Myles Away From Dublin

by Flann O'Brien

  The ward which found me in this position in mid-winter was an enormously lofty apartment, with beds lining the walls latterly on each side. Lighting was provided by a series of powerful lamps suspended from the centre of the ceiling. These lamps began to blaze at about 4.30 in the evening. Reading was, of course, out of the question since any book or paper would be in complete shadow. A patient unable to turn on his side had no alternative but to lie staring at this light. I complained to a matron that I thought this situation would cause me eventually to lose my eyesight, that I was having attacks of double-vision and that my eyes were already red and smarting. I was told for goodness sake to have sense and not be talking nonsense. My own resource came to the rescue. I bade a visitor speed off to the shops and get me the sort of green eye-shade one sees at the Central Court at Wimbledon. I was proud of this brainwave and prouder still when I saw that everybody else in the ward had one a few days after.

  It is not easy to know in what quarter to assign the blame for such outrageous things. The doctor or nursing staff can scarcely be blamed, for their own work must be rendered the more difficult thereby. Most hospitals of the kind termed ‘voluntary’ are under the direction of a board, mostly of charitable laymen. I am not aware that they ever visit the wards and see how the house is run.

  I cannot say what conditions are like in Laois but I fear that being a patient in any hospital in Ireland calls for two things – holy resignation and an iron constitution.

  The ancient game of name-calling

  Provided big changes occur gradually, they are hardly noticed. There is no outcry about getting rheumatic, grey and old because those conditions assert themselves almost imperceptibly. In the days of my youth when living near Tullamore, I was well used to seeing farmers coming home in the evening from the fair, unconscious from drink in the bottom of a donkey-cart. That sagacious animal, keeping to his own side of the road, brought the boss safely home.

  At that time one of the nastiest crimes of today had not been invented. I mean drunken driving. And within the last ten years or so, the whole routine of living socially has been drastically altered by television. Similarly, people slowly begin to forget one language and speak another. This process of change is endemic, ageless and unavoidable. Physiologists claim that the physical structure of a human being is wholly renewed every seven years and it is on record that one man tried to get out of paying back an old debt because it was somebody else, not himself, who had contracted the debt some eight years before.

  New electronic aids have rendered old-fashioned and obsolete the system of learning things (which simply have to be remembered) by heart. That was the way most of us learnt which prepositions in Latin take the dative and ablative case, learnt the alphabet and our prayers. Another aid to memory was the plan of committing information to verse.

  Forgotten Man

  I think I have already remarked here on the extraordinary fact that there is no memoir or biography in existence of John O’Donovan, the great Gaelic scholar of the last century; worse, his books are long out of print and circulation and it is only in one or two central libraries that one can consult, say, his edition of the Annals of the Four Masters. In Duffy’s attractive monthly magazine, the Hibernian Sixpenny Magazine for May 1862, there is a review of O’Donovan’s edition of Topographical Poems, being the work of two scribes named O Dubhagáin (died 1372) and O hUidhrin (died 1420). Their compilations deal with the location territorially of well-known ancient Irish families and are more a genealogical than a topographical record. The edition shows O’Donovan as a smart enough detective in finding out who people with strange and obviously foreign names really were after the great changes in the country following the Anglo-Norman invasion. Some of the patronymics were compulsorily conferred. In 1465 Edward IV decreed that every Irishman living in the Pale should take an English surname or, to quote the exact words, ‘shall take to him an English surname of one town, as Sutton, Chester, Trym, Skyrne, Corke, Kinsale; or colour, as White, Blacke, Browne; or art or science, as Smith or Carpenter; or office, as Cooke, Butler.’

  This command was widely carried out, a family named Shinnah (to use a phonetic spelling) becoming Fox; MacGowan became Smith; MacIntyre (mac an tSaoir) became Carpenter; and McCrosane became Crosbie. Yet there was no clear system of anglicisation or transliteration. O’Connor was changed to Conyers, O’Reilly to Ridley, O’Donnell to Daniel, McCarthy to Carter.

  Mistranslations

  ‘In the county of Sligo,’ Dr O’Donovan remarks, ‘the ancient name of O’Mulclohy has been metamorphosed into Stone, from an idea that clohy, the latter part of it, signifies a stone. But this being an incorrect translation in the present instance, these persons may be said to have taken a new name. In the county of Leitrim, the ancient, and by no means obscure, name of Mac Connava has rendered Forde from an erroneous notion that ava, the last part of it, is a corruption of atha, of a ford. In Kerry and Thomond, the ancient name of O’Cnavin is now anglicised Bowen, because cnáimhin signifies a small bone. In Tirconnell, the ancient name of O’Mulmoghery is now always rendered Early, because moch-éirghe signifies early rising. O’Marchachan is translated Ryder, from marcach, signifying a horseman.’ It is noteworthy that the Os and the Macs disappeared almost completely from Leinster.

  Christian or baptismal names did not fare much better than surnames, usually due to the identification of Irish names with English names to which they were in no way related. Thus we have Aodh (Hugh), Dermot (Jeremy), Mahon (Matthew), Conor (Cornelius), Cormac (Charles), Donnell or Domhnall (Daniel), Brian (Bernard), Flan (Florence), Teigue or Tadhg (Timothy), Donogh (Denis), Turlogh (Terrence), Felim (Felix).

  It is useful to reflect on this question: What precisely is a given person’s name? A society in Dublin recently called upon its members to use ‘the Irish version of their names’. Surely a name is a name and cannot have versions? In the Middle Ages learned people and Church dignitaries used their vernacular names for day-to-day colloquy but for formal or solemn occasions used a Latin variant. But in law today it seems a person’s name is that appearing on his State birth certificate. Owing to the bother and disorganisation often attending a birth, the name intended occasionally appears on the certificate ludicrously garbled, often entered by a careless doctor or illiterate midwife. This sort of error could have serious consequences. If a generous testator left a fortune to a person cited by his reputed, but officially incorrect, name, he might have trouble getting paid. But this is a comparatively recent hazard. Up to some twenty years ago, persons applying for the old age pension had trouble in establishing that they had in fact reached the age of 70, because the compulsory registration of births was not yet at that time 70 years in force. Baptismal and other parish records did not do much to help. A hair-raising recollection of the Night of the Big Wind was sometimes pressed into service.

  Questions, their pleasures and perils

  For years I was in the habit of jumping up in great annoyance and switching off the radio when Question Time was announced from Dublin. I found the stupidity and obtuseness of most of the competitors very bad for my nerves.

  Compere: Number 4, which is the longer, a yard or a league? (Big pause.)

  No. Four: A yard. (Gong!)

  All the same, all sorts of quiz programmes are still very popular, not only with many radio stations but also as part of stage shows. The Q and A procedure seems to be a deep-seated human neurosis. Practically nothing else goes on in the courts and, of course, we have Question Time in the Dáil itself. Most of us learnt Christian Doctrine through the catechistical method. In regard to that, let me issue a warning. More than once I have heard a heated argument in progress when one of the contestants bellows in a towering rage: ‘You see nothing wrong with it? You think it’s all right, what? Well if you’d read your penny Catechism, you’d find something different there about it.’ I am told that the penny Catechism nowadays costs one shilling and threepence.

  Today I am tempted to conduct a small quiz
of my own.

  Laying Traps

  The ideal quiz would contain commonplace questions to which the answer is obvious yet wrong. Here is one:

  Q. – Before the buses were introduced in Dublin, did the trams go up Grafton Street?

  A. – Not at all.

  But indeed and they did. They left College Green, went up Grafton Street and turned left into Nassau Street.

  Q. – In what county is the city of Waterford?

  A. – County Waterford, or course.

  No. The Ferrybank part of the city is in Kilkenny. And here is a question which very few people could answer correctly and to which practically everybody would give a No:

  Q. – Was there or is there anybody who had a Dublin street or road named after him in his own lifetime?

  There was and, happily, is. In Donnybrook there is a thoroughfare of good, red-brick dwellinghouses named Brendan Road. When the brave Batt O’Connor was not busy with operations against the British, he was pursuing his own business as builder and in fact built this whole road. Presumably he named it just as his son Brendan was born, so that it can truthfully be said that Mr Brendan O’Connor, one of the most distinguished architects at present in practice in Dublin, had a public thoroughfare named after him in his native city when he was an infant!

  And that is a quare one.

  Some Money-Makers

  There are a great number of questions on which the interrogator can very safely lay small bets and which depend on the principle that nobody looks at the most familiar objects which are in use and on view every day. How many chicks has the hen on the Irish penny, for instance? But here is one upon which I have made many frugal shillings myself and not once have I got a publican to answer it. If it is asked in a pub, there must be a preliminary warning that the respondent must keep his back to the shelves:

  Q. – Two firms named respectively Jameson and Power make whiskey. About the centre of the label in each case, two words appear in very large type. The second word is Irish. What is the word before it?

  Naturally, there will be a great variety in the answers and the wildest guesses will come from publicans, who have been looking at the bottles in question all their lives. Among the usual words are Irish, Pure, Liqueur, Superfine, Potstill, Best, Guaranteed and Barley. They are all wrong, of course. The word is Dublin.

  On the usual packet of Player’s Navy Cut cigarettes, are there any ships shown? If so, how many? Is there any land visible on the seascape? Is there a lighthouse? Is there a name on the cap of the bearded sailor and, if so, what name? I won’t offend the reader by answering questions so easy.

  Here is something of a different kind again, but to be done only in a house where there is a telephone.

  You casually announce that you have memorised the entire telephone directory. You will be told, no doubt politely, that you are a liar.

  With the Phone Book

  Very well, you say to some individual, get pencil and paper and write down absolutely any four numbers that come into your head. Don’t let me see them. Here, I’ll sit over here as far as possible away from you. Have you written the four figures? Good. Now multiply that four-figure number by 9. Have you got a result? Excellent. Now add the figures of the result. Now you have another number as a result of that addition? Right, now get the telephone directory.

  You pause here, light a cigarette and tell him to get the page in the directory which bears his last number. If, say, it’s page 31, count down the telephone numbers till you reach number 31. You then tell him the telephone number and the name and address of the subscriber.

  Explanation: no matter what four numbers he starts with, if he does what he is instructed to do above, the answer will be 9, 18, 27, or 36. You have, of course, memorised the appropriate entries on those pages. It is easy to see from afar from turn-over of pages which page he is at but it is dangerous to do the job more than twice because the same final number can keep turning up, no matter what the original four were. Try it!

  The great danger of newspapers

  What sort of revolution do we like nowadays in this country? Do we like any, or are we tired of that game? Is it a played-out fancy? Worse – is it uneconomic?

  It may be the heat but various foreign newspapers in front of me have a strange unanimity. Lurid headlines of vast size tell us what we do not wish to hear and what a lot of us do not really understand. CASTRO GRABS ALL, one headline screams. I need hardly stress the fact that there is comment in the use of the word GRABS. It tells readers that Castro is a barbarian and an outlaw. Is he? The matter following is so confused that it gives me no answer. There are mentions of ill-defined ‘oil empires’. There is no news as to who owns or controls them, apart from anonymous company titles.

  In ill-considered small type the reader is told that for the future petrol is going to be either far dearer or far cheaper. Oil fuel for industry or domestic heating and cooking will be unobtainable.

  More Trouble

  Another paper, quite unrelated, roars VENEZUELA CHALLENGES THE US. A smaller line reads ‘Arrest of Four Marines’. The body of the report contains the disclosure that the men concerned were drunk and disorderly and had assaulted a taxi-driver.

  Still another paper trumpets the fact that serious trouble, very likely of a military or aerial character, may be expected as between the US and Canada. The pie presented here is a bit mixed. The US insists on dominating the North American land-mass and objects to protests made by Canadian politicians that they are ‘British’. These men have been told by persons of rather indeterminate rank and authority that all that stuff is obsolete and that the continent must be defended integrally. Certain Canadians, no matter how aware of the strategic situation, have replied by singing ‘God Save the Queen’.

  Keeping pace with this almost comic ill-humour is the grunting and growling as between Khrushchev and what he calls the West. Mentions of the use of nuclear weapons have become as commonplace in this sort of discussion as the bottom of the garden where the praties grow.

  The Poles are re-arming, aided by substantial aid from the US. Several other enslaved countries in Eastern Europe are going to rise simultaneously against their Red masters. Germany is getting ready to resume the role (and always with the consent and assistance of the British) of a mighty military power in Europe. Thousands of young Germans are being trained in Britain by the RAF. That soldier’s best friend, his rifle, is obsolete. A new machine, far lighter and smaller, is replacing it. It discharges a nuclear missile which can kill in one go a platoon of soldiers or knock out the most modern tank. It can knock down a four-storey house. An organised convergence of them could demolish a medium-sized city and kill everybody in it.

  The Black and Tans, who were earnest enough in their endeavours, seem very small stuff compared with this. Indeed, the end of the world, as set forth in the Bible, could justly be said to have been considerably underwritten. Is it all true, or even half true?

  Let’s Face Facts

  Personally, I like to think that most of it is morbid fantasy. It is also modern fantasy and is made possible by comparatively recent advances in the sciences of communication. The primitive newspapers were most unattractive in appearance, hard to read, and usually a few weeks old in reporting events which had occurred in (say) China several months before. Nobody paid any serious attention to newspapers in the centuries I have in mind. Other organs accessible even to illiterates such as sound radio, TV and the cinema, were yet to come, and still a long way off. An approach to humanity in the mass was not possible. Crude admonitions – such as publicly hanging a man for stealing a sheep – were accepted as the best that could be done. Perhaps indeed it was, for democracy had not been heard of and most men had no fundamental rights.

  All arguments about the last war apart, I believe Hitler was a lunatic. I believe his astonishing grip on the German and other people was due mainly to the radio. His shrieking was compulsive, and many a time I listened to him myself. His contagion was infective. />
  But how many of the other lies and fancies I have briefly mentioned above are due to newspapers? I feel the true answer is: Not a few. Reckless newspapers in search of circulation and notoriety can incense bodies of readers to the point of causing a war which would not otherwise, from economic reasons, happen at all.

  I think that the record of the Press of this country is clean enough, though it may be mainly because we are a small country and our capacity for originating mischief is small. Still, I think the point I have been trying to make is worth making.

  Let’s talk of influenza

  An old story invented in America concerned a young lady who had to enter hospital for an operation. When she emerged she told all her friends about it and even some strangers. Naturally they were all sympathetic. But she went on talking about this operation all her life, ever embroidering the recital. Eventually she changed even the nature of the ailment for which the operation had been performed. Apparently she could talk of nothing else and in her old age she had the distinction of being the world champion at the art of emptying a room; people slunk away the moment she appeared.

  Well, I have had influenza. Why should I not talk about it this once?

  The doctor I called when I noticed my soaring temperature first checked that it was nothing really serious such as pneumonia, and said I had influenza.

  ‘I thought,’ I said, ‘that the main symptoms of that disorder, fever apart, were a sore throat and muscular aches.’