1

The Student

‘Tell me this, do you ever open a book at all?’

At Swim-Two-Birds, p. 10

The earliest known piece of published writing by Brian O’Nolan is a little poem written during his schooldays at Blackrock College, Co. Dublin. When it was written is impossible to say, as it appeared when O’Nolan was already an undergraduate at University College, Dublin, but it bears evidence of his having opened perhaps too many books at too early an age. Its title is the school’s motto:

             AD ASTRA

Ah! when the skies at night

Are damascened with gold,

Methinks the endless sight

Eternity unrolled.

The verse is almost unique among O’Nolan’s creative writings in that it shows none of his characteristic irony. It is tempting to imagine what the poet Patrick Kavanagh would have remarked if the poem had circulated through the Dublin pubs in later years. Still, O’Nolan never forgot about eternity.

Soon after entering University College, Dublin he became involved in the chief debating society, known to all as the ‘L. & H.’. He later wrote two accounts of his time there:

Memories of the Literary and Historical Society, UCD

The Society met in term every Saturday night at seven thirty p.m. in a small theatre upstairs in 86 St Stephen’s Green. Impassive as that granite-faced building looks to the present day, it was in the early thirties derelict within and was in some queer way ostracised from the college apparatus. And when the L. & H. met there, there was unholy bedlam.

The theory of the procedure was that the Society met to debate a pre-publicised motion, usually under the auspices of a visiting chairman. But before that item was reached in a night’s work, time had to be found for the transaction of Private Business. So private was this business that in my own time the fire brigade had to be sent for twice and the police at least twelve times. Four people were taken to hospital with knife injuries, one man was shot, and there is no counting the number of people hurt in free-for-alls.

And there is no possible way of dealing here with the far more spectacular tragedies arising from people getting sick by reason of too much drink. Still … the Society bravely carried on. The roars prefaced by ‘Mr Auditor, SIR!’ were uttered by certain guttersnipes who are today the leaders in politics, the law, other professions and even journalism. One should not look too closely at the egg while it is hatching. That fable of the ugly duckling is still vivid.

Once a meeting got under way, many people were under the impression that the heavens were about to fall. The situation was one of a sort of reasoned chaos. During Private Business it was customary for the Auditor to scream to make himself heard and rule sundry questioners out of order. Apart from the jam-packed theatre itself, the big lobby outside and a whole staircase leading to it were peopled by a mass of insubordinate, irreverent persons collectively known as The Mob. Their interruptions and interjections were famous and I was myself designated (as I say it without shame) their leader.

Were we bad old codgers, notwithstanding those days of disorder and uproar?

Well, I don’t think there was much wrong with us. If something has to go down on the charge-sheet, say that we were young. It’s a disease that cures itself.

From The centenary history of the Literary and Historical Society, University College Dublin, 1855–1955

An invitation to write a few notes on my own day in UCD and the L. & H. – roughly from 1929 to 1934 – revealed that one effect of university education seems to be the distortion or near-eradication of the faculty of memory. I retain only the vaguest notion of how important rows arose, what they were really about and how they were quenched, whereas some sharp images in the recollection relate to trivial and absurd matters: but perhaps that is a universal rather than a university infirmity.

Architecturally, UCD reminds me of a certain type of incubator, an appropriate parallel – full of good eggs and bad eggs and ‘gluggers’. I entered the big Main Hall at an odd hour on the second day of Michaelmas term 1929, looked about me and vividly remember the scene. The hall was quite empty. The plain white walls bore three dark parallel smudgy lines at elevations of about three, five and five-and-a-half feet from the tiled chessboard floor. Later I was to know this triptych had been achieved by the buttocks, shoulders, and hair oil of lounging students. They had, in fact, nowhere else to lounge, though in good weather many went out and sat on the steps. Before I left College, a large ‘students’ room’ had been provided in the semi-ruinous remnant of the old Royal University premises, which is still behind the UCD façade; this room was destined to become the home of really ferocious poker schools. The ladies had a room of their own from the start. The only other amenity I can recall pre-1930 was a small restaurant of the tea-and-buns variety which provided the sole feasible place intra muros for the desegregation of the sexes. Later a billiards table was conceded, possibly in reality a missionary move to redeem poker addicts. Lecture theatres were modern and good, the lectures adequate though often surprisingly elementary, and it was a shock to find that Duggie Hyde spoke atrocious Irish, as also did Agnes O’Farrelly (though the two hearts were of gold). Skipping lectures while contriving a prim presence at roll-call became a great skill, particularly with poker and billiards men.

The Republican versus Free State tensions were acute at this time, but one other room was set aside for the non-academic use of students; it was a recruiting office for a proposed National Army OTC. When it opened, a body of students led by the late Frank Ryan, then editing An Phoblacht and himself a graduate, came down with sticks and wrecked the joint. And there, I can’t remember whether anybody was identified and fired for that!

The President for my span was Dr Denis J. Coffey, a standoffish type and a poorish public speaker, but a very decent man withal. He lived only round the corner but never came or went otherwise than in a cab. That may seem odd now, but at that time it was the minimum requisite of presidential dignity. Many will recall the hall porters of that and preceding eras – Ryan and his assistant Jimmy Redmond, made in the proportions of Mutt and Jeff. Ryan was the real Dublin man, thin and tall with bad feet, a pinched face behind costly glasses and adorned with a moustache finished to points like waxed darning needles. Jimmy was more plebeian and ordinary-looking, and often more useful. Both, alas, are long dead. I hope Peter recognised two of his own trade.

The students’ many societies, of which the L. & H. was the principal one and the oldest, held their meetings in a large building at 86 Stephen’s Green. In my day it was a very dirty place and in bad repair, in the care of an incredible porter named Flynn whose eyes were nearly always closed, though not from an ocular complaint or mere sleep. If I am not mistaken, lighting was by gas, and it was in this 86, in an upstairs semi-circular lecture theatre that the L. & H. met every Saturday night. It was large as such theatres go but its seating capacity could not exceed two hundred, whereas most meetings attracted not fewer than six hundred people. The congestion, disorder and noise may be imagined. A seething mass gathered and swayed in a very large lobby outside the theatre, some sat on the stairs smoking, and groups adjourned to other apartments from time to time for hands of cards. Many students participated in the Society’s transactions from the exterior lobby by choice, for once inside there was no getting out unless one was a lady student staying in one of the residential halls run by nuns, who imposed a ten o’clock curfew. The mass exit of these ladies always evoked ribald and insulting commentary. A particular reason why many remained outside was the necessity to be free to make periodical trips to the Winter Palace at the corner of Harcourt Street, a pub where it was possible to drink three or four strong pints at sevenpence each.

This most heterogeneous congregation, reeling about, shouting and singing in the hogarthian pallor of a single gas-jet (when somebody had not thought fit to extinguish the same) came to be known as the mob, and I had the honour to be acknowledged its president. It is worth noting that it contained people who were not students at all. A visitor would probably conclude that it was merely a gang of rowdies, dedicated to making a deafening uproar the obbligato to some unfortunate member’s attempts to make a speech within. It was certainly a disorderly gang but its disorders were not aimless and stupid, but often necessary and salutary. It could nearly be claimed that the mob was merely a severe judge of the speakers. In a document he issued in connection with his own candidature for the auditorship, here is what Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh wrote about them:

I have no faith in quack-police remedies in dealing with the Mob. Any good speaker can subdue them. It is his pleasure, pride and triumph. I consider the lack of courtesy in other parts of the House equally annoying and unfortunately not eradicable at the hands of good speakers.

I believe that the men at the door – some of them better intellectually than our speakers – will respond to an appeal given in a gentlemanly way and backed by personality.

The crowded House is the soul of the L. & H. It makes the gathering electric.

I agree with that last sentence absolutely. The Commerce Society also held weekly debates in the same theatre and, granted that they had not the indefinable advantage of owning the Saturday nights, the debates were distressingly orderly, prim, almost boring. The same was more so when the Cumann Gaelach met to debate in Irish, and be it noted that L. & H. members were also speakers in both those other societies. The mob, however, was on duty qua mob only on Saturday nights, though many individual members were to be seen wolfing cakes at the teas which societies often gave before a meeting. The Society now meets in the big Physics Theatre in Earlsfort Terrace. There is no mob now – the mise en scène is impracticable – and I have no doubt at all that the Society has deteriorated, both as a school for speakers and, more important, the occasion for an evening’s enjoyment.

If my judgment is not faulty, the standard of speaking was very high on the average. There were dull speakers, some with hobby horses, politicians, speakers who were ‘good’ but boring, but there were brilliant speakers too. The most brilliant of all was J. C. Flood. He was an excellent and witty man, with a tongue which could on occasion scorch and wound. Long after he had become a professional man of the world, he found it impossible to disengage himself from the Society. Another fine speaker I remember was Michael Farrell and, God bless my soul, I amassed some medals myself.

The man I admired most was the late Tim O’Hanrahan, a most amusing personality and a first-class debater on any subject under the sun.

That the Society is really an extra-curricular function of the university organism is shown by the great number of the members of my day (and, of course, of other days) who were to attain great distinction in legal and parliamentary work. The Irish gift of the gab is not so spontaneous an endowment as we are led to believe: it requires training and endowment, experience of confrontation with hostile listeners, and, yes – study.

Not only was the L. & H. invaluable to the students in such matters, but it could teach the visiting chairmen a thing or two. Determined chairmen who tried to control the mob found they were merely converting disorder into bedlam, while timid chairmen learnt the follies of conciliation, and the beauty of a mean between weakness and pugnacity.

I can attempt no statistical survey here, for it would be like what somebody called a net – a lot of holes tied together. But a few names were prominent enough to be securely lodged in my mind. The Auditor in office in 1929–30, when I entered the Society, was Robin Dudley Edwards. He was of striking appearance (still is, I hope) and enhanced his personality by appearing nowhere, never, winter or summer, without an umbrella, an implement even then completely out of fashion. To Edwards the umbrella as to Coffey the cab. He was a good speaker and a very good Auditor.

A big change began to come about in 1931–2, when Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh was elected. The last time I saw this ex-Auditor, he was seated on the bench of the Supreme Court. Apart from his College activities, he was in those days writing articles in all manner of outside publications, all contentious and reeking with politics – a sort of primitive Myles na Gopaleen. The country was on the brink of the Fianna Fáil age and Ó Dálaigh was backing that movement so strongly, in speeches and in print, that the election involved political alignments. He had a successful reign in the Society. I note from the printed programme of his year that of the eighteen debates – I exclude six impromptu debates – eight were on political themes.

The next Auditor was the editor of this book.1 He was elected the hard way. The cost of membership of the Society was one shilling, but I can think of no power or privilege membership conferred other than the right to vote at the auditorial election. When the 1932–3 votes were counted, it was found that the new Auditor was Richard P. Dunne, a law student.

R. P. Dunne was a strange and interesting character, and an able speaker. Having made up his mind to be Auditor, he had himself elected treasurer of the Society in John Kent’s year and gradually made members of many people he regarded as his friends, even if they had never attended a meeting of the Society in their lives. The result of the election flabbergasted many people. An Electoral Commission was set up and a committee of these appointed to make recommendations. One recommendation they made was that membership should not carry the vote until the member’s second year, but the main thing is that the Commission upset the election of Dunne. On the re-election Meenan was declared Auditor.

The session 1932–3 was of some importance, for it was then I decided it was time for myself to become Auditor. My opponent was Vivion de Valera. The Fianna Fáil Party was by then firmly established, heaven on earth was at hand, and de Valera gained by this situation. I believed and said publicly that these politicians were unsuitable; so I lost the election.

As an Auditor, I would give de Valera, as in marking speeches, eight out of ten. The affairs of the L. & H. were cluttered with too many politicisms, objectionable not because politics should have no place in student deliberations, but simply because they bored. Perhaps I am biassed, for it was to be my later destiny to sit for many hours every day in Dáil Éireann, though not as an elected statesman, and the agonies entailed are still too fresh in my memory to be recalled without emotion.

The next Auditor was Richard N. Cooke who had in a previous year been auditor of the Commerce Society. Cooke was a good and forceful head man, lively and persuasive as a speaker. A superb domed cranium lent a sort of emphasis to his most trivial arguments. It was about this time, I think, that the Society’s membership was rising rapidly, due to the missionary work of interested persons who saw themselves as contenders for the auditorship in the future.

In 1935–6 Desmond Bell was elected, and the year may be said to mark the end of my own association with the College and the Society. In my irregular attendances at meetings, where into my speeches there was now creeping a paternal intonation, I found Bell an active and able Auditor though as a speaker, he was inclined to indulge in ‘oratory’.

I am afraid this brief sketch gives little hint of the magic those years held, at least for me. Like any organisation of any size, there must be many officers who work hard and quietly in its many departments, and for little recognition or thanks. A lot of responsibility lay on the committees elected every year. The only programme of debates I have is for 1931–2, consule Ó Dálaigh, and shows included on the committee T. Lynch, BA (now County Solicitor for Clare), Donnchadh L. Ó Donnchadha (now a District Justice), Joe Kenny (now County Registrar for Waterford), and Una O’Dwyer, one of the few ladies who distinguished themselves in the Society. But I make no attempt to enumerate all the names that deserve honour for all the work they did in maintaining and fortifying the venerable Literary and Historical Society. As many of them were destined to do in the bigger world later, they influenced the life of the whole College in their day. Modestly they may say with Virgil: Quae regio in Terrace nostri non plena laboris!

 

By 1931 O’Nolan was writing under a number of pseudonyms for the student magazine, Comhthrom Féinne (Fair play). Among his first contributions was another, somewhat different, account of the L. & H.:

The ‘L. & H.’ from the earliest times

BY ‘BROTHER BARNABAS’

At the risk of saying something very commonplace, we must begin by stating that the Literary and Historical Society is an institution of unparalleled antiquity. The fact has been suitably stressed by succeeding auditors, year after year, by way of warning to the Janitor-Philistines, but that does not deter me from reiterating it here in the select seclusion of these columns. The ‘L. and H.’ is an institution unconscionably ancient, and every loyal child thereof should be sufficiently versed in its tenets and history to defend it alike from the broadside vocalism of the obstructionist, and the more insidious attacks of the non-believer from without the fold.

Accordingly, the excerpts printed below should be committed to memory, care being taken when reciting them, to pronounce all proper names with the slight sing-song intonation current in the latter part of the Stone Age. These excerpts are compiled from the original Minutes, which stretch back far beyond the Palaeolithic Age. All the spellings have been modernised, and the text has been extensively revised with a view to the Amendment (Censorship of Publications) Act.

Date …1

Curious semi-legible references to ‘members’ tails’. Chairman ‘takes the bough’. Debate illegible. Auditor unknown.

Date …

Auditor reads several stones on the interesting subject, ‘Is Civilisation a Failure?’ Subsequent motion to build a home for decayed ex-auditors with the manuscript is rejected on humanitarian grounds.

Date …

Member ejected for cracking a joke ‘in the worst possible taste’ during private business.2 Insistent non-member, Mr Yhaclum, has his tail pulled and is ejected. Egg of dinosaur thrown by disapproving bystander. Debate and further proceedings illegible.

Date …

New Auditor, Mr Tnek. Is suspected of having glass eyes, as he continues to fix one part of the house with a gaze of unnatural dog-like devotion, or alternatively, a glare of fanatical fish-like hatred. He takes things quietly.3 Delivers Inaugural Address with tail exposed and wagging nervously.4 Makes an unexpected witty retort towards the end of his auditorship, and is burnt on a pyre of crude paraffin wax.

The Minutes for several centuries subsequently have been irreparably damaged by Phœnician settlers, who have used the stones for the sharpening of bronze weapons. One curious word – ‘Neoinín-clog’* – is still plainly legible on many slabs. It is probably the Erse title of a pagan love saga, a double-cycle of which is known to have existed.

The next legible set of Minutes, in a much better condition, are scratched on stout elephant-hide.

Date AD 198

Auditor, Mr F. McCool, B.Agr.Sc. Mr McCool, speaking first in Irish and continuing in English, said he wished to draw the attention of members to a reference in the Minutes of previous – very previous – meetings, to ‘members’ tails’. Speaking for himself, he did not like it. These Minutes, unless they were altered or destroyed, would remain to embarrass and humiliate the members of the future, the members of generations still unborn; more especially those who aspired to match supremacy of intellect with dignity of carriage. He therefore proposed that all incriminating Minutes be dumped in the sea at Dollymont (now Dollymount), where a mammoth skating rink could be constructed. Speaking, then, in his official capacity, he had no hesitation in accepting the motion.5

Mr Yaf, B.Naut.Sc., who was suspected to be a Viking, and spoke with a curious foreign accent, said he was interested in international peace, and he wished to object. To place all the incriminating Minutes in the sea would lead to a phenomenal increase in coastal erosion all over the world. To the best of his recollection, he had never met the word ‘skating’ or ‘rink’ in any of the many books he had read, and he was therefore reluctantly compelled to condemn the thing or the practice, or whatever it was. He courteously thanked the house.

Mr Oisin, D.Litt.Celt., speaking in metres too intricate to be recorded, said that he also wished to object, but on grounds much more pertinent than those of Mr Yaf. He himself was of a studious disposition, having never laughed in his life, and after studying his family tree for nine years he had come to the conclusion that no ancestor of his ever had a tail – never had and never would have! (Cheers.) The Auditor’s reasons for destroying the Minutes were obvious. His reasons for retaining them were more obvious. He now proposed that a Select Committee of Enquiry be set up, which was to subject the antecedents of every member to the most rigorous scrutiny; that those whose ancestors were found to have had tails be compelled to carry something to represent the fact, preferably a black tail-like rain-shade.

The motion was adopted.

The next most important name of those among the ex-Auditors, who also won fame in other spheres, is that of Mr D. D. McMurrough,* BA (Legal and Polit. Sc.). The Minutes are rather brief. 

Signature of Mr Adam, B.A.O., the Auditor who introduced women to the Society.

‘Riotous scenes marked an interesting debate on the subject: “The more we are together, the happier we will be,” Henry VIII. Deo Grat. Rex. a chieftain from a neighbouring island, in the chair. The Chairman, in a neat summing up, said he was sure that Ireland had turned the corner and entered a period of great progress and prosperity, now that the dark and evil days of insular seclusion were a thing of the past. Ireland could now take her place among the nations of the world. (Cheers.) He congratulated the Society on their very able Auditor, whom he had met at an Inter-debate in France.’

Several sets of Minutes, covering the gap between the foregoing and the next available notes, which are inscribed on fossilised goat skin, are in the course of being deciphered.

Date …

Auditor: Mr G. R. Fawkes, B.Sc. Mr Fawkes, in thanking the members for electing him, said he would endeavour to make the Society go with a bang. He had pleasure in nominating his friend, Mr Tresham, to take his place during his temporary absence in London. He was going to attend an Inter-debate at Westminster, the mother of Parliaments, muryaa, and they could bet he would be at the bottom of a very far-reaching motion there. He would ask the gentlemen at the door to stop letting off squibs; his nerves were bad enough, God knows.

Strangely enough, there is no trace of an Inaugural Address by Mr Fawkes.

 

‘Brother Barnabas’ was the first of O’Nolan’s invented personae, and his activities were chronicled many times in subsequent issues:

Graduate cut to ribbons by express-train

BRILLIANT NEW INSURANCE SCHEME

FREE GIFTS FOR READERS

Another milestone (writes Brother Barnabas, our Special Commissioner) has been reached in the romance of Comhthrom Féinne, Ireland’s National University Magazine. Our Gigantic Free Insurance Scheme, quietly inaugurated over the weekend, has been an instantaneous and nationwide success, and shows every promise of going from strength to strength. Letters of congratulation have poured in from all parts, whilst suggestions (all of which shall receive our sympathetic consideration) as to extending the scheme to cover all the exigencies of University life have been received by the score. Once again we emphasise that there is nothing to pay; there are no wearisome rules; no tedious conditions. You simply fill in the coupon, tear it into two sections,  post one to us and hand the other to your pet Seller; that is all.1 Register now and enjoy real peace of mind.

 

The first reader to benefit under this novel scheme was Mr Bewley Box, a well-known graduate in the faculty of Science. It appears that Mr Box, being a penniless Communist, had set out on the day of May the first last to walk home from Dublin to Cork along the railway line and thus show his contempt for a capitalist company by refusing to use its system of transport. He walked all day and well into the following night. At approximately 5.49 a.m. on the morning of May the second, when some two hundred yards from Limerick Junction Station, apparently after he had been accepted by the North Signal Cabin, he was struck between the fifth and sixth vertebrae of the spinal column by a GSR train bearing several tons of the Irish Independent and the Irish Times, (dep. Kingsbridge 3.55 a.m.). Mr Box, realising with admirable presence of mind that a mile-long cattle-train was due in two hours, endeavoured to drag himself from the metals with the aid of his one remaining limb: but before he had time to put his ingenious plan into operation, he was struck by the Irish Press train (dep. Kingsbridge 4.0 a.m.) which came thundering through the night just then, and Mr Box was literally reduced to match-wood. The deceased was calm and collected to the last, the collection occupying four trained paper-spikes from Stephen’s Green, who were rushed to the spot, some twelve hours. Funeral Private.

Interview with next-of-kin

Our representative, Brother Barnabas, was very courteously received by the grief-stricken mother in a decent and neat little parlour at 13A Cuff Alley, Cork.

‘We suppose,’ said our representative, speaking from force of habit, in the plural, ‘that you are very disturbed over this terrible holocaust?’

‘Well, yes,’ said Mrs Box, smiling through her tears, ‘more or less. The money will come in very useful. £10,000 is a lot, and I’ll be able to give Peggy and Tommie a good schooling. I can buy the wee house I’ve been dreaming about for so long, and I can keep what’s left as a nest-egg. And I can put up a decent marble gravestone to himself, who collected the last souvenir of the last Cork tram. Well, well. It’s a hard life!’

‘Ah-ha!’ said our representative, ‘So your husband’s dead, too. Well, Mrs Box, you must be lonely and heart-broken, and if you should ever think of sharing the toils and the troubles of your good life with some one else, I …’ (Here the interview lapses into the purely personal and ceases to interest our general readers.)

The Management of Comhthrom Féinne will pay over to Mrs Box the sum of £10,000, after certain legal formalities, etc., have been completed.

Other claims

£100 – Mr X, undergraduate, strained neck and impaired nerves, and general symptoms of ‘Backstairs Anaemia.’ (Major Subject – ‘Irish.’).

£10–200 claims of strained aural nerves due to listening for overdue bell.

THIS WEEK’S PRIZE OF FIVE SHILLINGS

(For the Most Interesting Claim)

AWARDED TO MR Z. (Ballyjamesduff)

(Two feet severed at ankles – Mowing machine mishap at harvesting)

£50 – Two claims. Rush for morning papers in Gentlemen’s Smokeroom.

£50–150 Claims. Sore shoulder. From putting shoulder to wheel before Examinations.

Arrangements are being made to extend our Free Insurance Policy to cover Failures of students in Gambling, Horse-betting, Failures at all Examinations, Tests, Studentships, etc. Fill up your coupon now. (You will find it on page five of cover.)

Free gifts for readers

To mark the inauguration of this Giant Free Insurance Scheme, unparalleled in the history of Irish National journalism, Brother Barnabas has decided to present readers with free balloons, embellished with appropriate quotations from Chaucer and Eoghan Ruadh O Suileabháin to readers of Comhthrom Féinne. In order to qualify for this unique and interesting gift (which, by the way, considering the vast number of theories and principles relative to Physics which it exemplifies, should be of special interest to students of the Science faculty), readers, when met by Brother Barnabas, must be carrying a copy of Comhthrom Féinne, conspicuously carried folded twice under the arm, a birth-certificate, copies of references from head of school or college or institution attended, a roll of Gaeltacht hand-woven tweed, a copy of Ulysses by James Joyce or Lord Tennyson, a complete set of snooker-balls, a BA Hons. degree parchment, a tastefully arranged basket of home-grown tariff-free cut-flowers, a copy of an Oath of Allegiance to Brother Barnabas, four penny buns from the College restaurant, ten Irish-made coal-hammers, a copy of Morphi’s Games of Chess, a set of new Dublin-made brow-knitters, a red flag, and a small green-coloured urn containing the ashes of the last issue of the National Student.

(SPECIAL NOTE TO THE WEAK-CHESTED. – For the convenience of those who are debarred from weight-lifting by doctor’s orders, the proprietors of Comhthrom Féinne have made elaborate arrangements for the supply of Irish-made barrows, to be hired at a nominal rate. A special army of clerks have been engaged for some weeks past in minutely studying the College Rules, and they have failed to find the slightest trace of any ordinance forbidding barrow-wheeling in the Main Hall. The less developed of our readers, therefore, may join in the fun with the rest. Good luck!)

Poet Lionel Prune is not eligible to compete.

 

Lionel Prune appeared on several occasions. His similarity to W. B. Yeats, then the grand old man of Irish poetry, is scarcely accidental:

Mr Lionel Prune comes to UCD

INTERVIEW WITH OUR SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE

As I passed through the Main Hall last week I saw, reclining languidly against the Commerce Society’s Notice Board, a stranger of eminent aspect. Taking out my copy of Dialann an Mhic Leighinn1 I quickly noted down details of his appearance in Ogham Shorthand around the margins of pages 77 and 78. He was tall and willowy, and groaned beneath a heavy burthen of jet-black hair long untouched by tonsorial shears. His eyes were vacuous but yearning and looked out on the world through a pair of plane lenses. These latter were held erect on his nose by the device known as pince-nez and from the edge of one of them a thick black ribbon descended flowingly to his right-hand lapel buttonhole. A slight trace of black moustache drooped cloyingly from his protruding upper lip. His neck was embellished by a flame-red tie. He wore a great nigger-brown overcoat which stretched well below his knees. His right hand toyed with a walking stick and his left with a bulky dispatch case.

After this brief survey I recognised him in a flash. It was Lionel Prune the distinguished modern poet of the younger school! Remembering the great paper I represented I took my courage in both pockets and approached him diffidently.

‘Yes’ he murmured, in reply to my nervous questioning, ‘I am Lionel Prune. I have attended the lecture halls, corridors and library of UCD incognito for some weeks past with the aim of getting a carefree and insouciant atmosphere into my work. I shall probably do a BA degree in Summer.’

‘Splendid!’ (said I becoming more bold). ‘And what are your impressions of College?’

‘I have scribbled one or two little things’ he replied, catching hold of my third waist-coat button and shooting up his coat sleeve he read the following from his cuff:

                  O TEMPORA!

College in a hustle

‘Neath the April sun,

Ryan’s-bell rings for lecture,

And the Co-eds run.

Chatter on the steps,

From which the breezes are waftin’

Aroma of strong thundercloud,

And mild Sweet Afton.

Then a lull of quiet,

And a cloud across the sun,

Fags and brown pipes vanish,

There’s an armistice of the tongue,

As through the College gateway

A black cab passes

Twixt snap-dragons and shrubberies

And ‘Pleasekeepoffthegrass’s.’

‘Note the staccato rhythm (he went on) the air of fervid nothingness followed by the dramatic dénouement. Compare it with the smooth flowing rhythm of this little cameo which flowed from my platignum yesterday:

      APPROPINQUAT

Up to the College

The Flood advances,

Softly and swishingly.

Up he prances,

His locks

Are combed

With excessive care

To hide a spot

That

          is bare

      of hair.

How simple, but how impressive! In a perfect picture without a word wasted it exposes the hollowness of modern thought!’

‘Ye-es’ I said doubtfully, ‘but what do you think of modern tendencies in Art?’

He pulled out his Ingersoll. Fresh-scrawled across the face were the following delicate lines –

Back in the grey beginning,

True Beauty married Art,

But Mister Charles Donnelly said

‘I’ll soon this couple part.

And the reason I am anxious

This union old to end,

Is that Art may marry Anarchy

The Poet’s Friend.’

‘Very sleek I call that (went on Mr Lionel Prune caressingly) but this is also apropos.’ And he read from the back of his watch.

                   AT THE DOG SHOW

Behind the doors of your prison cage,

Thou lookest on man with baleful eyes.

Bark gently! Hide thy Kerry rage,

Or else thou wilt not win a prize.

Dost thou feel blue in there confined

With bars more strong than Hadrian’s Wall.

Oh! triumph of matter over mind!

But thou’lt be free though the heavens fall.

‘Of course, of course,’ I said soothingly, ‘Art has been caged cramped and must be free.’

‘Let’s go and have a cup of coffee (said Mr Lionel Prune). But stay I haven’t a coin to spare … You’ll pay? Good.’ And he began to carol blithely and nonchalantly.

‘Where’s the booze? Where’s the booze?

Oh! my bold billiard man,

With your long barrelled cue and your chalk.’

‘But the ladies (he interjected suddenly). Ah the ladies of your College! How they twist and tug at a poet’s very heart-strings. They are wonderful. Yes I have written of them. Listen!’ (He read from a tram ticket.)

                            IN THE LIBRARY

‘Creak! Creak! Creak! on your boxwood chairs! I see

You lady students though you don’t give a hoot for me.

                All well for John at his counter,

                For him you all have your say.

                Oh well for Mr O’N—ll

                For when he speaks

                You’re quick to obey.

‘I lost my heart to one of them (went on Mr Prune confidently), but (he added firmly) she must never know. I don’t know how it happened, but I think it was her pipe. Listen to this:

          HER DEAR DADAN DUDEEN

‘Did you ever hear tell of Coy Corkey,

She lives between Dublin and Dalkey,

    From the fumes of her pipe,

    If you’re wise you’ll escape,

    For fatal’s the pipe of sweet Corkey.’

‘In the next thirty-nine verses I go on to – but no, I must not speak of her to such as you.’

He looked at me pityingly and there was a long pause towards the end of which Mr Prune wrote feverishly with a half an inch of pencil on the back of a plate.

‘There,’ he said at last, and I read:

            THE COLLEGE RESTAURANT

Abandon Hope? Who says abandon hope.

             Nil to spare

                And um.

             I will enter here.

‘A small coffee please!’ The hours roll by

The world is young but I am dry

And as I sit and wait and wait

My feelings I am loath to spake.’

‘What about the Literary and Historical Society,’ I ventured when our coffee came at last.

‘I have here,’ he said modestly, fumbling in his dispatch case, ‘what is probably the greatest thing I have accomplished.’ And he read for me:

Oh! Literary and Historical Society,

(Wangli Wanglos Wanglorum)

Who will your auditor be

I ask with curious propriety.

(Wangli Wanglos Wanglorum).

Who – will – he – be?

   Sh-h-h-h-h!

Are you Meenan to say Dunne,

(Wangli Wanglos Wanglorum).

Will lynch the candid Hanly,

Come! Come! It’s not Done

(Tangli Tanglos Tanglorum).

Will – you – be – down – troddyn.

   Sh-h-h-h!

I was amazed at the keen insight into our mere College affairs which the great man showed. But I noticed a subtle change come over him after drinking his coffee. The buoyancy vanished from his manner. He seemed to become a little irritable. Still he read me from the back of an envelope this ode after the manner of Piers Plowman.

                             VAE VICTIS!

Oh! College Rugby Club! Oh! College Rugby Club!

You warded off Wanderers wonderfully.

You manxed up Monkstown manfully,

With luck against you, you broke Blackrock.

But I cannot get in right perspective

The fact that you were bet by Bective.

‘But,’ said I, always a purist in literature, ‘surely “bet” is not what the best people would say.’

Mr Prune gurgled ominously. A beet-red flush suffused his face in waves of rapidly-increasing intensity. Terrible wrath peeped through his eyes.

‘How dare you, sir,’ he exploded, and lifting his dispatch-case and walking-stick, he stalked splutteringly away.

 

Brother Barnabas did not take kindly to the poet.

‘Lionel Prune must go’ says Brother Barnabas

‘A JOURNEYMAN DILETTANTE’ SCATHING ATTACK

In the ordinary course of events (writes Brother Barnabas), an outrage on good-taste on the part of the editorial staff of Comhthrom Féinne might be condoned on the extenuating grounds of youth and inexperience, and the present writer would not be the last to turn the blind eye, and to afford the youthful sinners the charity of silence. When, however, he finds that this outrage has been printed on the back of a page bearing a composition of his own, and realising that that composition of his own is separated from this Literary abortion by approximately one thousandth part of an inch, then duty to self and country must brush aside all trivial considerations of etiquette.

Mr Lionel Prune, it would appear, is a poet. He is not. He is a superannuated plum. He is the shrivelled wreckage of a fruit, which though never other than sour and ill to look upon, is now bereft of the paltry juice which once gave it the claim to regard itself as young and green, and full of promise. True to his name, he is a large futile stone wrapped in coarse brown paper; and at best, he is endless wrappings without the stone. He is a journeyman-dilettante, an upstart, a parvenu, who must be persuaded, if civilisation is to be saved, to exploit to the full that one talent which he indubitably has, and steadily refuses to exercise or cultivate – the talent for being a silent corpse in a coffin. Lionel Prune is a bowsy, inspired with the natural badness and mischief of a jungle-born ape without the ape’s brains. Lionel Prune is a menace and an eye-sore, a thorn in the side of educated humanity, an obsession to his dog, and a hundred crosses on the shoulders of his hundred friends. Lionel Prune must go! We have spoken: Lionel Prune must GO!!

It is with extreme difficulty that we restrain ourselves from bursting into a rash of italics; and lest we should lose control in one direction or another, we will leave Prune and his prunish follies, and indicate to the reader in a broad way the general tendency of real poetry.

Below we reproduce what we are told is one of our noblest efforts. We frankly confess that we made many attempts to conceal the manuscript in our attic, with some idea of posthumous glory – ‘genuine example of the Master’s early work,’ etc. But when we had fears that we might cease to be, and that some scribbler of the Prune order, taking advantage of the silence of the grave, should find it and publish it as his own unaided work, we were persuaded by our many friends to give it to the waiting public. We make a sneering apology to the shade of Thomas Hood, who could only manage one joke per verse, and perverse jokes they were.

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN’S
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

(Note: Chapman is a fellow-traveller on our morning train; and the extract which caught our eye and inspired us to pen the poem was as follows:

 

‘UNIVERSITY COLLEGE NOTES

…. At the same meeting (of the Commerce Society) ballot papers will be issued for the election of the new Auditor, the choice being between Messrs P. J. Hogan and Laurence O’Brien.

CURIO’

                             AN CURFA

His name was Laurence T. O’Brien.

    (Like a priest), without ‘Esquire,’

His lot was hard, his lard was hot,

    For his fat was in the fire.

For a trifle small he once did fall,

   When a waiter, suave and smart

   But God help those who help themselves,

   They get their just desserts.

                        Curfá …

‘I must’ he said, ‘now beg my bread,

    And be quite blue, I ween;

And starve as long as Harold’s Cross,

    And goodly Stephen’s Green.’

                        Curfá …

And for yard and rood and mile he trod

    On aches that were feet;

He lived on hope and humble pie,

    And drank his water neat.

                        Curfá …

And up and down he searched the town,

    (And so shall many of us),

Inquiring for a post, and found

    One in a small post-office.

                        Curfá …

Alas too well in love he fell,

    A lass, he loved her true.

(But naught of women did he know,

    Though Late-fee mails he knew).

                        Curfá …

He tried in vain, this blushful swain,

    To give his passion say;

Instead of kisses from his love,

    He got the sack each day.

                        Curfá …

He heard all time the nuptial chimes,

    He heard them like a knell –

No wedding bells would ring for him

    Till he would ring the belle.

                             AN CEANGAL

     But he saw

His name in the paper (VOTE FOR ME!)

      Curiously enough.

Came to College.

Went for the job,

      Curiously enough

Got it.

Auditor-cum-Treasurer.

      Curiously enough,

             And was fixed

                   FOR LIFE!

No money-worries not to bite ’im

Travel and teas ad infinitum,

          Married the gal

             Name was Sal,

                Each suited

                  Each to a

                    t

He lived happily ever after and the Commerce Society was freed from its anguish. Gurab é sin eachtra Lorcain Ui Briain go nuige seo.1

In all due modesty, we consider this long poem a memorable achievement, whose Gargantuan eminence, however, cannot diminish or obscure the power and brilliance of some of our shorter, more delicate and more chaste specimens. Take, for instance, the mighty fragment ‘The Cobbler’s Son’, written when we were twins, or, rather, when we were very, very young.

               THE COBBLER’S SON

                     ‘The Cobbler’s Son

Was a bookish fool

                      foul

                      full

                          of trix.

He went to church

      And stole

           a stole

Twere better had he plied

           Atome

              Atome, or like his pa

      Soled soles

             And not

      Sold his soul

             For a stole.’

Note the exquisite dominance of the ‘o’, the breath-taking transition from ‘fool to full’ by the celebrated U-STEP METHOD, the internal sense-metamorphosis, without in any way impairing the phonological beauty of the word. This is a poem that must be pondered upon. We earnestly recommend Prune to put it in his pipe and smoke it.

 

In January 1933 O’Nolan was editor of Comhthrom Féinne. His parody editorial is a masterpiece of that pompous genre:

 

Kameradschaft

To say we are producing a magazine which is worthy of University College, Dublin is no lie. It is not to be thought from this statement however that the Magazine is a virile one viewed from the aspect of literary value or student taste. On the very contrary, it is, to our mind, a very feeble paper lacking in originality of idea or expression, essentially scrappy and inartistic – a paper of shallow thought and meagre outlook.

Many will object to this blunt rendering of facts, but keeping in mind the Irish proverb ‘bíonn an Fírinne searbh’1 we shall proceed to discuss some aspects of social life in this College revealed to us in the experience of student office, and on which basis we propose to justify our original proposition.

There is no spirit of co-operation here. Jealousy seems to be the order of the day. Here a miniature Napoleon, there an Embryo Mussolini – they stalk the corridors in glorious isolation smugly satisfied with the knowledge of their own ‘self-sufficiency’ – and vaunted indispensability: an indispensability, which if true, they ignore, and boycott their University to pamper selfish vanity.

A race of wasps contribute nothing positive to University activity. Indeed very often they breed an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion which coupled with the flood of bad-tempered and venomous criticism that ever heralds the vain-glorious does untold damage to the spirit of good-will so helpful in construction. They can never see the good points but always the bad. Their minds and hearts are poisoned, and whatever finer qualities they may have had so vitiated as to be destroyed. People of this kind should be made to change their attitude if not their mind.

There is a danger that contributors to this Magazine may regard this expression of opinion as an attack upon them in their literary capacity. This is not so. Many articles printed herein are very well worth reading. But we are dealing more with the system on which this paper is run, and the atmosphere which supports it.

In the first place it seems quite impossible to arouse any interest among the general body of students. They are quite deaf to the ‘Call of College’ – it means nothing to them. And then there is that small poisonous destructive section of College Society which claims to be able to write, but refuses to do so. They will not write; they do not like the Editor.

We have no desire to impede progress. In deference therefore to the demands (negatively expressed if you will) that we should resign, our answer is quite simple and it is to be hoped satisfactory: we will resign.

In doing this it is not our desire or purpose to promote any hostile rivalry. People should cultivate a spirit of friendship and good-fellowship, and after the manner of the German miners in the picture Kameradschaft sink their personal differences and petty spleens for the good of society. Our immediate society is University College, Dublin. Let us think of it as something more than a place in which one gets degrees. Make it a real and living society in which every student by exerting himself in the common cause may introduce his quota of individuality and variety, so that there may be that pleasing conflict of intellect which is the true key-note of a University – a conflict inspired by devotion, and effecting true comradeship.

 

Samuel Hall, a man of many talents, tried his hand at a short play. The result was the first of O’Nolan’s many attacks on John Millington Synge and on his literary heirs who dominated Dublin’s Abbey Theatre during the first third of the century.

The bog of Allen

With almost hysterical pleasure we give below the first literary work of genius to come from the pen of Mr Samuel Hall, BA, QED, written at the request of a deputation from the Dramatic Society, Ballybrack, and now exhibited in advance to readers of Comhthrom Féinne for their diversion, edification and moral exaltation.

When requested to undertake the work, Mr Hall immediately agreed, and, letting his mind fester for the short space of five minutes, wrote the play in ten minutes, and then absent-mindedly continued writing, using both hands and two pens. At the end of half-an-hour he had written, in addition to the play, five novels, a book of sermons on Temperance, an almanac and a pamphlet on Anti-vivisection. However, we are concerned here only with the play. It is a wholesome Irish play, racy of the soil and Samuel Hall, written in the real traditional style, and a masterpiece of characterisation and pregnant dialogue. Mr Hall apologised for his inability to introduce Blind Phelim fiddling at the cross-roads, and although this is a serious flaw – dammit all, what about it anyway! Mr Bernard Shaw, on being shown the play, made his usual witty remark, ‘It bears the Hallmark of genius.’ He cryptically added, ‘The grave – it is waiting for me. I am old.’ He evidently recognised that a new star had risen in the firmament, greater than his own. The play, Mr Hall tells me, is copyright in Yugo Slavia only.

All the rights are reserved, and are securely locked up in a drawer in Mr Hall’s desk.

Dramatic personification

Allen Bogg	A farmer
His Wife	A woman
A Bog-trotter	A man
Time: Tail-end of the Summer. It is about 7.30 p.m.

Scene: The Kitchen in Allen Bogg’s hovel in the middle of the Bog of Allen, miles from dry land. The house was built by Gregory B. Bogg, Allen’s grandfather. As he could not find sand to build it on, he built it on the Bog. It is a typically Irish household. The floor is flagged with green moss between the cracks. A roaring fire of the best Wigan coal is burning in the hearth. In a corner is a bed with a white sow in it. All the bed-clothes, including the blankets, are made of Irish poplin. A bag-pipes are hanging on the wall, but not, unfortunately, so high up that a tall man could not reach them. Over the mantelpiece is a rusty iron pike for use in Insurrections. A rustic and homely smell of fish-and-chips permeates the atmosphere. Over in a corner a cupboard is let into the wall, with a heavy padlock and chain, in which leprechauns are stored. Below on the floor is a primitive rack, made of bog-oak, for torturing leprechauns who will not divulge where the Crock of Gold is hidden. Crickets can be distinctly seen by members of the audience in the stalls, their mouths open, singing with the characteristic Nyaa. Maggie, Bogg’s wife, is sitting spinning. She is dressed completely in green, as the Wearin’ o’ the Green is a strict rule in the house. There is a view over the half-door of the Bog, stretching in a brown monotone to the horizon and back again. This view is immediately obstructed by a cow which puts its head in over the half-door.

Maggie (to cow): Whisht! Whisht! (Cow goes away. Enter Allen with his plough on his shoulder.)

Allen: ’Tis a hard life now, surely. What does be for the dinner?

Maggie: Bacon an’ Cabbage an’ Stirabout.

Allen (bitterly): For sivin year we’ve had nothin’ else. Why can’t you call the dam dish Stirabout an’ Cabbage an’ Bacon for a change?

Maggie: Shure, wisha, musha, anish now, for goodness sake, what would you be wantin’? For goodness sake!

Allen: Ochone, it will be little I’ll be wantin’ soon but a coffin of the good bog-oak. (Pacing round in his agitation.) This bog is getting into my blood, blast it! (Meditatively.) ’Tis a hard life, surely. As soon as you plough a furrow it fills with water, an’ you have to go bailin’ it out, an’ as soon as you bail out the water, the sides of the furrow fall back agin, an’ be the time that’s done your plough is half disappeared into the bog, an’ be the time you’ve dug your plough out, you’re up to your knees in the bog yourself.

Maggie: ’Tis time now, you stopped talking, now, for goodness forsake!

Allen: I’d love a bit of turnip now, I was rerred on turnips.

Maggie: ’Twas a poor rerrin’.

Allen: I daresay. (House sinks into bog an inch. Cow appears at half-door.)

Maggie: Whisht! What does that yolk be lookin’ in on the door for, Allen?

Allen: The phleas do be at him, bajer.

Maggie: The ph-leas? For goodness sake!

Allen: Alright, alright. The fleas then. (The house sinks two inches into bog. Cow is pushed away from door by Bog-trotter, who leans over half-door, smoking clay pipe.)

Bog-tr.: Dia’s Muire dhuit.1

Allen: Dia’s Muire dhuit, is Padraig.2

Bog-tr.: Hullo.

Allen: Good morrah. (Bog-trotter is pushed away from door, by cow. His trotting can be heard dying away in the distance.)

Maggie: He speaks the bog-Irish well, him.

Allen: Aye. (Suddenly, by a mutual instinct, both rise. Allen lights his pipe. Both tip-toe over to half-door. Slowly the rich purple of the Celtic Twilight falls over the Bog. The house sinks a quarter of an inch.)

Allen: It’s worth it, livin’ an’ slavin’ here, just to see that.

Maggie (in hushed voice): The Celtic Twilight, Allen!

Allen (entranced): Aye. It’s grand.

Maggie (becoming practical for a moment): Arrah, wisha now, for goodness sake!

Allen (meditatively): Aye. (long pause.) Surely.

Maggie: Musha.

Allen: Surely.

Maggie: Wisha.

Allen: Begorrah.

Maggie (her soul flooded with poetry): Anish, now, musha.

Allen: Surely. (long pause.) Aye … Musha.

Maggie: Begorrah.

Allen: Surely. Aye, indeed, Musha.

Maggie: Ochone!

Allen: Begorrah!

Maggie: Bedadda!

Allen: Deriva!

Maggie: Surely. Wisha. Whisht!! (Suddenly six cows put their heads over the half-door. House sinks six feet into Bog.)

Maggie (angrily): FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!

CURTAIN (of Irish Poplin)

 

Once invented, Samuel Hall was not allowed to die. Another of his exploits was to found an alternative to UCD:

Academic enterprize at Ballybrack

FOUNDATION OF UCB STARTLING DISCLOSURES SAMUEL HALL AGAIN!

(By our very special correspondent)

For a long time the acute problem, only second in importance to the Housing Problem, of how to insure the future welfare of undergraduates who through:

(a) Village-Idiocy

(b) Water-logged Brain-matter

(c) Chronic laziness and

(d) Fondness for the Cups

are unable and constitutionally unfit to obtain their degrees has been engaging the minds of all deep-thinking men. It has remained for a very undistinguished graduate of UCD who up to lately was doing his 100 hours in Caffrey’s, Mr Samuel Hall, BA, to solve the problem for all time, in one night, and by the use of one unknown quantity only.

On a piece of waste ground in Ballybrack, a new University has been founded. The buildings consist of three rude mahogany huts, which are practically completed. Some time ago, by far the most important part of the College installation was housed in safety, and we are glad to announce that the billiard tables are in perfect order. Mr Hall officially declared the University open by pointing to a gaping hole in the roof. The rest of the ceremony at which all the staff was present, attired in the red flannel gown of the College, was highly successful. Mr Hall in answer to a question put him by a cross-Channel pressman, stated that he had no intention of affiliating UCB with UCD, but that a proposal to affiliate it with the Mental Home, Ballina, was receiving serious consideration.

In this new University, there will be no lectures and the passing of examinations will be a pure formality. Mr Hall, in an interview, said that, henceforth, he could see no reasonable excuse for the existence of undergraduates, who had never been an asset to any part of the community.

Every person born in the Irish Free State is automatically a matriculated student of the College. The first examination for BA will take place soon. The conditions which are firmly laid down by charter and drawn up again by chartered accountants are as follows:

(a) The Examiner’s (Mr Hall’s) indecision is final.

(b) The entrance fee is at least five guineas. The money is payable to the Examiner, who may, at his discretion, pass it on to charity.

(c) Entrance fees must in all cases by accompanied by the appropriate coupon – a ten shilling note.

(d) The papers set at all examinations will be published a month beforehand in Comhthrom Féinne and the South Tipperary Echo, in order to give a fair chance to all. The papers for the forthcoming exam. are given below.

Books to read on the course

All the books prescribed are banned in the Irish Free State. Students are advised to spend a fortnight in France reading up the course. We regret to announce that Dr Kahn’s Treatise on Advanced Algebra, prescribed for the degree of B.Sc. is also banned, strong exception having being taken to some of the Surds in Part II of the work,

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, BALLYBRACK

WINTER EXAMINATION FOR B.A.

IRISH.

(A viva voce exam. will be held in Irish and will be as follows)

Candidate enters Exam room.

Mr Hall: Dia’s Muire dhuit.

Candidate: Seadh.

Mr Hall: Dún an doras, mashadahully.

Candidate (from behind closed door): Tá sé dúnta.1

There will be no examination in Applied Maths, as it has been found that, except in very rare cases, they can never be applied with success. However, if the weather and all the other circumstances necessary conspire to make the conditions favourable, an attempt will be made to Apply Mathematics.

ENGLISH LITERATURE

1. Describe all the methods of cogging2 you know and their merits. What method are you using at present? What method did Hamlet employ when doing his BA at the University of Wittenberg?

2. Was Hamlet really mad, or was it only Shakespeare?

LATIN

Translate the following passage from Cicero’s de Rerum Natura.

Sine qua non ipso facto, ne plus ultra ad astra sine die, Hercule! Adeste vade-mecum: quo sit? C. Valerius, praeter, quid pro quo deus ex machina, Fiat, cum grano salis. Campbellii veniunt. Non, certe, inquit Brian Boru.

What point does Livy bring out in the above extract? Underline the declined words.

Regulations governing exams

1. There will be no luncheon interval between two papers. Candidates must feed as they write. Each Candidate may bring into the Exam hall one bowl of porridge and six stouts. Candidates from Cannibal Countries may not bring bodies of missionaries into the Hall.

2. Mr Samuel Hall, BA, the Examiner, will attend every day for six days before the Exams, in Roberts’ Cafe, Grafton Street, in order to be bribed and flattered by intending candidates. Bribes may range from ten shillings. Strictly cash payments only. The coarsest flattery will work.

3. Candidates enter at their own risk, and the Examiner takes no responsibility for failures occasioned by his (the Examiner’s) bad temper, personal spite, indigestion, depression, nagging wife, ill-nourishment, etc.

4. Results will be published in the Jockey and Racing News.

Social activities

L. and H.: The Ballybrack University College Literary and Historical Society held a very successful first meeting when the motion that ‘Slap-bangs are a Spent Force’ was debated. The debate took place in a large circular room, specially constructed for the purpose, devoid of seats, in the middle of which the Auditor sat at a table. The members (all Hard Men of mettle) were clustered in mobs at six different doors around the room. The debate started punctually at 7.30, and a very interesting uproar ensued. Half-way through the proceedings it was noticed that the Auditor’s mouth was fringed with froth. Shortly after this the unfortunate man rushed headlong into one of the mobs, biting a Hard Man severely in the ear before being felled to the ground. He was rushed in a gibbering condition to Ballina Mental Home where a representative was informed that there is little danger of his returning to normal. An even more successful debate is expected next week.

The Agricultural Society won their way into the second round of the League last Saturday, when they defeated Swords in a ploughing match at Ballyjamesduff, by the clear margin of a furrow, which was later cleverly converted by College into a potato-ridge. The pitch was in splendid order, and its hilly nature gave great scope for high scoring.

Referee: Paddy Reilly, a returned American.

The Water Harriers (or Boat Club, as we call it) left Dublin yesterday in an exciting race to Tullamore in canal-boats. When last heard of they were in the seventh lock on the far side of Edenderry.

The College Chess Club is also in a very flourishing condition. Some six days ago they had their first meeting. The door of their room is still closed, and no one has come out, but foul play is not suspected, as Chess is Chess.

The Cumann Gaedhealach1 met last Thursday, but decided unanimously after five minutes to adjourn for six months in order to give the Auditor time to learn the rudiments of the language.

There is little hope of any Athletic Club of any description being started, as all the students at the College are pitiable physical wrecks. In this regard a glowing example is being set by the Founder, Mr Hall, who is so flat-chested that his spine can be distinctly seen on the front of his chest. (Further notice of College activities in due course.)

 

Almost all Irishmen of culture are litigious: Samuel Hall did not rebel against this great tradition:

Sensational libel action!

HALL HITS BACK SCENES IN COURT

Yesterday, at the Short Circuit Court, Camden St, before a jury, Mr Samuel Hall, the Ballybrack educational pioneer, was awarded £1,000 damages for alleged malicious libel and defamation of character in an article published in the last issue of Comhthrom Féinne. Notice of appeal was given by A. Kierse, Business Manager, Comhthrom Féinne.

 

Great public interest was evinced in the case, the courthouse being packed to its utmost capacity. Students and graduates of UCD and UCB were present in great numbers, most of whom stood at the door out of force of habit. At 1.30 there was a fanfare of trumpets accompanied by a cadenza on the viola da gamba and Mr Hall entered with a copy of Plato’s Republic under his arm attired in his academic gown of hand-stitched burberry inlaid with lilies-of-the-valley in mauve velvet with trimmings of ostrich feathers under the armpits. He was accompanied by a fleet of secretaries with typewriters, Hard Men, Counsel, musicians, standard bearers, billiard-markers, book-markers, snake-charmers, gangsters and his doting grandmother, seated on a wickerwork bier. The rear of the procession, which was very impressive, was brought up by an official from Grogans1 with a corkscrew, four dozen, and sawdust to sprinkle on the floor.

The presiding Justice, Mr Jessie Fludd, took the Chair amid cheers and was presented with a pair of white spats and the corresponding pawn-ticket. Mr Fludd, in his opening remarks, warned the public seated in the body of the Court against the operations of pickpockets infesting the building. He had come to an understanding with them, but it was his duty to warn the public, nevertheless. He announced that he was refusing all informations, but if anybody had any information for the 2.30 he’d take it.

Mr Dun Chada (Solicitor for defendants): There is a library official present in the Court who always has a good thing.

Mr Fludd: Sit down!!

At this point a man got up at the back of the Court and protested strongly that hands were continually in his pockets clinking his money and that he was positive they were not his own hands. His remarks, however, were drowned by Wagner’s Lohengrin Overture, played by Mr Hall’s musicians.

Mr P. Maguire (counsel for defendants) rose to protest at the irregularities that were occurring. Mr Hall had been engaged in deep conversation with the foreman of the jury for the last five minutes. Dammit it all, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t billiards.

Mr Fludd: When I look round me and see my Court turned into a combined pub and concert-hall, anything is admissible. My only regret is that I didn’t come here in football shorts and ‘tails’ myself. I must ask you to open your defence immediately.

Mr Maguire (Counsel): I shall ask Mr Hall to step into the box.

Mr Hall, obviously blotto, was assisted into the box by two Hard Men to the strains of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and said that he would insist on answering Counsel’s questions in Latin. He would give his evidence in chaste classical cataleptic trimeters. It was a matter of academic pride with him. He had no fear of being laughed at for a wrong quantity.

Mr Fludd: I cannot allow it. My own schooling was neglected. Your Latin would be Greek to me, although I have no doubt Counsel would understand you. You may claim extra damages for any hurt sustained by your academic pride.

Mr Maguire: Your name is Samuel Hall?

Mr Hall: My full title is Senor Samuel Sancho Panza de Galli-Curci Hall, BA, RSVP, LMS, KC?

Mr Maguire: When, may I ask, did you become a KC.

Mr Hall: I took silk last year.

Mr Maguire: Did Switzers prosecute?

Mr Hall: Yes, but I got off under the Probation Act.

Mr Maguire: What is your extraction?

Mr Hall: I am a Mahommedan Jew.

At this point in the proceedings a terrific free fight was staged by a strong body of Friends of Soviet Russia, who were also friends of Mr Hall. The crowd swept across the Court in a hail of stout bottles and wickerwork, while bassoons and saxophones shrieked in agony. The jury hastily locked themselves in. When order had been restored the jury emerged and gave their verdict as above, adding a rider, however, that if Mr Hall did not fulfil his promises their verdict was null and void.

Albert Wood, KC. A. Nix (instructed by John Sylvester Broderick) for plaintiff. Patrick Maguire (instructed by P. Caffrey and Mr Dun Chada BA, LLB) for defendants.

 

Comhthrom Féinne gave O’Nolan his first opportunity to try out some of the many styles and ideas that he later used in Cruiskeen Lawn, the column which he was to contribute to the Irish Times for almost twenty-five years. In this piece, Myles na Gopaleen’s famous ‘Buchhandlung’ scheme is prefigured:

Are you lonely in the restaurant?

Professor Adolf Gleitzboschkinderschule of the Berliner Universität, the eminent psychologist, has repeatedly pointed out in the Paris editions of the Leipziger Tageblatt that the habit of eating alone is a pernicious one and one which leads to morbidity and undue contempt for one’s own vices. Apparently in deference to the advice of Professor Adolf Gleitzboschkinderschule, students may be seen every day endeavouring to drag each other into the Restaurant in an effort to save each other from the naked infirmities of their own minds, by creating a conversation which, however feeble, would at least obviate introspection.

Comhthrom Féinne, therefore, taking its duty of SERVING its public very much to heart, has much pleasure in announcing a NEW PROFESSION in an effort to cope with the present difficulty. Comhthrom Féinne will provide EATERS, varying in quality and price to suit every client. YOU NEED NO LONGER EAT ALONE. Hire one of our skilled Conversationalists, pay and talk as you eat and avoid the farce of pretending that you are a THINKER to whom his own kind is sufficient for the day.

EATERS. CONDITIONS OF HIRE.

(1) Eaters must be presented with a tea or lunch not inferior to that being consumed by the client by more than 1/-.

(2) There will be no charge for the first half-hour of the Eater’s professional attendance, but a sum of threepence will be charged for every extra five-minutes. Excess fare will be automatically registered on the clock or meter worn on the EATER’S RIGHT ARM.

(3) Eaters must not be spoken to rudely or slapped, except in CLASS C.

(4) Should a client originate a line of conversation outside the specific Eater’s registered orbit, there shall be no onus on the Eater to pursue, attempt to pursue, or try to attempt to pursue such a line.

(5) Should the Client be joined by A FRIEND who takes part in the Conversation, there will be an excess charge of 2d. per five minutes. This will be automatically registered on the meter.

(6) Complaints as to abnormal appetites of Eaters, incivility, objectionable table-manners, etc., should be instantly reported to the Editor of Comhthrom Féinne, but not if he is earning a living as AN EATER at an adjacent table. In such case, complaint should be made afterwards.

Classes of Eaters – Class A

We have a very reliable line in young men of 19 and under who will engage first-year students and unmatriculated members of the Civil Service and public on GENERAL TOPICS, such as the weather, What-I-think-of-College-and-how-I’m-going-to-alter- it, the College celebrities at other tables, cricket, football, LUV, what a gift it is to have no exercises to do at night, the arguments as to whether one should do a D.Litt. or a D.Ph., College Hops, etc. We are introducing this line at a reduction of 1d. per five minutes as a SPECIAL ADVERTISING OFFER FOR FOUR DAYS ONLY.

Class B

Are you a strong silent man? We can supply a great hulking lout who will GRUB with you, and munch, and chaw for an inclusive charge of about 2/6 per hour. These fine Eaters have been specially trained and must be provided with great lumps of beef, porter and whole loaves. Knives and forks are desirable but not essential. They will under no circumstances talk, but coarse animal grunts may be provided at a small extra cost. Forte, 2d. each, and fortissimo, 4d. each. Those who like to have their grub or tiffin with a GROUP of strong silent thugs may hire out squads of 4 EATERS at a considerable cash saving. SUPER-QUALITY of thick unshaven dishevelled and tweedy DREADNOUGHTS, possessing genuinely primitive Mongolian jaw formation available at an extra cost of 2/-per close-cropped head.

Class C

Are you de Riva?

Are you doing a degree in Economics?

Do you hold strong views on Free Trade, Rising and Falling Price Levels, the fallacy of Technocracy?

DO YOU WANT SOMEBODY TO TALK AT? Somebody upon whom you can work off your pet theories and arguments? Do you want a BUTT for your wit?

We have just received delivery of an excellent line of SPINELESS DUMMIES who will listen to anything and make no objections. These highly-skilled Eaters will nod (plain) and nod (with conviction, 1d. extra each) at every point emphasised by the Client and will thump the table with the fist at the climax of the Client’s argument, thus saving the latter leaving down his fork or knife.

A SPECIAL LUXURY CLASS C EATER (trained at our own works in Inchicore), is available and will take furtive notes of the Client’s OBITER DICTA, politely question him on his pet points, and will even go so far as to make the ‘Tch, Tch, Tch’ sound as pronounced by illiterate women in cinemas, at the more particular sallies and declarations of the Client. Written applications for this model will be dealt with in rotation.

Class D

The Eaters in this Class are very suitable for Graduates and SENIOR UNDERGRADUATES. They are prepared to discuss anything. They include a number of young men of faultless profile who are very suitable for ladies’ tables, and they leave no stone unturned to be ‘nice’ in the most proper meaning of the term. Their services are always available as gigolos for not only ladies who go to dances, but also for ladies who go to dances and like to dance; also as paid escorts to theatres, cinemas, picnics, etc. Ladies who insist on a small moustache must give the Management at least ten days’ notice.

In this class we have also a sound line in less reputable Eaters, who are eminently suitable for ordinary under-graduates or men-in-the-Main hall, who have maintained unblighted through the gloom of these trying times their appreciation of A GOOD STORY. Believe us that these Eaters have a fund of RIGHT GOOD ONES.

Class E

An exclusive and superior type of Eater belongs to this Class and must on no account be offered MASH or brown buns. They will discourse and converse on the subject of the drama, the theatre, the novel, the play, the tragedy, the comedy. Clients are warned not to make a faux pas in front of these Eaters, as they will not consent to stay with Clients who betray an inferior intellectual level.

Class F

The number of Eaters in Class F, confined to the Professional table, is so very very limited; those with suitable qualifications should make early application, as filling the post of Eater at the Professional table is an obvious short-cut to academic advancement. Junior members of the staff are eligible to apply, but they should be careful not to tempt Providence, e.g., a lecturer in Mathematics must not Eat as such with a Professor of the same subject.

We have a reliable but limited quantity of bold and grey-haired under-graduates who will engage members of the Staff on ACADEMIC AND FAMILY TOPICS. These Eaters are experienced men of the world and HAVE SEEN LIFE. They are well versed in local topography and can discourse for hours on the natural amenities of the Kattie Gallagher, Glencree, etc. These are good men. THEY UNDERSTAND.

No effort will be spared to retain the services of Mr Gussie O’Connell, the well-known Dublin Shanachie, as his readings from his repertoire of GOODLY YARNS are deservedly famous.

 

MAIL THIS COUPON TODAY

To the Editor, Comthhrom Féinne.

A Chara, – I am a Professor/a Student, and I do be lonely in the Restaurant. Please send me a copy of your free booklet, ‘Golden Words’ and arrange for the attendance of an EATER.

Class . . . . . . . . . . . on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . at . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .o’clock.

                                 Signed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I certify that this Client is ALRIGHT.

                                 Signed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

                                 Member of the Royal Irish Academy.

Comhthrom Féinne, like Manus in The Hard Life some thirty years later, was ever attentive to the wish for self-improvement in the gullible:

Let us be your fathers!

HOPE FOR THE MIND-SUFFERERS.

OUR UNIQUE NEW SERVICE

Do you tremble at the knees when you are lecturing or when your name is called at lecture? Do you titter nervously?

We can make a man of you.

We can give you will-power, resolution, verve, push, nerve, pull and a brass neck.

Write for our booklet called The Golden Road. Modern life demands speed – we can make you fast. We can develop your personality, make you forceful and dynamic. We can make you tall. We can add four inches to your chest and three inches to your biceps. We can abolish scurf and dandruff, cure falling hair and prevent baldness. We can make you masterful. Can you relax? If you cannot, we can tell you how. Smith was a clerk earning £153 a year, a nervous and anaemic wreck, with no prospects and no desire for prospects; he enrolled on the advice of friends; he studied accountancy in his spare time; he learned eighteen European languages and two Chinese dialects with the aid of our special gramophone records. Why? He learned to sketch and to write showcards in his spare time and improved his complexion beyond recognition with the aid of our special herbal remedies. He is now securely walking up the graph with an attache-case in his hand into the rising sun. WHY NOT YOU?

Simson was another clerk. He started by paying £300 for the privilege of working for nothing. He joined the British Army. He is now a certified camel-cleaner in Baghdad with excellent prospects of promotion, WHY NOT YOU?

Do you be bullied? Can you throw a thug? Can you disarm an armed thug and then throw him? CAN YOU DO ANYTHING?

Once again, can you relax?

Can you organise?

Can you concentrate?

Can you discuss the eternal verities without sniggering?

Can you drop a goal from the three-quarter line?

Can you take a tram from Whitehall to UCD for a penny?

WE can do them all.

If YOU cannot, you are not a complete man.

You are a wry-necked boob. You are a flat tyre.

Turn your back TODAY on your wretched past by filling up the appended form and sending it in a stamped envelope to the Institute. We will do the rest.

 

The Principal,

C.F. Institute of Practical Psychology,

University College, Dublin.

My Dear Sir,

I am a Professor/a Student and I am an Idiot Boy/a Boob/a Yes-man/a Spineless Waster/a Wreck/an Aumadhaun/a Flat Tyre. I cannot do any of the things you mention. I find that I cannot concentrate for one moment on anything. I have never passed an examination in my life but I have failed several. I find it hard to quit the bed in the morning. I often fail in that matitudinal struggle. Would you blame me? I feel that my only remaining hope is the Institute. You may make any use you wish of this letter. I enclose the requisite fee of six guineas, and I make this application only on the distinct understanding that should the Principal consider that my case is hopeless, he shall be in nowise compelled to accept my application or my money. I am interested in the following:

And if I am, can you help me? I beg to remain,

                         Dear Principal,

                                 Your Most Humble Servant,

                         . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

P.S. I think your Institute supplies a long-felt want.

In the case of another type of patient, the following form must be filled up instead, not necessarily in the candidate’s own handwriting.

Sir,

I have been rejected five times for the British Army. I am too proud to work. I believe in the sanctity and dignity of the human hands. I place myself unreservedly in yours. Please send me a good booklet.

                     Yours,

                               . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

P.S. Have you any reliable cure for bed-sores?

Important notice to ladies

The Lady-Principal is always glad to hear from ladies, and will be pleased to send booklets on Beauty, Knitting, Careers, Cookery, etc. ‘Let Us Be Your Mothers’ is our slogan here, and we must make it clear to Gentlemen who persist in communicating with the Lady-Principal instead of with the Principal that she can only be a sister to them. It can never be otherwise.

 

In the early thirties, a teaching method called ‘An Cóngar’ (The Shortcut) was in operation. It was intended to facilitate matters for those who wished to learn the Irish language, but was singularly ineffectual. O’Nolan and Brother Barnabas suggested another method:

We announce An Congar

Preface

It is with great pleasure that we are at last enabled to bring this unique System to the notice of readers of Comhthrom Féinne. The development and perfection of the System was a labour involving years of tireless research and experiment, and its successful conclusion is in no small measure due to the zeal and scholarship of Brother Barnabas, who has spent the last two years in retirement in the depths of the Vatican Library, and who worked at one period so hard and so unremittingly that he had discovered in quick succession three separate values for the square root of a minus quantity before being over-powered by five able-bodied policemen.

The Epic of the CONGAR has yet to be written – the inspiring tale of all-night struggles with refractory tangents, thrilling combats to the death with intransitive logarithms and veritable faction-fights with swarms of subjunctive hypotenuses. Much trouble and a nett cash loss estimated at £3,500 per day were occasioned by a chance encounter with two Aorist Surds; these appear to have originated in the darker years of the Middle Ages, and to have made their way through the Primitive Indian dialects, eventually arriving in Egypt about the year 1469. Gustav Krautz, a German traveller who died in 1674 records an encounter with them on the Aran Islands in his treatise Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh, but no satisfactory confirmation of this curious statement has been forthcoming. Much credit is due to Brother Barnabas, who faced what may well be described as a menace to civilisation with coolness and courage; he placed his army of assistants at strategic points, imbued them with the requisite mixture of tact and firmness, and managed to obviate the very ugly scenes which would certainly have occurred with a less experienced man in charge of operations. Despite some efforts on the part of the Aorist Surds to retreat within the Great Wall, Brother Barnabas has the situation well in hand after 26 hours’ stiff fighting.

The involved, advanced and abstract nature of their work severely taxed the sanity of Brother Barnabas and the other research-workers, many of whom cannot participate in the present triumphant conclusion of their great task as they are nursing blank minds on the slopes of the Maritime Alps. Ugly Doubts arose from time to time. The old question regarding the rotundity or flatness of the earth, believed by many to have been definitely settled many years ago was resuscitated; and not for a hectic 54 hours was Galileo vindicated. On another occasion, starting from Belfast, gallant efforts were made to produce to infinity two parallel chalk lines drawn on the earth’s surface. The attempt was eventually given up outside Sidi-bel-Abbes‘ owing to the coarse language of troopers of the French Foreign Legion, the callous conduct of four old Arabs, who trained their camels to dance on the line and obliterate it, the unwarranted and ignorant interference of the police throughout the world, and finally the persistent inclemency of the weather.

We will leave the writing of the Chronicle of this Great Adventure to a later scribe and we will proceed with our task of unfolding the beauties and the mysteries of AN CONGAR.

What is AN CONGAR? Briefly, it is the short-cut to the mastery of the Irish Language, and is guaranteed to be shorter than any previous short-cut by at least 80 miles, 7 roods and 2 perches, Irish Bog Measure. It eliminates Syntax, abolishes Idiom and annihilates Vocabulary; it reduces the Irish Language down to simple mathematical symbols; it obviates drudgery; it does away with old-fashioned text-books and will enable the persecuted inhabitants of West Cork to face the attentions of fanatic Oleryites with the courage and the hope that scientific knowledge alone can give. Ní beag sin, or xyz. IT GIVES THE PRONUNCIATION AT A GLANCE, it can register dialectic variations and find the Indo-European root of a given word without even the use of Compound Fractions. ALL THAT IS REQUIRED IS A KNOWLEDGE OF ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICS and a reasonable amount of faith in human nature. Let us take a homely example. The word Seadna is given in Congars as follows:

Shan O Cuiv’s Congar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shiana

Professor Bonnimann’s (Berlin) . . . . . . . . . . . . S%En @

OUR CONGAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x² – y²

You see? The plan is ingeniously simple and can be readily grasped by even the youngest child.

But this is not all. In the hands of a skilled instrumentalist, AN CONGAR can be used to determine such diverse issues as the correct time for boiling an egg, the percentage of fats in watery-looking milk, the specific gravity and rarity of an 11 tram on a wet day, the density of first-year students, whether half-and-half is half-and-half, the percentage of bluff and cards in Poker, the proper development of the Ruy Lopez, the correct choice for an international XV., etc., etc. Let us proceed, however.

An Congar

PROPOSITION I: To investigate the content of the Gaelic words, Sean

O Muireadhaigh.

Let x = Sean O Muireadhaigh.

Then S.F.X. O Muireadhaigh = x.

Therefore S.F.X. O Muireadhaigh – x = O . . . . . . . . . Algebra.

Dividing across by x.

S.F. O Muireadhaigh = O.

But S.F. O Muireadhaigh = Sean Murray . . . . . . . . . . . . Fianna

Therefore Sean Murray = O.

Fail Victory.

Q.E.F.         

 

PROPOSITION II: To determine, by means of an congar and log-tan, tables only, the age at which a man can be properly termed a ‘fear mór’, from the Gaelic phrase ‘Tá’n fear mór’.

 

CONSTRUCTION: Draw a short straight line having little or no magnitude, and drop another similar line from an altitude to meet it at right angles. Close in your V with another line and the result with be a right-angled triangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Euclid.

Ignoring the crudity of expression which we must admit as the one fault of AN CONGAR, we get

   Fear B = Fear ar bith. (Any man) … … Deduction.

   Therefore, Fear ar bith = 1.

 

CONCLUSION 1: The age of any male child requisite to merit the title ‘man’ or ‘fear’ is a maximum of one year as shown above.

We have yet to prove our original Proposition. Let us change the figure to suit our requirements.

CONCLUSION 2: The minimum age at which a man can be properly described as ‘fear mor’ is 46 years.

Q.E.F.

 

PROPOSITION III: Given that the Gaelic phrase Bheibheann de Bhalera1 = O, factorise Bheibheann de Bhalera.

Everything must be a factor of itself and must contain at least one other extraneous and important quantity. … Axiom XVI.

For the purpose of argument, complete the square of de Bhalera.

   Let y = the other unknown quantity.

   Now, (Bheibheann de Bhalera)² + y² = O.

   But Bheibheann de Bhalera = ‘Dev’ … … …

Cainnt na nDaoine.

   Therefore (Dev y) = O.

   = Dev² + 2 Dev y + y² = O.

But ‘Devy’ is a diminutive form of ‘Dev’ and means a small Dev or young brother.

   Therefore Dev² + 2 (young brother) + y² = O.

   Dev² + (Eamonn Rory) + y² = O.

At this stage, the two young brothers may be taken out and sent about their business for the time being.

   Then Dev² + y² = O.

But y, being the other extraneous and important quantity, must consist partly of politics … … … Deduction.

   Factorising y,

   Dev² + (Dáil)y = O.

Allowing again for crudity of expression of AN CONGAR,

   Dev² + Dolly = O.

Now bring in the two young brothers again.

   Then Dev² + 2 young brothers + Dolly = O.

Factors of Bheibheann de Bhalera therefore are

   (Dev + eamonnagusruaidhri) (Dev + Dolly).

Q.E.F.

That is all today, children.

 

Further Propositions of An Congar will be published when the problem as to whether the earth goes round the sun or whether the sun goes round the earth, which has just cropped up, is finally settled.

 

Life for Brother Barnabas was not without its troubles, however.

Rumoured closing of Earlsfort Terrace

FISTICUFFS AT BADEN-BADEN POLITICUS HITS OUT BROTHER BARNABAS THRASHED EXTRAORDINARY SCENES

Baden-Baden, the well-known German Spa, was the scene of turbulent fisticuffs between our pet Commissioner, Brother Barnabas, and Politicus, the world-famous writer, journalist, literateur, boxer, statesman, power-behind-the-throne, etc., etc.

Brother Barnabas lost the verdict on a technical knock-out, was roughly handled by the crowd, and subsequently mauled in the porch of the hall by Mr Tom Guihan, who mistook the Brother for a Bective forward in mufti.

The Free State National Loan lost eight points on the German Bourse.

It is understood that President Hindenburg has received a curt Note from the Free State Government in connection with the matter, whilst repercussions are expected in the Far East.

It is freely rumoured in Academic Circles that, following the publication of Politicus’s momentous statement that University College, Dublin, as such, did not come up to his expectations, the Earlsfort Terrace premises will shortly be up for auction; and, further, that arrangements are in hand for the mass-export of students and Professors to the Russian state-farms, where they will be put in charge of the ‘Aran Chief’ potato-plots.

It is also stated that the Pro Fide Society, having met in private Conference, had composed a strongly-worded document on this matter, and had posted it the other evening in a special pouch to the League of Nations.

Brother Barnabas, who is now, happily, convalescent, is following the situation with keen attention. Professor Binchy has returned from Berlin.

How it happened

(By our Special Wire)

The following is an authoritative account of how this extraordinary situation developed. Brother Barnabas, the fame of whose undoubted talents as an election agent had spread abroad, and whose services had been requisited by Herr Adolf Hitler in the matter of the German Presidential elections, was walking down the corridor of an express-train in search of a bottle of lemonade. Noticing a distinguished-looking gentleman, with a face full of character and perfectly tailored, sitting in a compartment reading a curious document printed in large letters, our special Commissioner sat down in the opposite seat, and from several years of experience of reading other people’s newspapers upside down in suburban trains, he succeeded in deciphering several curious phrases, e.g., ‘Tied to no political party’, ‘black-thorn walking-sticks’, ‘Be prepared – get accustomed now – President Cosgrave, President de Valera, President Larkin, President Byrne, President Murphy.’ Quickly perceiving that this gentleman was connected with a well-known Catholic journal which had succeeded in establishing a ‘corner’ in Nationalism, which did a thing in 1904 which no newspaper had ever done before, which was housed in one of Dublin’s show places and which had been advocating a number of reforms for years, Brother Barnabus commented courteously on the weather, introduced himself by name, shook the gentleman by the hand, and immediately asked him what he thought of his ‘colleague’, who wrote the UCD column in the Sunday Independent. At the mention of our College, the gentleman, who later proved to be Politicus, started violently, and thereupon proceeded to discuss our institution at some length, not always to our advantage. Brother Barnabas, apparently considering that the strictures were not merited, and forgetting that he was in a German express train, pulled Politicus’s tie, fell into an attitude of defence, and savagely invited Politicus ‘outside the door’. Politicus, having resumed his collar, and having drily remarked that he could handle a pen, a gun or an itinerant friar with equal facility, expressed his willingness to fight on reaching Baden-Baden. Brother Barnabas, having accepted the offer, continued in his quest of lemonade, and was astonished to find Mr Kilcullen and Mr Guihan seated in another compartment, deep in a technical discussion on the gold standard. These two gentlemen, it later transpired, were travelling on business, Mr Kilcullen endeavouring to arrange a bout between Max Schmelling1 and Mr Guihan for the world heavyweight title. Herr Schmelling, however, had recently become interested in rivers and springs and was absent on an expedition tracing the Oder to its source, and Mr Kilcullen kindly offered to promote the contest between Politicus and Brother Barnabas.

The contest described round by round

Details of the fight are rather meagre. It appears that a suburban hall was rented, an impromptu ring fixed up. Enormous crowds turned up, apparently taking it from the posters that the Church and State had finally decided to settle their long-standing differences in the old fashioned way. Photographers were excluded by special request of Brother Barnabas, who appeared, amid thunderous applause, clad in the College colours (by the special telegraphic courtesy of the Athletic Union); Politicus was clad becomingly in a singlet of Abbey Street puce, and according to Brother Barnabas, ‘Some people were understood to clap’ when he appeared.

Round one

Politicus came from his corner with a bound, started the attack, and Brother Barnabas was severely beaten about the head, arms, shoulders, legs and body; Politicus landed thirteen knock-out blows in quick succession, the efficacy of which, however, was impaired by his opponent’s capacity for bouncing. Politicus was awarded the verdict on a technical knock-out, Brother Barnabas having been carried out by his indefatigable second, Mr Tom Guihan, before the referee had time to count ten in German. It transpired afterwards, however, that Mr Guihan was under a misapprehension, mistook the Brother for a Bective forward, and had quickly carried him to the privacy of the outer porch in order to thrash him. In this subsequent second fight, Mr Guihan is believed to have won.

The boxers interviewed

Our special correspondent, after a long search, saw Brother Barnabas standing at a street corner, and decided to approach him and ask his impressions of the fight. When approached, however, he made use of an improper expression, and walked quickly up a side-street.

Politicus when run to earth in the Baden-Baden Grosser-gasthaus, looked none the worse for his encounter, and received our representative, who introduced himself as a graduate of Trinity with kindness and courtesy. The following exchange took place.

We: Are you in any way exhausted after your great fight?

Politicus: I am not.

We: Is there any foundation to the rumour that you failed First Arts four times?

Politicus (emphatically): None whatever.

We: As a Civil servant, do you think it right for you to criticise your superiors in a weekly newspaper?

Politicus: Will you have a cigarette?

We: Have you the greatest intellect and are you the greatest figure in Western Europe?

Politicus (modestly): Yes.

We: Was the wholesale spoiling of votes the most ignorant thing, in your opinion, that the National University has done?

Politicus (sharply): By no means. They did something far more serious, and hadn’t even the sense to spoil the right kind of votes.

We: But ‘non semper tendit arcem Apollo,’ you know.

Politicus: I’m not in favour of this compulsory Irish, anyway.

 

It was not surprising that in his later years Barnabas became fond of looking back on some of the highlights of his eventful life:

Should pin-money girls be sacked? Mein Kampf

BY BROTHER BARNABAS

(in an interview)

The numerous friends and admirers of Brother Barnabas will be glad to hear that he is still alive and well; though convulsions, teething, whooping-cough, mumps, rickets and a host of other infantile complaints which have assailed the great man in his old age tend to make his public appearance, which in print and in person become rarer and rarer with the passing years, a ludicrous farce. He now lives in retirement in a rustic bog-farm in the County Meath, where the cultivation of bog-oak orchards and peat parking-poles has become the sole anchor that chains his feeble wits to earth. He is attended day and night by a buxom nurse, provided by the Board of Works, and the giggles and hoarse chuckling that can be heard at dusk from the density of the turf-trollops bespeak a waggish vitality that is reluctant to yield the palm to Father Time.

When the weather is good he can be seen wandering over the hills of and talking to the men of Meath, absently fondling their great square skulls; at other times flitting about like one possessed, uttering that enigmatic query, ‘Et tu quoque Caesar,’ and smiling that whimsical smile that has endeared him in the past to the Great American Public and earned for him the title of the ‘Old Man Sweetheart of the World’.

If the reader were to see him being bundled by his nurse into a tin bath during a sudden spasm of convulsions on the bogs, mayhap he would say, ‘Gracious, what a poor helpless ould man!’

But Lord save us! Stand back! Vienna, 1912. Through the mind back to the glamorous days before the war. Live, laugh and love. Unter den Linden, the gay crowds promenading, the gipsy fiddlers, the moon, the cafes and Ach! the wein. Vienna – city of my dreams – with the lid half-off. The crowds are laughing. Sie freuen sich der Mainacht. But there is stark drama here. Lower down the street the lid is completely off. Two figures meet in the shadow of the greatest Linden. It is pitch dark. You could not see your hand if you held it unter your nose. There are words. An altercation if you will, STRIKE A MATCH! Gott! A picturesque figure in a calico cape is flaying a well-dressed nobleman with a dog-whip. Lash, lash, lash. No mercy, no quarter. Lash, lash, lash. Put out the match and come away. Primeval man. Nature in the raw is seldom mild. Away with us. This is no place for pigeon-chested weaklings … The gallant in the cape is Bruder Barnabas (Brother Barnabas). And the cad who was thrashed? Der Grosse Kaiser Wilhelm!

Incredible, you will say. Who would think it, to look at this poor recluse now, turning the turf-turnips like some poor idiot boy? Who would think that he had once crossed dog-whips with the crowned heads of Europe?

And sa-a-a-a-a-a-ay!

The entrance to the Reichstag chamber is surmounted by enormous 18 point antlers. Who shot the original stag?

Who burnt the place down?

Who invented mixed dancing?

Who invented the two-egg omelet with three-egg Lower?

Who dissolved the Danish Rikstak in 1887?

Who first thought of using starch on rashers?

Who stole the corsets of the Archduke Nicholas?

Who first asked should pin-money girls be sacked?

Who is the first in peace, first in war and first in the hearts of his countrymen?

Tch, Tch, Tch. Surely we need not say it.

 

When I first came to University College, said Brother Barnabas, – and that is many more years ago than I could count on my buttons, even counting the buttons on my boots – the place was a hot-bed of genius. Even the clocks were wound by poets, and some of them were even pawned by men of genius. There was a Deathless Atmosphere about the place, an Elysian mustiness, that je ne sais quoi which instantly assails the nostrils when a plurality of poets are gathered together in an enclosed space. The Billiard-room of today was at that time a Nursery for the little Psyches of the poets – an idea that was later to be copied in the modern Departmental Store – and here the little fellows were kept out of harm’s way and given every attention by trained nurses while their masters were at lectures or engaged in cadging cigarettes from one another. Here the more sickly of them were discreetly dosed with aspirin, unsanitary habits were corrected on the Montessori system, and they were all taught their Irish. The less humane of the literati were wont to match their respective Psyches secretly in brutal battles in the psyche-pit, not unlike the practice of matching game-cocks in cock-pits. Huge side-stakes were wagered on the results, and the sport became so popular that it threatened at one time to become the end for good and all of Great Literature in Ireland. The little fighters were armed with great oak clubs and ’tis said that many a Milton was made jute in the same psyche-pits. The Psyche owned by George Russell,1 who was at that time a callow youth doing First Commerce, was a very famous animal in the pits and accounted for many a formidable antagonist; it was rumoured that W. B. Yeats, a talented youth who was doing Pre-Reg., wanted it for stud purposes and had offered Russell 600 guineas for it, but whether a sale was effected has never been revealed. The thing eventually became a nation-wide scandal. The Skibbereen County Council stopped a scholarship, the Irish Independent wrote a leader, the police intervened and eventually 83 poets were sent down. Subsequent attempts to re-start the sport were foiled by the Psyches themselves, who took a very firm stand in the matter. There were a few desultory strikes, two Psyches ran away from home, and joined the British Army and there were ugly rumours of widespread sulking. The presence of Communist agitators in the ranks was suspected. The recovery of the body of a Psyche, drowned in a sack in the canal, exercised the public mind for many weeks but the mystery was never solved. Eventually the whole thing was hushed up and few signs remain today to tell of that blackest page in Ireland’s chequered story.

I shall never forget my first day in College. I was standing in the Hall one day waiting for a chance to Sign the Roll and Shake the Hand when I was approached by two hunched cadaverous-looking vultures who took me by the throat – it still bears the marks of twenty fingers – and barked a question at me in a horrible cutting voice:

‘Are you a Cynic or a Softy?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but I guess I’m a damn hard man. My father was a soldier.’

‘ARE YOU A CYNIC OR A SOFTY?’

‘Cynic,’ I replied, briefly.

‘That is very singular,’ said one, ‘but not unsatisfactory.’

‘Sit down,’ said the other, speaking in italics.

The first I had easily recognised as Sherlock Holmes and the second subsequently proved to be a man called Fludd. They had both been jilted by the same girl, who subsequently fell in love with Watson, then a young medical student, and was prevented from marrying him only by her sudden and premature dissolution at the early age of seventeen. She was really only a wee slip of a thing. ‘Come up and see me some time. I’m no angel’ was her favourite gag; but it was only a gag. Fludd and Holmes spent weeks in the laboratories endeavouring to compound CYNIC POWDERS, designed to turn the heart into a stone. They eventually succeeded, and took their powders after meals for two years running. Yes, running. They hardened their hearts. Their hearts became heavier and heavier and began to sink down through their bodies into their stomachs and even down through their stomach. A course of frantic physical jerks (‘How to Mould a Mighty Forearm,’ etc.) designed to strengthen the stomach muscles, had no effect, and right proper ructions were only evaded by a series of brilliant operations in Vincents. The two great cynics were eventually saved and they generously endowed two beds in gratitude for their deliverance. They hastily withdrew their gift, however, when an ordinary Softy pointed out that Cynics don’t endow beds for other people to die in. It was shortly afterwards that Holmes evinced a talent for detecting, and he threw up his Commerce course and retired to a flat in Baker Street, London, where he was credited with a wholly uncynical attachment for his buxom landlady. Fludd was left to carry on his fight for the Cynical Ideal alone. He industriously collected all scattered scraps of knowledge on the subject and reduced it veritably to a science. He published his researches under the title of Mein Kampf gegen der Softheit, a work that has since become a classic. ‘How to say cutting things very dryly’, ‘How to talk without moving the lips’, ‘The Theory of Cold Water, Pouring of do.”, ‘Wet Blankets, Uses of. Hints on Care and Storage of,’ are representative titles of sections which indicate the vast erudition of the work.

My first introduction to the literary and historical Society was unlike that of most others. At the end of my first week in College – my great gifts had even already become the common peg for everybody’s conversation – I was timidly approached by the record secretary, a graduate of some years standing, and invited to take the chair at the forthcoming debate. I agreed to do so. George Bernard Shaw was the auditor at the time, a man who was destined at a later day to make history in the Irish bacon trade. The debate was on some aspect of education and colour was lent to the discussion by the entry into the house of Harry Wharton, Bob Cherry, Billy Bunter and the entire Remove, fresh from that famous English educational foundation, Greyfriars. Though clad in the traditional eton jacket and tight trousers, raiment that revealed a certain youthfulness of contour, a closer glance showed that they were really old and soured men. They had been kept at school for forty years in response to the insatiable demand of the clean-limbed National Schoolboys of these islands for more and more stories about their doings. A thoughtful medical man had given them all an injection which stopped all mental development at the age of thirteen. Harry Wharton and his cronies, the Famous Five sat down between Bernard Shaw and Maurice Maeterlinck. Billy Bunter approached them apparently in search of money. I can remember every word:

‘I say, you fellows.’

‘Well fatty, what now?’

(Here Bob Cherry was observed to be viewing Lord Ashbourne, an Irish-man attired in kilts, with extreme disfavour and was indeed heard to remark sotto-voce that there appeared to be a terrible lot of cads present.)

‘Could you lend me two-and-sixpence on account? I have been disappointed about a postal-order …’

‘Sit down, Bunter!’ said Fludd.

‘Go and boil your head,’ said Wharton.

‘Beast,’ said Bunter, ‘Really –’

‘Rats!’

‘Beasts.’

‘Bump him!’

‘What-ho!’

And the Famous 5 arose and bumped him. Bunter was a heavier man than they, but there were five of them in it.

‘Yarooooooooooogh!!’ said Bunter.

‘Order, order!’ said I from the chair. ‘I call upon Mac Uí Hitléir to speak for the motion.’

The debate dragged on conventional lines. Trouble started when I called on Harold Skinner, the sneak, cad, bounder and rank outsider from Greyfriars. In appearance, he was monstrous ill-favoured. And no wonder. He never played clean healthy open-air games like Wharton. Instead of going down to the nets, he preferred to mope in his study with his equally degenerate cronies, Snoop and Stott. And believe me, they looked every inch Snoop and Stott. In the study they used to have dirty ‘smokes’, and even played cards. It was said that they had broken bounds at night and gone to the Green Man in the local village and played billiards. They used to bully and cuff fags, they were always sneering and saying cruel cynical things to poor young impressionable juniors. They were yellow right through, into the bargain. Skinner was thrashed once a week by Wharton, and Snoop and Stott once a fortnight. As Skinner rose to speak, I noticed Fludd edging down and sitting between Snoop and Stott. They were saying cynical things, one to the other, methought.

Skinner started off with a vicious sneer at his own form-master, the gimlet-eyed Mr Quelch, for antiquated ideas on education and corporal punishment. Now Harry Wharton had been belted and thrashed by the same Mr Quelch several times a day. He had written out thousands and thousands of lines for him; his youth, his health, the natural colour of his hair had all been ground away under the iron heel of Mr Quelch.

But he leapt to his feet with blazing eyes. This was not cricket, it wasn’t British, it wasn’t in the public school tradition. Not in front of so many cads and bounders. Not in front of the outsider in the Kilts.

‘Take that back, you rotter!’ he rapped out.

Skinner sneered awkwardly. Silence.

‘Put up your fists, you rotter!’

Skinner, of course, refused and paid the customary penalty. Wharton leaped at him and slammed him down on his back twelve times in quick succession with twelve successive hooks to the jaw. He then stood over his prostrate form, with eyes still blazing.

‘Had enough, you cad?’ he panted.

‘Yes, you rotter,’ said Skinner.

Wharton glared round at the house. Snoop and Stott examined their shoes. Fludd was back in his own seat.

‘Order!’ said I from the chair.

You see? Primeval boy. Nature in the raw is seldom mild.

Some day I will tell the whole story. How Vernon Smith (‘The Bounder’) was elected Auditor of the Commerce Society. How Fludd and Bernard Shaw lived for two days in Loreto Hall disguised as two little girls in blue. How I discovered and hastily re-covered James Joyce. How I boxed a professor’s ears. How I became President of University College.

It is a story of yesterday, but a grand story.

A happy Christmas to ye, now.

I must stop now, for the present. Something is coming on me. Ring for my little tin bath.

A brass hat in Bannow Strand

BY BROTHER BARNABAS

(in an ex-parte application before the master)

It is not generally known, said Brother Barnabas, that I am a halfcaste Russian Jew, though the fact that my forbears were thoroughly Russian does not justify the conclusion that they were Russian bears. I came of good kulak stock and in the palmy days before the revolution was responsible for a tiny but gilded principality in the wilds of the Siberian steppes; here democracy, ladies, a square deal for the working man and other anomalies of the occident were quite unknown; universal illiteracy was compulsory, and such of my subjects who were sufficiently rebellious and anti-social as to endeavour to menace my regime with hedge-schools usually died from exposure on the steppes as a result of their ill-conditioned attempts to plant hedges, as a preliminary measure. My peoples lived in conditions of quite unparalleled squalor and decay, making a precarious living by sweeping snow off the steppes, being impelled by a wholly illogical and ludicrous desire for life to broach a stern smallsword night and day with swarms of ravenous wolves, who had long since learned the futility of waiting at people’s doors. They lacked clothes and brains and boots and food, did my peoples. Above all, they lacked handkerchiefs; and a wet nose, though a social solecism in Rathmines, yet when coupled with the effect of the Eternal Snows, provided my peoples with permanently stiff upper-lips for battling with the wolves – a circumstance which has always impressed me with the wonderful bounty of Nature. The issue of course, was very simple – mathematically elementary. One man one wolf was the status quo and any disparity in breeding on the part of either species would spell disaster for the other. Either the wolves would eat my peoples or my peoples would eat the wolves.

However, I was eventually compelled to fly. An accession of mass-hysteria, culminating in a disgraceful orgy of hooliganism in which scores of right-thinking Russians were massacred, convinced me that immediate and terrible flight was the only alternative to my imminent dissolution. I quitted my peoples, throwing my last kuka-cake to a pregnant she-wolf.

I went to Spain with nothing but my violin, an instrument in respect of which I am not without talent; and there as Fra Barnaba, Maestro, I kissed the rosy fingers of the Muses’ eldest child. Here I remained for six years, and when signs were not wanting that the Russian disaffection was spreading throughout the world, I turned my face to that island of the west, to Ireland of the Welcomes. I landed at Bannow Strand on the tenth of May.

By forced marches, I made Dublin in three days and was glad to note an almost entire absence of communism in the city. True, Marx’s Das Kapital was available in two bookshops, but the frequent exhibition at the Capital cinema of films featuring the Marx Brothers led to an unconscionable confusion in the public mind; and this was aggravated by the activities of Lenin, who was a brindled bitch clocking 31.25 twice in the one week at Harold’s Cross. And the red flag was only the badge of the Gas Company’s ganger.

As soon as I arrived in town, I instantly joined the Gaelic League. I changed my name to An Bráthair Barnabas, determined upon a picturesque genitive in ‘-baí’ (the word was my own and though pedants and pundits may twitter, I hope I can arrange my personal genitives like a gentleman). I suppressed a somewhat egotistical penchant for a locative case ‘barnabaro’ meaning ‘the country in which Barnabas resides’, and finished my inflection with the classical dative ‘Barnabibus’ – to or for Barnabas – my tribute to the old-time latined monasticism of the Irish race. Kong is the eighth wonder of the world and Cong the ninth.

And just as I had, at an earlier day, publicly thumbed Jolas’ transition in London’s fogs to show the cads that the apparent paradox implied in the juxtaposition of the Horizontal World-view and a bus-ride to Brixton could be reconciled, united, adjusted and dissolved in the micro-universe of my mind – housed though it was in a shabby temple to be transported a statutory two miles for one penny – so also I felt bound to mutter Gaelic obscurities on tram-tops in Donnybrook on a wet Thursday to bridge the disparity between a shoddy foreign machined suiting and a Gaelic Ireland, free and united.

At the beginning, my conversational Irish was weak and in poor taste. Commonsense told me to confine my tittle-tattle to people of my own sex until such time as my small vocabulary was disembarrassed of its multiple allusions to street-names, lavatories and police-notices, all of which I had collected on my walks with the undiscriminating appetite of the enthusiast-beginner.

I found myself progressing slowly in the cult, troubled by no doubts or scruples. Suddenly the bombshell burst upon me from a clear sky. On the 13th day of April, at 11.45 p.m., I was called upon to quit my Saxon hosen and wear drawers for Ireland. They were to be grey tweedies, fastened at the knee.

This caused me to call an instant halt and to review the entire situation. I had previously analysed the subject of philibegs or kilts, and came to the conclusion that they could not be regarded as historic documents, and that the custom was in any event shallow and superficial insofar as there was no tradition in underclothes. Another reason against their adoption as my dress lay in the fact that I had, even in early youth, evinced a pronounced tendency towards piano-leg. The same objection held for tweedies or for any type of the attenuated bracchiae.

I objected, of course, and presented an oide memoire on the subject to my superiors.

The outer fustian, I was at pains to point out, was no true guide to the inner heart. Trousering, if not of native origin, embodied the principles of gracefulness, good taste and utility, so dear to the true Irish heart. Furthermore, many implications of our traditional Caitlín Ní h-Uallacháin1 were foreign, though not, I submitted, necessarily bad. If it be conceded that many a heart of gold can beat beneath a shoddy waist coat, who shall doubt the heart that has beaten beneath the homely homespun corsets of our Caitlín Ní h-Uallacháin for so many centuries? Had they ever noticed her figure? Did they mean to tell me it was nature unassisted? Compare her with Britannia or the sowing girl of Gaul and who shall say she suffers? There is only one way with unruly hips and discursive stomachs and if Britannia and Frances should have boldly taken it, why should Caitlín mope a Cinderella in the corner, a fatted failure in a triangular trial of personality, pep and pulchritude? Fiddlesticks! She hasn’t, of course. She borrowed a model from Frances and more power to her: and me to my Hapsburg Hosen. Poor Caitlín was no angel! She changed her name fully twenty times and we have two aliases, Róisín Dhubh and Niamh Chinn Oir, to prove that the courtesan’s hair-dye was stored beside the bagpipes. I carried the day, and was highly gratified when a Synod of the Gaelic League decreed that tweedies were no longer an article of faith, though still to be regarded as a counsel of perfection.

I was also told not to jazz, the thing being foreign and erotic, and three-quarters of the very word being composed of letters quite unknown to the old Irish. This I found a distinct stumbling-block to social advancement, for piano-legs aside, I was a fine cut of a man in tails at that time and I resented restrictions on the magnetic field of my sex-appeal, resentment that was only to be exorcised by the magical emasculation of the advancing years. It was at this time that I determined to enter the Civil Service and hearing at a Gaelic League meeting that Irish dancing promoted industry and work whilst jazz promoted an enervating indolence and lethargy, I determined on a shabby expedient for disposing of all my rivals for the vacancy. I deluged them with free invitations to jazz dances and introduced them to hosts of can-can partners. In the meantime, in the privacy of my humble bed-room, I practised jigs and sets and reels and poets’ choices and extended the rinnce fada1 into a marathon affair lasting nine and a half hours. All with imaginary partners, of course, whose skill and pulchritude was limited only by my own fancy. Breeding will out and I secured first place in the examination with consummate ease. It is only a detail that I was subsequently rejected on the medical examination, the doctor resorting to the cowardly refuge of translating piano-legs into Latin. Twenty-eight sixteen-handed reels won me a job as a navvy in a Drumcondra sewerage scheme and a rigid application to the Siege of Ennis in my spare time won me rapid promotion and the respect and admiration of my colleagues, whilst my erstwhile rival for the Service had one foot in a pauper’s grave and the other foot executing a feather-step in a jazz-hall.

Progress was my watchword, however, and with the great prophets of University College, omens were not wanting that the time was ripe when I should come amongst them. I addressed myself to Matriculation and found it a mere bagatelle, involving only a paltry High Caul Cap and Four Washerwomen.

I came to College.

(But the end is not yet)

 

The end, however, was nigh, and Brother Barnabas’s last contribution is a sad one. But perhaps his spirit lived on, for, to crucify some metaphors, his swansong contained the seeds of a book that was not to be published until five years later: At Swim-Two-Birds, by Flann O’Brien.

Scenes in a novel

BY BROTHER BARNABAS

(probably posthumous)

I am penning these lines, dear reader, under conditions of great emotional stress, being engaged, as I am, in the composition of a posthumous article. The great blots of sweat which gather on my brow are instantly decanted into a big red handkerchief, though I know the practice is ruinous to the complexion, having regard to the open pores and the poisonous vegetable dyes that are used nowadays in the Japanese sweat-shops. By the time these lines are in neat rows of print, with no damn over-lapping at the edges, the writer will be in Kingdom Come.1 (See Gaelic quotation in 8-point footnote.) I have rented Trotsky’s villa in Paris, though there are four defects in the lease (three reckoning by British law) and the drains are – what shall I say? – just a leetle bit Gallic. Last week, I set about the melancholy task of selling up my little home. Auction followed auction. Priceless books went for a mere song, and invaluable songs, many of them of my own composition, were ruthlessly exchanged for loads of books. Stomach-pumps and stallions went for next to nothing, whilst my ingenious home-made typewriter, in perfect order except for two faulty characters, was knocked down for four and tuppence. I was finally stripped of all my possessions, except for a few old articles of clothing upon which I had waggishly placed an enormous reserve price. I was in some doubt about a dappled dressing-gown of red fustian, bordered with a pleasing grey piping. I finally decided to present it to the Nation. The Nation, however, acting through one of its accredited Sanitary Inspectors, declined the gift – rather churlishly I thought – and pleading certain statutory prerogatives, caused the thing to be burnt in a yard off Chatham Street within a stone’s throw of the house where the Brothers Sheares played their last game of taiplis [draughts]. Think of that! When such things come to pass, as Walt Whitman says, you re-examine philosophies and religions. Suggestions as to compensation were pooh-poohed and sallies were made touching on the compulsory acquisition of slum property. You see? If a great mind is to be rotted or deranged, no meanness or no outrage is too despicable, no maggot of officialdom is too contemptible to perpetrate it … the ash of my dressing-gown, a sickly wheaten colour, and indeed, the whole incident reminded me forcibly of Carruthers McDaid.1 Carruthers McDaid is a man I created one night when I had swallowed nine stouts and felt vaguely blasphemous. I gave him a good but worn-out mother and an industrious father, and coolly negativing fifty years of eugenics, made him a worthless scoundrel, a betrayer of women and a secret drinker. He had a sickly wheaten head, the watery blue eyes of the weakling. For if the truth must be told I had started to compose a novel and McDaid was the kernel or the fulcrum of it. Some writers have started with a good and noble hero and traced his weakening, his degradation and his eventual downfall; others have introduced a degenerate villain to be ennobled and uplifted to the tune of twenty-two chapters, usually at the hands of a woman – ‘She was not beautiful, but a shortened nose, a slightly crooked mouth and eyes that seemed brimful of a simple complexity seemed to spell a curious attraction, an inexplicable charm.’ In my own case, McDaid, starting off as a rank waster and a rotter, was meant to sink slowly to absolutely the last extremities of human degradation. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was to be too low for him, the wheaten-headed hound …

I shall never forget the Thursday when the thing happened. I retired to my room at about six o’clock, fortified with a pony of porter and two threepenny cigars, and manfully addressed myself to the achievement of Chapter Five. McDaid, who for a whole week had been living precariously by selling kittens to foolish old ladies and who could be said to be existing on the immoral earnings of his cat, was required to rob a poor-box in a church. But no! Plot or no plot, it was not to be.

‘Sorry, old chap,’ he said, ‘but I absolutely can’t do it.’

‘What’s this, Mac,’ said I, ‘getting squeamish in your old age?’

‘Not squeamish exactly,’ he replied, ‘but I bar poor-boxes. Dammit, you can’t call me squeamish. Think of that bedroom business in Chapter Two, you old dog.’

‘Not another word,’ said I sternly, ‘you remember that new shaving brush you bought?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very well, you burst the poor-box or its anthrax in two days.’

‘But, I say, old chap, that’s a bit thick.’

‘You think so? Well, I’m old-fashioned enough to believe that your opinions don’t matter.’

We left it at that. Each of us firm, outwardly polite, perhaps, but determined to yield not one tittle of our inalienable rights. It was only afterwards that the whole thing came out. Knowing that he was a dyed-in-the-wool atheist, I had sent him to a revivalist prayer-meeting, purely for the purpose of scoffing and showing the reader the blackness of his soul. It appears that he remained to pray. Two days afterwards I caught him sneaking out to Gardiner Street at seven in the morning. Furthermore, a contribution to the funds of a well-known charity, a matter of four-and-sixpence in the names of Miles Caritatis was not, I understand, unconnected with our proselyte. A character ratting on his creator and exchanging the pre-destined hangman’s rope for a halo is something new. It is, however, only one factor in my impending dissolution. Shaun Svoolish, my hero, the composition of whose heroics have cost me many a sleepless day, has formed an alliance with a slavey in Griffith Avenue; and Shiela, his ‘steady’, an exquisite creature I produced for the sole purpose of loving him and becoming his wife, is apparently to be given the air. You see? My carefully thought-out plot is turned inside out and goodness knows where this individualist flummery is going to end. Imagine sitting down to finish a chapter and running bang into an unexplained slavey at the turn of a page! I reproached Shaun, of course.

‘Frankly, Shaun,’ I said, ‘I don’t like it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘My brains, my brawn, my hands, my body are willing to work for you, but the heart! Who shall say yea or nay to the timeless passions of a man’s heart? Have you ever been in love? Have you ever –’

‘What about Shiela, you shameless rotter? I gave her dimples, blue eyes, blond hair and a beautiful soul. The last time she met you, I rigged her out in a blue swagger outfit, brand new. You now throw the whole lot back in my face … Call it cricket if you like, Shaun, but don’t expect me to agree.’

‘I may be a prig,’ he replied, ‘but I know what I like. Why can’t I marry Bridie and have a shot at the Civil Service?’

‘Railway accidents are fortunately rare,’ I said finally, ‘but when they happen they are horrible. Think it over.’

‘You wouldn’t dare!’

‘O, wouldn’t I? Maybe you’d like a new shaving brush as well.’

And that was that.

Treason is equally widespread among the minor characters. I have been confronted with a Burmese shanachy, two cornerboys, a barmaid and five bus-drivers, none of whom could give a plausible account of their movements. They are evidently ‘friends’ of my characters. The only character to yield me undivided and steadfast allegiance is a drunken hedonist who is destined to be killed with kindness in Chapter Twelve. And he knows it! Not that he is any way lacking in cheek, of course. He started nagging me one evening.

‘I say, about the dust-jacket –’

‘Yes?’

‘No damn vulgarity, mind. Something subtle, refined. If the thing was garish or cheap, I’d die of shame.’

‘Felix,’ I snapped, ‘mind your own business.’

Just one long round of annoyance and petty persecution. What is troubling me just at the moment, however, is a paper-knife. I introduced it in an early scene to give Father Hennessy something to fiddle with on a parochial call. It is now in the hands of McDaid. It has a dull steel blade, and there is evidently something going on. The book is seething with conspiracy and there have been at least two whispered consultations between all the characters, including two who have not yet been officially created. Posterity taking a hand in the destiny of its ancestors, if you know what I mean. It is too bad. The only objector, I understand, has been Captain Fowler, the drunken hedonist, who insists that there shall be no foul play until Chapter Twelve has been completed; and he has been over-ruled.

Candidly, reader, I fear my number’s up.

 

I sit at my window thinking, remembering, dreaming. Soon I go to my room to write. A cool breeze has sprung up from the west, a clean wind that plays on men at work, on boys at play and on women who seek to police the corridors, live in Stephen’s Green and feel the heat of buckshee turf …

It is a strange world, but beautiful. How hard it is, the hour of parting. I cannot call in the Guards, for we authors have our foolish pride. The destiny of Brother Barnabas is sealed, sealed for aye.

I must write!

These, dear reader, are my last words. Keep them and cherish them. Never again can you read my deathless prose, for my day that has been a good day is past.

Remember me and pray for me.

Adieu!

 

Although Brother Barnabas was no more, O’Nolan was to write again for Comhthrom Féinne. In the exchange that follows, he defends the ‘Mob’, that noisy and unruly collection of hecklers which clogged the door at meetings of the Literary and Historical Society. As acknowledged leader of the ‘Mob’ during much of his time in College, O’Nolan reasonably supported its right to disrupt the august proceedings of the L. & H., and in these articles he attacks the primness of the committee, and in particular of Mr James FitzPatrick, one of whose contributions to the debate is included here. In the later columns of Cruiskeen Lawn, Myles na Gopaleen was to become notorious for the degree of scorn and ridicule which he heaped upon his unfortunate victims. These reprinted pieces are perhaps the first hints of what he was capable in this mode.

What is wrong with the L. and H.?

From the remarks of my acquaintances and from the letter of Mr James FitzPatrick in your last issue, it seems that the L. and H. has fallen on evil days and that the barbarians at the door have finally triumphed after seventy years of effort.

I think I have heard that one before.

The illusion that one’s generation has been singled out for all the trouble and tribulation that an evil destiny can devise is a familiar one. It is nurtured by self-pity, the least lovely of our indigenous vices. That is what is wrong with Mr FitzPatrick and other philosophers of the same school. They are torn by self-pity and the conviction that the hand of God is against them. That is why I am going to give them some good advice and tell them plainly what is wrong with the society. I recognise, of course, that my advice has not been asked for, but that is largely balanced by the fact that it will not be taken.

First, Mr FitzPatrick has no idea of what public-speaking means. He implies that ‘speaking at the L. and H.’ under proper and ideal conditions, consists in entering the House, rising when one’s name is called and delivering an address that has been carefully prepared, provided with an Introduction and a Conclusion in the fashion of our schoolday essays, seasoned with wit and embellished with the hard-won gems of one’s own personal wisdom.

But that is not public speaking.

That is what happened at the ‘debates’ of our schooldays when the proceedings were supervised by masters who thought nothing of punishing a frivolous point of order with four on each hand. That is what would happen at the L. and H. if the people who go there were all pretentious little morons armed with a typewritten speech in their hip-pocket like a bee with a sting.

Thank God, they are not.

I am willing to take Mr FitzPatrick’s word for it that they are normal beings who insist on an audience’s inalienable right to protest loudly when it is bored. It will be an evil day when that right is surrendered. The fact that it is still exercised is how I know that the L. and H. is far from finished, despite Mr FitzPatrick’s talk of closing down. If the society is sick, it has not been sickened by the Mob. It has been sickened by Mr FitzPatrick.

Listen to what he says.

‘From a continuous attendance at these unwholesome meetings I have come to the conclusion that until the pests who crowd the doorway and man the majority of the seats are exterminated … no sane person can hope to hear, or much less join in, the activities of this Society.’

He wants what he plainly calls the vast majority of his audience ‘exterminated’, because they won’t listen to him, because they find him insufferably dull. In effect, his words are these:

‘I have a speech here. It is very good. Unfortunately, it is above the heads of 90 per cent of you. It does not interest you. I am now going to deliver it in my best style for the benefit of the 10 per cent who can understand it and appreciate it. In the meantime, the rest of you can go and play marbles.’

That is bunkum. It is priggish bunkum.

It is needless to say that the 90 per cent of ‘pests’ who form the audience have no real taste for marbles. They prefer to shout and sing to pass the time. It is not polite but it is natural. They prefer to tell Mr FitzPatrick that they regard him as a pest.

And I find myself substantially in agreement.

Let me enlighten Mr FitzPatrick as to the first principle of public speaking. It is to compel the attention of your audience. Regard the ‘sane’ 10 per cent as superfluous pests. They will listen in any case. The 90 per cent is your audience. Do not address dock labourers on Canon Law, and if you must, speak to them in their own language. Silence them and compel their attention. Having compelled it, hold it. If you once flag, they will swamp you. But grip them at all costs, even at the expense of good speaking or ‘parlour-language’, to use Mr FitzPatrick’s prim phrase.

How?

That is very simple. Subject the recalcitrant by the sheer force of your character and your personality. Speak with force and wit. If they will not listen, make a brilliant speech. If they still roar, make the most brilliant speech ever made before the Society.

When you are making it, you will hear a pin drop.

‘That is all very well,’ Mr FitzPatrick may say, ‘but I am not very long in the College. It is not reasonable to expect me to do that.’

Very well. In that case you are not fit to raise your head as a fully-fledged speaker in the L. and H. at all. You cannot speak. If you expect 500 people who have come to be entertained to listen patiently to your halting maiden efforts, you are a conceited prig. Go away and learn your business. Go to the innumerable smaller societies in the college and speak there. Learn to be serious without being dull and acquire confidence in your powers. When you return, you may still be greeted with salvos of abuse, but they will not be so insistent. You will know that you are progressing.

If you are not humble enough to communicate your philosophy to the lowly intelligence of the Commerce Society, by all means remain in the L. and H. and do your learning there. You will be shouted down. But in God’s name do not raise this ingenuous college-boy whine about ‘pests fit for a place of honour in an anthropological museum’, ‘Hollywood vulgarity’, ‘raucous jests’, ‘hooligans’, ‘drunken maudlins’. The fault is in yourself. You are getting what you deserve. You are not good enough to silence an exacting house. You are a motorist failing on a hill and blaming the steepness of the hill rather than the feebleness of his own engine. (There is nothing so enlightening as these homely analogies.) The hill has been there for seventy years and will remain till an earthquake demolishes it. Even then it will probably become a sheer cliff, to be conquered with ropes and irons. Do not be disheartened. Thousands of engines have failed miserably. Thousands have overcome it.

Overcoming the hill is a pleasant experience.

The L. and H. has been the sternest test in public-speaking in Ireland. I know of nothing so strenuous either here or in any university in Britain. I hope it will long remain so. I hope the Mob will increase in numbers and in violence. They are the red blood of the society. Practically every speaker of moment has graduated from their ranks, necessarily so, because the successful speaker must know and understand his audience of plain people. It is the lack of a Mob that has made the Commerce Society an inferior body. Take away the Mob and the caucus of ‘serious-minded’ self-important little morons that will remain will, to say the least, be thoroughly unrepresentative of the University they inhabit.

All that the present generation of outraged ‘speakers’ want in order to revive the society is GUTS. That is what they pitifully lack. In place of guts, they are content with defeat and ineptitude. In the course of one short visit to the society this year, the only people who appeared to me to speak with any degree of courage were two women. They got as much abuse as any man – more, perhaps, for the field of abuse where women are concerned is wider. They shouted back and were heard. Mr FitzPatrick writes letters to Comhthrom Féinne.

That, in short, is what is wrong with the L. and H.

It is cluttered up with people who are congenitally unfit for public speaking and worse again, with people who confuse speaking with high-school essay-writing and who expect to be swaying a vast audience three months after the rigours of Matriculation.

It is a weak and spineless generation. The normal people are still standing in the unhealthy draught of the doorway. They will preserve the Society by their destructive sanity and by refusing to accept spurious imitations until genuine speakers of substance and guts come along, as they inevitably must. They will continue to castigate pompous incompetents.

That is a consoling thought.

There are other weaknesses contributory to the present bad condition in which the Society finds itself. There can be no doubt of Mr Cooke’s talent, of the closeness of his reasoning and the compelling force of his arguments when speaking. His Inaugural Address proved that. There can likewise be no denying that he has a feeble voice, that his capacity for repartee and for restricting disorder to its legitimate bounds is negligible. He is helpless. The recent ludicrous banning of the Society’s meetings by the authorities proved that.

As an Auditor, Mr Cooke is incompetent. Primarily, his job is to keep order, to compel order, until the task has been delegated to a speaker. He cannot do so. Mr Cooke should resign. Mr Cooke should never have been elected.

He is surrounded by a Committee who are not distinguished for their speaking. The House (90 per cent ‘pests’) does not respect them. They can do nothing to assist the weak Auditor in keeping order. The Committee should resign. They should never have been elected.

The present condition of the Society shows that the Auditor and Committee have betrayed their trust. It is not their fault. They have done their best but the task has been beyond them. Let us leave it at that.

For the future, Auditors must be elected purely on their ability to manage and to rule. The Inaugural Meeting of the tails and the taffetta georgettes does not matter. If the competent auditor is an ignoramus, there are plenty of brainy students who will be glad to write his augural address for a few guineas. The society should be glad to pay it. As a price for a year of good government, it is dirt-cheap.

A competent auditor will not be elected till the adolescent prejudices of the dumb (but franchised) women in the benches cease to be the big factor in the election. Their schoolgirl likes and dislikes have many times elected weaklings in the past. Shepherding them from lectures to the library and polishing their spectacles has been the price too often of the auditorial chair of the greatest society in the whole University. It will continue to be unless the ‘pests’ provide themselves with a vote. And there is little danger of that. They think too much of their shillings. It is too much to pay for a year’s entertainment.

The only other remedy is drastic reform of the electoral laws. Candidates should be elected on their achievements as speakers. Successful speaking means a capacity for silencing disorder. That is the big qualification.

The outlook is not bright.

It can only be brightened by the abandonment of this attitude of outraged defeatism on the part of people like Mr FitzPatrick. I advise him to take new courage and try again. And my advice to the mob is this:

‘Bring double your number along next night, and SHOUT LOUDER!’

The L. and H. controversy

Complete with Brother Barnabusque trumpet-cum-foghorn, Mr O’Nualláin has attempted a last stand over the shrinking corpse of the L. and H. The loud-mouthed praise with which he puffs up its body resembles the decomposing gases which all honest corpses engender when they come for the last time before human gaze.

As long as the L. and H. can totter on its ricketty legs Mr O’Nualláin will be there to bray about Red Blood and Guts and urge it on to speedier self-destruction. When it dies from a surfeit of itself he will also be the first to cry aloud for vengeance of those who did it.

When that time comes I hope the L. and H. will have spirit enough to shout ‘Murderer’.

Another dose of Mr O’Nualláin’s methods in the L. and H. indeed and we should be even now laying out the corpse. Posterity will probably recognise that a certain ambitious but suicidal agitator left this College only a year too soon for such a purpose – but three years sooner would have been safer for all.

Mr O’Nualláin quotes me as being among those who ‘are torn by self-pity and the conviction that the hand of God is against them’. If he construed that out of any sentence in my previous letter then the English language has lost all meaning for him, or else he possesses that dazzling insight into the human mind that betokens a Sunday paper astrological froth-blower.

Alternatively he is just mouthing phrases in the style of a cross-roads orator, feeling certain that a sentence with the word ‘God’ in it will impress his hearers and convince them that Right is on his side. ‘Right’ indeed!

Right often goes with Might – but never with Might-have-beens. For Mr O’Nualláin ‘might-have been’ has loomed largely in his College life – larger than his bantam strutting will admit. The whole tone of his article shows this.

It is permeated with a latent sense of defeatism. The defeated and trapped animal seeks to destroy. Mr O’Nualláin has the same inclination but he is clever enough not to let it take the very common form of destructive criticism. Instead it takes the form of destructive support. Mr O’Nualláin would willingly garrotte those who criticise the L. and H., whether their criticism is destructive or fair; but his counter measures take the form of advocating a thinly-disguised suicide.

Mr O’Nualláin, according to his letter, is for the ‘GUTS’. Mr O’Nualláin, in fact, is passionately for the Heroes with ‘GUTS’. There may be other people concerned in the L. and H., but if so they are incidental. The Mob around, as he picturesquely tells us, ‘are the red blood of the society’. If that is so, then perhaps these people have sense who call the society so goddam anaemic. With its ‘Red Blood’ behaving in such an outrageous manner, it is no wonder that the rest of the society takes to its bed and disturbs the even tenure of the College with its death-rattle.

In defending the existence of ‘Guts’ in the L. and H. I suggest that Mr O’Nualláin has once again succumbed to a fatal temptation. A temptation which has made his name ‘mud’ more than once in the College already. Mr O’Nualláin would be well warned not to drown his venomous spite by misdirected eloquence.

Now and again he sets out to castigate the forces of authority usually by the method of perversely flattering the restless elements in the College. Each time he merits the punishment of an ill-mannered boy, who broadcasts the domestic secrets of his home in revenge for being put in the corner for misbehaviour. Mr O’Nualláin does not defend the ‘rowdies’ because he feels he has a mission. Neither does he defend them out of pity for a badly-used and much-to-be-pitied crowd. There is something more in his barbed Philippics.

It is the opinion of many that he takes the sensational view for sheer love of publicity. He is bitten by the ‘Publicity Bug’ – and badly bitten. This quaint American insect passes under the name of ‘vanity’ in rural districts; however, it seems more fitting to associate it with Mr O’Nualláin in its civilised form. On the whole his attempt to argue the situation in regard to the L. and H. is curiously lop-sided. Like an eccentric expert examining a building while standing on his head. (There is nothing so enlightening as these homely analogies, as he himself cunningly puts it.) He distorts everything to suit his own point of view – the viewpoint of the mentality which no one but he ever catered for.

Such people do not go down to the doorway to join in the ‘fun’, but perched like horned toads up in the benches they squat and reap the benefit of the waspish advice they have sown.

No one can trust them – not even the people whose mental guardians they have constituted themselves.

Mr O’Nualláin cleverly shifts the onus of guilt from such people and their supporters on to the speakers. We wonder if it were the speakers who were recently guilty of interrupting the Chairman in his closing address – not merely interrupting him but maintaining a running commentary of offensive remarks to such a distinguished Professor of the College. To maintain that such a Chairman is incompetent to engage the attention of an audience may seem highly ridiculous, but is the logical outcome of Mr O’Nualláin’s foolish attitude.

The L. and H. is not in danger from the exhibition of a certain amount of spirits on the part of some of its members – nor has it ever been; what is more dangerous to it is the championing of horseplay, vulgarity and disorder by sensation-mongers of the type just referred to.

I am no Cicero, as Mr O’Nualláin is, and when I said in my last article that ‘every person, no matter how poor a speaker, should be allowed an opportunity to speak without a burden of unfair comment being hurled at him,’ I meant exactly what that does say. If it conveys to Mr O’Nualláin that every intending speaker is ‘insufferably dull’, and delights in a prepared speech above the intelligence of the audience, so much for the perspicuity of Mr O’Nualláin.

The truth is that, according to Mr O’Nualláin’s interpretation every fresh speaker in the L. and H. must pass through an intensive training campaign at first. During this period he has to acquire several layers of O’Nualláinic ‘brass’, leather lungs, and a foghorn voice. His intelligence must also presumably be blown out of his cranium by such vocal efforts.

Then and only then can the poor victim be allowed to stand up and speak in the same sacred auditorium as Mr O’Nualláin. The probability is that he will be shouted down in what Mr O’Nualláin might even describe as an impolite manner, by an audience retaining romantic memories of a bumshackle Proletarian Society. The audience tolerates only the one speaker. And the Uncrowned King of the Lubbers and Ham-heads brooks no opposition.

Credit is due to Mr O’Nualláin, however, for his attempt to write a monograph on ‘Successful Public-speaking’. If what he said were true, he should be a perfect speaker, if he practised what he spoke. But he doesn’t, quite.

It is correct indeed to ‘compel the attention of your audience’. But here we meet an actual difficulty. A speech which would be very interesting to an average layman is simply wasted on the University student. The latter happens to be a trifle peculiar at times. The kind of speech he wants tends to be lop-sided.

And the only way to compel their attention, it turns out, is to speak wittily or humorously, and above all amusingly and laughingly. Once this is doled out to them they clamour for more, and, like petticoated infants, shout and wave their arms if they get anything else. Anybody who specialises in this type of burlesque speaking simply makes it impossible for any other sensible person to be heard. The audience have the one-track mind and insist on the same fuel. Hence the deterioration of the L. and H.

Moreover, it would occur to me that babes-in-arms, school-children, University students and laymen have different ideas of a speech. If Mr O’Nualláin were to make himself a genius at compelling the attention of toothless infants by such gurglings and splutterings as generally find favour with that age, and then to try to inflict the same stuff on the L. and H. he would see the error of his ways. In doling out humorous extravaganza ad lib. he had spoiled the palate of the L. and H. for good speaking in every sense of the word.

The L. and H. is afflicted with ‘O’Nualláinitis’ and should be washed in literary Lux. Mr O’Nualláin is a menace. Mr O’Nualláin should be caged, or, better, locked up.

I hold no brief for Mr Cooke. But whatever my opinion of his ability is, at least I have judged it from frequent attendance at the L. and H. during the past year. Mr Nualláin, I feel sure in saying, is judging him unjustly from the state of the L. and H. recently – and from a distance.

The two paragraphs which seek to denounce Mr Cooke as a helpless, voiceless, ninny-headed incompetent should be framed and handed to Mr O’Nualláin as a perpetual reminder of the fact that he rarely knows what he is talking about.

Mr Cooke is one of the cleverest Auditors in the Chair in recent years. He can compel attention in assemblies where Mr O’Nualláin, once he opened his mouth, would be removed immediately to a padded cell.

The whole attack on Mr Cooke, in fact, is baseless. The fact that Mr O’Nuallián himself was never successful at an Auditorial election may account for the ease with which he sets such a high standard for Auditors in general.

He advocates an Auditor who can control a crowd of University students, by sheer force of personality and by his ‘ability to manage and to rule’. One of the first acts of such an Auditor, if he could be found outside the realms of Mr O’Nualláin’s own imagination, would be to send the creatures at the door back to the holes whence they came.

He would not be a competent Auditor within Mr O’Nualláin’s own meaning unless he did so.

Mr O’Nualláin has a reputation. Mr O’Nualláin can talk. Mr O’Nualláin defends this reputation. No one gives a hoot about either of them. We can see through his little game of chase-me-Charlie-I-have barley.

Mr O’Nualláin is not sane. Mr O’Nualláin, to put it succinctly, is perched Etylus-wise on the tapering end of a vertical pole.

We leave him there.

JAMES T. FITZPATRICK

Tidying the garden

It is a curious thing, Mr Editor, that having deliberately expressed my views on the L. and H. in the terse idiom of the Sunday newspapers and having sacrificed syntax and symmetry to clichés and clarity, I should be unappreciated and misunderstood by your correspondents. I must explain. Even the Apostles spent most of their lives explaining.

The first party I want to help is ‘D.E.B.’, much as I must deprecate this skunkish instinct for anonymity in conducting a controversy with public men. ‘D.E.B.’ is probably a fat schoolgirl with black pigtails and glasses and a heart of gold and that is why I want to help.

‘D.E.B.’ makes a number of misstatements. She charges me with calling Mr Cooke a poor or a bad speaker and dramatically produces a tray of medals to prove that I am wrong. Actually I praised Mr Cooke’s speaking. The only unfavourable thing I said was that Mr Cooke is a hopeless auditor.

With this fact, uncontrovertibly established by the collapse of the Society, ‘D.E.B.’ does not agree. Listen to her reckless rhetoric: ‘But for the fact that Mr Cooke is an extremely able Auditor, there would have been disorder and serious disorder this year…. The Society was not banned.’ The wicked sophistry of that statement makes one wonder what our girls are coming to. (Sometimes I think that ‘D.E.B.’ is a small thin camogie player addicted to the vice of secret hockey.) Actually the Society encountered disorder so serious this year that it was banned by the authorities at the request of an outraged chairman. After the period of this ban had terminated, the auditor appears to have solemnly subjected the Society to a private interdict of his own. To express this intricate process ‘D.E.B.’ simply says that ‘the Auditor was responsible for the suspension of the meetings of the society for several weeks.’ That, of course, is quite possible. The two sentences may have started and run concurrently, Mr Cooke continuing to wield his own private scorpion-whip after the President had relented and left off. It is an abstruse speculation, however, and reluctant to become enmeshed in a morass of metaphysical complexity, I am reluctant to pursue it, especially when a loud belly-laugh is as good an answer as any.

In regard to my suggestion to have auditors chosen from their record as speakers as distinct from their social affiliations, I surely made no reference to medals or chairmen’s marks. Humouring the whims and the fancies of visiting chairmen in order to extract a golden ‘10’ would be a far more arduous occupation than baiting them, and would not in any case necessarily entail good speaking. Though hotly resentful of her pitiless reference to the paucity of my own medals, I leave it to ‘D.E.B.’ to make my plan practicable by inventing an alternative system.

I know nothing of Mr Cooke’s ‘ability’ or of the ‘close attention’ with which the Society hears him. I have personally never seen him in the chair and can, therefore, have no opinion in the matter. I can only repeat that he is a failure. He was elected Auditor and charged with preserving and advancing the Society. The Society collapsed. Therefore Mr Cooke is a failure. Anybody who quarrels with the conclusion of this cast-iron syllogism must first pick a hole in the premises. It will not be as easy as picking holes in the premises in which the society meets.

To Mr Gibney and ‘L.F.D.’ I have little to say. The latter, weakly yielding to yogistic symbolism or demonstrating the surrealistic inevitability of bad handwriting, calls me O’Ualláin twice running. Inwardly I recognise the justice of this word, for there is surely some hidden kinship with ullagone and ululation and other terms that connote noise.

Mr Gibney is almost certainly a member of the Clontarf Literary and Debating Society and brings to bear on the follies of the L. and H. a mind that is untwisted and unconfounded, that is as wholesome and as cleansing as the wind that plays along the Bull Wall. He stands, uncompromisingly for discussion in which opinions can be exchanged and the mind broadened, and, finally for discussing weighty matters in all seriousness. Mr Gibney stands for the things that matter and I am sure that his counsels shall prevail. He is a symbol of tomorrow’s student – knowledgeable, serious, industrious. The strident pretence of the windbag and the humbug has had its day; it is washed out. Its day was too long. The world moves on. I feel we are unwittingly on the verge of some cataclysmic change in the texture of the student’s soul. Gazing at morning at the gaudy infants in the prams of Cabra or standing at eve amid the decadent splendours of Whitehall, I feel that a breeze, a cleaner breeze, is springing in the east. It will grow and blow louder and eventually it will cover all Erin. It will be purging and chastening and the world will be the better for its coming.

There remains nothing to do now but to deal with the extravagant Mr FitzPatrick, who, not content with thrashing me so soundly, could not resist the crowning humiliation of putting me up the pole. Let me clamber painfully down the pole and face Mr FitzPatrick, who, exhausted and trembling from the verbal dysentery of his gallant defence of the homes and the altars of the morons, stands gazing at my undignified predicament.

Mr FitzPatrick is scarcely logical. Under the title of ‘The L. and H. Controversy’, he writes a monogram on myself, mentions my name 38 times – often enough to make my best friend sick of it – and then bitterly accuses me of being in search of publicity. Look at all the names he calls me – murderer, ‘might-have-been’, bantam-strutter, the name ‘mud’ more than once, venomously spiteful, horned toad – and he does not hesitate to madden me with an obscure taunt about ‘barley’. This tiresome tirade would have led myself and other readers to the conclusion that Mr FitzPatrick had himself the same lack of tolerance and charity which he deprecates so strongly in the mob were it not that he finally charges me with insanity, a happy device which lets me out as an irresponsible eccentric and reveals Mr FitzPatrick’s heart of gold – the existence of which nobody seriously doubted. Nevertheless, ‘Mr O’Nualláin is not sane’ is a chilling sentence, like ‘The King is Mad’ in Lear, an analogy that is strengthened by ‘L.F.D.’s’ declaration that I am monarch of the mob. Is it possible that Mr FitzPatrick too, a gloomy Hamlet, is going slowly mad from the undeliverable pregnancy of a typewritten speech in his hip-pocket? If Mr FitzPatrick will agree to run against his sword I will undertake to abdicate and divide my realms with my three daughters. It is about time Cordelia got a new deal, anyway.

Despite the fact that he alleges he is no Cicero, Mr FitzPatrick writes weighty paragraphs which do not tally, which, in fact, are directly contradictory. It is, of course, due to sheer carelessness, but it does not look well and is apt to give ignorant persons the impression that Mr FitzPatrick is a fool. Here is an example:

‘The L. and H. is afflicted with “O’Nuallainitis” and should be washed in literary Lux. Mr O’Nuallain is a menace. Mr O’Nuallain should be caged, or, better, locked up.’

‘Mr O’Nuallain has a reputation. Mr O’Nuallain can talk. Mr O’Nuallain defends this reputation. No one gives a hoot about either of them. We can see through his little game of chase-me-Charley-I-have-barley.’

I cannot argue with Mr FitzPatrick since he talks exclusively about myself. Interesting as the subject is, I cannot enter into a public controversy with anybody on it. It is too dangerous. Another printed category of my failings such as that of Mr FitzPatrick and even my fiancée – secured after a month of effort in the Evening Mail – will reject my frenzied disclaimers. Even Mr FitzPatrick, I am sure, wishes me a gentler fate than that.

Finally, unless Mr FitzPatrick, ‘D.E.B.’, ‘L.F.D.’ and Mr Gibney are so caddish as to endeavour to wreck a romance, let me warn them, should they write again, that I am miraculously impervious to sneers. Even Mr FitzPatrick’s ‘might-have-been’, which is a nice compact sneer, leaves me cold. I can wave my kingly vestments in the air and shriek that at least I have never collapsed the Society through incompetence as a doctor collapses a bad lung. Better still, I can chant ‘Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’, ‘To journey hopefully is better than to arrive’, ‘I done me level best’, ‘Whom the Gods love they first make mad’, ‘We can but try’, each of which is as good a schoolboy jingle any day as Mr FitzPatrick’s ‘Chase me Charley I have barley’. And when Mr Fitzpatrick grows up, he will find that ‘might-have-been’ figures too largely in his own little life, as in everybody else’s, to be safely employed as a weapon against others.

In conclusion, let me say that, academically, I have been dead for two years. When a man matriculates, he is born. When he graduates and goes away, he dies. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. All I have ever asked of the world, Mr Fitz, is a beautiful death. ‘L.F.D.’ put two u’s in O Nualláin where there should be only one. You put one in Barnabas where there should be none. You have shown thereby ignorance extending from Bernard Shaw to the Scriptures in addition to your capacity for uncouth abuse.

Get up on that pole.

1 James Meenan.

1 Parts of the Minutes here are illegible, owing to the vandalism of Erse writers several centuries later, who covered the granite Minute-stones with crude ‘Ogham’ notchings.

2 Curiously enough, this joke will appear singularly innocuous to the modern mind; it runs: Why is a bud like a sud? Because one raps the batto and the other baps the ratto!

3 This is ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so.

4 This is obviously the origin of the present beautiful custom of delivering the Inaugural Address in ‘tails’, a custom which has been revered and respected by the gentleman Auditor throughout the ages.

* Trans. Daisy-Bell [ed.].

5 This extraordinary breach of procedure demonstrates the antiquity of the vice of flouting the constitution and all rules of debate, so frequently the last refuge of the half-wit Auditor throughout the ages.

* Dermot McMurrough: King of Leinster, 12th century [ed.].

1 It is also necessary to pay the Proprietors of Comhthrom Féinne a lump sum. Details on receipt of PO for 2/6.

1 Student’s Diary.

1 That was the story of Lawrence O’Brien so far.

1 Trans.: ‘Truth is bitter.’

1 God and Mary to you.

2 God and Mary to you, and Patrick.

1 God and Mary to you.

  It is.

  Shut the door, please.

  It is shut.

2 Cogging: Cheating in examinations.

1 Irish Language Society

1 An adjacent public house.

1 I.e.: Vivion de Valera, contemporary of O’Nolan and son of Éamonn (Dev). Both Vivion and his father were unpopular with O’Nolan.

1 German World Heavyweight boxing champion, considered by Hitler to be a paragon of Teutonic manhood.

1 AE, poet, painter and talker.

1 Kathleen Ní Hoolihan: i.e. Ireland.

1 rinnce fada: long dance.

1 ‘Truagh sin, a leabhair bhig bháin

  Tiocfaidh lá, is ba fíor,

  Déarfaidh neach os cionn do chláir

  Ní mhaireann an lámh do scríobh.’

  [‘How sad it is, o little white book,

  That the day will come, for certain,

  When someone will say over your cover,

  “The hand that wrote this is dead”’] [trans. J.W.J.]

1 Who is Carruthers McDaid, you ask?