Costello as the representative of a ‘small, pernicious minority’, then he paused and apologised: ‘I am sorry to say that. I am very sorry.’ Costello replied, ‘Ah, Mr Kavanagh, I don’t mind.’ Kavanagh reiterated his apology and Costello responded, ‘I didn’t take offence from it, Mr Kavanagh.’ After this interlude, hostilities resumed. In the aftermath of the court case, Kavanagh sensed that Costello as victor would feel some sympathy for the vanquished poet. He was right. The new Taoiseach was eager to make amends; Kavanagh had secured another powerful patron and would call on his services in the near future.
Kavanagh was probably the most famous man in Ireland for a time because of the extensive newspaper reportage of his libel action. Business in McDaid’s boomed as Irish trippers and American tourists dropped by to catch a glimpse of him. Indeed, the head barman, Paddy O’Brien, attributed McDaid’s fame as a literary pub to the court case.4 Kavanagh was now such a well-known personality that T. P. McKenna included a sketch about him in a late-night revue at the Pike Theatre that summer. McKenna, who had never met him personally, used to sit near him in Roberts’ café to listen to his talk and study his mannerisms. In the Pike show he played Kavanagh being interviewed by a glamorous journalist, Deirdre McSharry. Every question she put to him he answered by another, so that she could elicit no information whatever from him. It was a comic send-up of Costello’s cross-examination. To McKenna’s horror, he saw the poet out front one night. Fortunately, Kavanagh loved the show and, when they met casually shortly afterwards on St Stephen’s Green, he complimented the actor: ‘That was damned accurate, like shaving in a mirror.’ From then on he was well disposed towards McKenna and in the future would nominate him when an actor was required to read his poems.
A few days after the trial, his solicitor Rory O’Connor contacted Kavanagh to ask if he would be willing to appeal the High Court verdict and, if so, whether he would allow a fund-raising committee to be set up. Seven copies of the trial transcript would be needed in order to proceed, one each for the five Supreme Court judges, one for the solicitors and one other and, given the length of the trial, these transcripts would be costly. It would be necessary to raise about £250. Despite the battering he had just taken in court, Kavanagh agreed to continue the fight.
Eoin O’Mahony (better known as the Pope O’Mahony) drafted a letter dated 25 February calling on Kavanagh’s supporters to attend a meeting in the Gresham Hotel at 8.30 p.m. on Monday, 1 March. At this meeting a Kavanagh Appeal Fund Committee was established with Elinor O’Brien acting as convenor and treasurer. The other committee members were Joseph Hone, John Ryan, Eoin O’Mahony and Eamon Ginnell. Letters were sent to Kavanagh’s acquaintances, to prominent persons in Irish life and to some overseas writers. Donations trickled in, generally small sums, a pound or two. Among the most prominent donors were John Betjeman, who gave £10, T. S. Eliot, who gave twenty guineas, Jack B. Yeats and Lord Moyne. Mrs Brigid Ganly, with whom Kavanagh had clashed over the RHA Exhibition at the outset of his Dublin career, contributed, as did one of his bookies, J. J. Fogarty of South King Street. Seven copies of the trial transcripts were duly purchased.
On 21 June Rory O’Connor wrote to say that, having studied the transcripts, Kavanagh’s entire legal team were of the opinion that he had an excellent chance of successfully prosecuting the appeal. He asked for £600 on account towards costs. Kavanagh’s response was that to ask for such a sum was tantamount to refusing to pursue the appeal. O’Connor stalled at first but eventually went ahead.
At the best of times Kavanagh would have had difficulty in raising a few hundred pounds and, even if he had such a sum, would have been loath to invest it in litigation. At the time of his reply to O’Connor he was completely broke. Though he was filling McDaid’s coffers, he wasn’t making any money in his own right.
By June 1954 Kavanagh was inundated with unpaid bills and threats from suppliers of utilities and was even reduced to pawning his raincoat. There was an outstanding gas bill; the ESB had called to disconnect his electricity on 28 May; there was a telephone account of £7.2.6 awaiting payment; the milk bill had been allowed to run and run until by June, Hughes Dairies was owed about £34. He had not paid rent on his flat since 23 February 1953, and his landlord, Mrs Beauchamp’s solicitors, wrote demanding £130.8.4. His long-suffering brother Peter again came to his rescue, clearing some of his unpaid bills and rental arrears. In July he inherited £11.16.9 from his Uncle Peter Quinn’s estate, a mere drop in the ocean of his mounting debts.
Friends rallied round. Eoin and Joan Ryan, his neighbour Elinor O’Brien, and Patrick and Marthe O’Connor who were visiting Dublin, regularly invited him to lunch or supper. John Ryan continued to proffer meals in Monument cafés as well
as cash hand-outs. Martyn and Mrs Kelly, then fellow tenants in No. 62, also invited him to join them for meals, and Mrs Kelly went out of her way to be kind to him. Deirdre Courtney did her best, often paying for their bus tickets or coffees together or helping out with small donations from her modest salary. Sheila O’Grady was no less generous.
Among those who befriended Kavanagh at this time was Jim O’Toole, an engineer and after-hours dramatist who was a firm believer in the poet’s genius. Kavanagh had confided in him that he was too harassed by hunger and financial worries to write and O’Toole invited him to come and live in his home in Stillorgan for a while so that he would have a warm room, regular meals and the leisure to produce another Tarry Flynn. O’Toole had two small children at the time, one still a baby. His sister, a doctor with an interest in public health issues, was horrified to observe that Kavanagh was spitting prolifically indoors in the children’s vicinity. Terrified that he would infect the children with TB, she drew her brother aside and warned him of the health risk. Jim responded that he was aware of the problem but that the man was such a genius he felt he had to tolerate it. Such was the veneration Kavanagh inspired in some quarters.
Another friend who offered hospitality in the lean years of 1954/55 was Bob Bradshaw, socialist, intellectual and former IRA man, who had just moved into the hall floor flat at 75 Pembroke Road with his new wife Sheila. Kavanagh sometimes called on the Bradshaws for breakfast after he had bought the newspapers at the local kiosk, but generally he came as one of a crowd who frequented the house on Sunday afternoons for an informal lunch or arrived late in the evening after the pubs closed. The usual crowd included John Ryan, Anthony Cronin and, from spring 1955, his wife, Thérèse, Irene Broe, and sometimes Mary and Padraig O’Halpin. Sheila Bradshaw recalls Thérèse Cronin, who had a lovely voice, singing ‘On Raglan Road’ for Kavanagh at one of these gatherings. All the men were wonderful talkers. They also disagreed a lot and shouted and dismissed each other’s arguments with ‘That’s rubbish.’ Sometimes drink made them so aggressive that she asked them to leave, but it was all forgotten by the next day.
Patrick Kavanagh, a Biography Page 48
