Shockin'
Patrick Campbell The Irish Thomas J. O'Hanlon (Andre Deutsch £3.95)
O'Hanlon, who wisely lives in New York !hough born in Wexford, says that his book IS an objective portrait of a people who are
wandering around slightly dazed after a head-on collision with the twentieth cen tury'. They are going to be in an even more confused state after running into Mr O'HanIon. Not all of them, of course, will lay out ,3.95 actually to read him, but they will 4now his work inside out from the brother of a cousin whose uncle borrowed it from a friend. On this basis the whole of Northern and Southern Ireland, and probably many the dogs, will be looking for the author's "fe, on the grounds that he has committed the crime of making some pretty bold renarks about the Island of Saints and Scholars, with which they are privately in full 4: greement, but who does the fella think he 's anyway ? This diligently researched book—Mr O'Hanlon spent a year in Ireland before writing it—comes up with material that any oublin talker would pay good money to !lave thought of first. Describing the visit of "resident Kennedy to President de Valera the official residence in Phoenix Park, Mr u'Hanlon tells us that, 'The blooming shrubs were crushed to pulp when Kennedy apPeared with blind old Eamonn de Valera t° meet with the cream of pushy Irish Society—Stockbrokers, building contract?rs, lawyers, nuns, priests, bishops, politia, os, horse trainers and reformed gunmen 70, in their attempt to touch the hem of "le hero's garment, mounted a charge of
J
such determined, wild-eyed ferocity that ack skipped back nimbly to the drawing,r °°M.' Stuff like this has the quality of enaging each individual group, including the 1Ins, who blame the creation of this class of ", shambles upon the shockin' behaviour of tne others. r, There's tons of it : 'Jobbery, a more accuite word for patronage, is tucked away, as t. were, in the armpit of the Irish body pollhie • • Mr O'Hanlon then details its cornn'unents, finding Tammany Hall to be an illreliable Model T Ford compared to the 0011s-Royce smoothness of the Irish vehi_le, in which 'the only sound heard at 60
the rustle of ten-pound notes'.
might sound as though the whole of Mr the Hanlon's book is malicious gossip about ref 'decent' people of Ireland—they always rer to their more loyal friends as 'decent' --Out, in fact, he is genuinely sad about the
hypocrisy of his beloved country. The inusinesses that never know if they are makg a profit or not ; the Irish Hospitals Sweep tickets which are distributed throughout the world totally illegally, with the blessing of the Irish Government ; and the fact that while the population has been halved, by emigration, the number of priests has doubled. Apparently oblivious to all this mess the Irish comfort themselves, eternally, with the thought that, 'things could be a lot worse'.
They are getting a lot worse, by the minute. It would be wonderful if Mr O'Hanlon's marvellous book could halt this decline, even for a couple of days.
Previous page
