Page 16 - Irish Examiner USA

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16

2019 Man For All Seasons

29th,

May By Jim McKeon he taught himself to speak flu- he belonged, his homeland, became very critical of the He was now living openly
rank O’Connor was the ent Irish, French and German, the place of his youth. For the institutional church. with a Welch actress, Evelyn
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It shows his stubbornness
pseudonym of Michael and he could read Russian. next fourteen years the when, in a vote about an Bowen, much to the chagrin of
EXAMINER and reared in the slums of Cork Big Mick O’Donovan, was the huge influence on the young internee, he alone voted they married in the Chester
Frank O’Connor’s father,
the establishment. Eventually,
Barrack Stream was to have a
FO’Donovan. He was born
City over one hundred years
O’Connor’s life. This was his
against the entire camp – one
son of a peasant woman. He
registry office.
Through overwork and ill-
blank page. The colorful
lived just a stone’s throw from
boy against 1000 men, and he
ago. He was such a ubiquitous
IRISH individual that it is difficult to the British Army’s Victoria neighbors, the bustle and noise refused to go on hunger strike. health he retired from the
He said that he wanted to live
Barracks at the top of a hill on
know where to start when
library and the Abbey. At last
and the rich talk were an end-
dealing with his achievements. the northside of the city. less source of material for the for Ireland rather than die for he was a full-time writer.
Although recognized as one With no money or educa- future writer. Ireland. His biography of Michael
of the greatest short story writ- tion, he enlisted in the He was now attending St Shortly after his release he Collins, The Big Fellow,
ers of all time he was also a Munster Fusiliers at nineteen Patrick’s School. A timid child, got his first real job – a librari- appeared to huge critical
poet, lecturer, novelist, lin- years of age. His best friend he hated school so much that an. His mother packed his little acclaim but the combination
guist, critic, playwright, trans- and drinking comrade was a he often clung to the leg of suitcase, including a big holy of the government, the
lator, broadcaster, librarian, fellow soldier named Tim kitchen table with his mother picture of the Sacred Heart, Church and the draconian cen-
managing director of the O’Connor. Tim had a sister, dragging him and the table and, wearing Big Mick’s old sorship laws began to take
Abbey Theatre and self-taught Minnie, who would eventually practically out the front door. hand-me-down suit, he set off their toll.
genius. But none of this meant marry Big Mick. She was tragi- Then he came under the influ- for Sligo, 200 miles up the west Almost everything he
anything to me when I was a cally orphaned at seven and ence of Daniel Corkery who coast of Ireland. wrote was banned including
child of ten, living in Dublin, was admitted to the nearby became his first real hero and All his life he had been fight- his brilliant translations. He
and read one of his short sto- Good Shepherd Orphanage father figure. ing with his father for the was blacklisted for a year by
ries. where the nuns gave her a They met regularly but affection of Minnie. He freely the government and wasn’t
I was immediately hooked. good education. At fourteen eventually the pupil outgrew admits that he was a mother’s allowed seek work in England.
He didn’t just capture my she took up a series of domes- the master. In 1916 the boy and was spoiled rotten. He decided to broaden his
imagination; he grabbed it and tic situations each one more Christian Brothers ‘invited’ For instance, every week he horizons and accepted an offer
hasn’t let go since. I was magi- disastrous than the last: in one Frank O’Connor to leave posted his dirty laundry from to lecture in the US for six
cally transferred back to my house she was nearly starved school. He was just 12 years of Sligo to Cork. His mother months. It to be the beginning
native Cork and the colorful to death; in another, through age. washed it and sent it back of a love affair with America
place-names of my youth: jealousy, all her hair was By now Cork was a hive of including five shillings – her although he sometimes felt he
Cockpit Lane, Potato Quay, chopped off, and in another political passion. O’Connor weekly wage. She starved her- was a small boy from nowhere
Sober Lane, Lovers Walk, she was attacked by a lodger. joined the Volunteers and was self for him. trying to climb an academic
Elbow Lane, Hangdog Road, She had a dreadful young actively involved. There was a Once, he took her with him mountain – a writer more than
Corkscrew Hill, Cutthroat life and, once, even contem- five o’clock curfew and any- on a holiday to the beautiful scholar.
Ally, Peacock Lane, plated suicide. She went from one who broke this was shot. Swiss Alps. As she was resting He met and married Harriet
Strawberry Hill and Tower job to job including London These were exciting, traumatic in the sun and the fresh moun- Rich and spent ten phenome-
Street. and Limerick before settling yet dangerous times. tain breeze, he asked her if she nally successful years in the
I was that frightened boy in down with a family in Cobh. Cork’s Lord Mayor, Tomas liked it. She replied, “It would United States. Sadly, his health
First Confession and the brave By this time she had met Mick MacCurtain, was murdered in be a grand place to hang out deteriorated and he returned
child looking after his mother O’Donovan, the army friend his home by British forces, and the washing.” to live in Ireland where he was
in Man of the House; and how of her brother Tim. Mick was a with the arrest, hunger strike He was transferred to given an honorary degree by
I empathized with that nerv- big handsome man who was and death of his successor, Wicklow and back to Cork but Trinity College.
ous youngster in Old Fellows kind enough when sober, but Terence MacSwiney, the city he became frustrated with the On Thursday afternoon,
who bought a toy dog to pro- Tim warned her that he was a became very tense. The Black parochialism of his home town 10th March, 1966 he suffered a
tect him on his long, late walk devil for the drink. He once and Tans, a law unto them- and accepted a post at fatal heart attack. He was 62. It
home. boasted of drinking forty pints selves, murdered and tortured Pembroke Public Library in was a tragic loss because when
To me, Frank O’Connor in one day and he sometimes suspects at will. Then, just Dublin, although he felt that he was around, the air was
was the greatest ever exponent brought home twelve bottles before Christmas 1920, in a Cork needed him and he need- alive with possibilities. His
of the art of the short story. of stout and a half-pint of night of premeditated mad- ed Cork. Nothing but death very presence held a promise
Superbly structured and filled whiskey just for an early- ness, they burnt the city to the could ever cure him of that of wonderful things. He
with beautiful sensitivity and morning ‘cure.’ ground. notion. looked like a king, felt like a
warm intimacy, their heroes Still, on 8-10-1901, she mar- The Civil War followed Dublin was a city of great poet and spoke like a god.
always seemed to be lonely ried him in the South Chapel. quickly. This was the blackest writers: Goldsmith, Gogarty, When his name is men-
boys like myself, fighting drag- She was 36 years old. While period in Irish history and Wilde, O’Casey, Joyce, and he tioned, the words obstinate,
ons in their imaginations, or her husband was away fighting O’Connor took the republican became a close friend of WB brave and humane spring to
some poor orphan standing up in the South African campaign side simply because it was Yeats. Afraid of losing his civil mind. He told it as he saw it.
to some terrible injustice. she gave birth to her only Corkery’s side. While on the service job, he adopted the His clear and brilliant under-
Even today, the man still child, Michael O’Donovan, run, he was captured and pen-name Frank O’Connor – standing of the nature of the
fascinates me. As a child I whom the world would later interned for a year. The intern- his mother’s maiden name and short story is best summed up
thought he was writing just for know as Frank O’Connor. ment camp turned out to be his own middle name, Francis. in his own words: “It doesn’t
me. I have spoken of him to Soon after, the family his ‘university.’ In 1931 his career really deal with problems; it doesn’t
people from as far apart as moved back across the city to He taught Irish and took off with the huge success have any solutions to offer; it
New York and New South the Barrack Stream in the German and took French les- of his first book, Guests of the just states the human condi-
Wales and they have confided shadow of Victoria Barracks. sons, and there were debates, Nation. He was now writing tion.”
that they too thought An indication of their poverty books, concerts and lectures. nonstop – plays, poetry and Perhaps that is why the
O’Connor was writing just for was that everything they pos- Also, along with many others, short stories. As well as his story-telling of Frank
them. His pen was truly uni- sessed was loaded on a donkey he was excommunicated from library work, he was also man- O’Connor has and always
versal. He attended national and cart. the Catholic Church because aging director of the Abbey will have such a universal
school for only four years, yet Big Mick was back where of his republicanism, and he Theatre at just 33 years of age. appeal. C