Rory & Ita by Roddy Doyle
‘I discovered that I liked the pure art aspect, and I forgot about commercial design. I could do design work but I became much more interested in the aesthetics of art. You couldn’t make a living; it seemed that most of the best contemporary artists had to teach to survive. But it was much more attractive to me. And, of course, there was the wonderful world of the galleries. At that time, the drawings and etchings of the masters, Rembrandt and Orpen and O’Sullivan, were on display in the National Gallery, and I loved them. I learned about perspective, and then went and did a lot of drawing in what was known as “the antique,” that is, drawings of plaster casts of classical figures and heads. Then I was promoted, to go to life class. It was a great achievement, the idea of drawing real naked women. When I told people, they got quite excited. In fact, it was an artistic thing; one never thought of it in terms of being sexual. It was just the art. But I think my friends thought I was just a dirty old man, in a privileged position.’ He doesn’t remember any of the models. ‘They came and they went. But there’s one man I remember, a German, a fighter pilot who’d been a prisoner of war in the Curragh camp. I think his name was Heinz Grau – that’s the name in my memory. He attended the College but, now and again, he sat as a model. He was a rather arrogant man. We didn’t know much about Nazis or their attitudes because we’d been sheltered from it, but it was only after the War ended, and in the years after, when I was looking at films, I began to see him as the quintessential Nazi. He had it in his very expression, manners and behaviour. He’d go about taking up your space in the drawing room, as if it was his, and, once or twice I had to remind him to take a walk or to move aside, because he was standing in the way. He’s the only one of the models I can really remember, because I still have a pencil drawing of him.
‘I went to the College of Art in the evenings. I started going twice a week during the first year, and I ended up going five times a week. I had a ball. I got involved in the students’ society as well, and actually got to editing a students’ magazine called the Garret. It was short-lived; everybody read it, but few bought it. We also spent weekends sketching, in places like Powerscourt and the zoo. And we went to all sorts of peculiar places, for parties. There were many places around Leeson Street; some of the students had digs there. I went to one party, and I brought along something in a brown paper bag. The room was three flights up, and we thought we’d open a window; there was a terrible smell in there. One of my friends opened the window, and the next thing we saw was a drop of three storeys – it was a door that opened to a drop. It may originally have been some kind of warehouse. But it was only the grace of God that stopped one of us from falling out. After all that, the parties and the dances, I’d get my bicycle and go home, find my dinner that my mother had left in the oven, eat the dinner, go to bed, and be up to go to work in the morning. It was a great life.
‘I had my first bottle of stout in McDaid’s. It didn’t taste good but everybody else looked like they’d been drinking it all their lives, and I wasn’t going to be any different. So I stuck it out; it took me about an hour and a half. After three bottles of stout you’d be ready to sing, fight, or have a deep philosophical conversation with neither beginning nor end. I’d gone with Dick McGuirk and Jack Gleeson, from the College of Art, and a couple of other characters. We decided we’d get adventurous and we went down to McDaid’s, which was frequented by many artistic types. There were four of us at the College of Art who, generally, worked and partied together, or went to dances. I’d already known Dick McGuirk from secondary school; he was an accomplished water-colourist. There was Des O’Sullivan, a laconic type who, somehow, was always up to speed with the news and gossip of the art world. Kevin Borbridge was the fourth man; he was always in need of fixing up with a girl for the dances.
‘We drank bottles of stout. There were very clear distinctions about what was drunk. There was stout, which was in bottles. It was Guinness, but every pub had its own labels; it was bottled down in the cellars. When you were in the pub, you called for a bottle of stout. You could also call for a pint, but that was porter. Working-class men drank pints. The porter was also Guinness, but was a brownish colour, more brown than the black Guinness stout. So, a “pint” was a pint of porter. I never drank one. I drank bottles of stout. Occasionally, you’d go wild and ask for “a small one,” a small whiskey; that was when you were feeling good. A lot of regular drinkers would call for a bottle of stout and a chaser – a small whiskey. Pints were rarely drunk. There were, however, a few clients who asked for a “half and half,” a mixture of stout and porter.
‘About the time of the polio epidemic – it must have been in the early 50s – the iron lung was introduced, to save people’s lives. This apparatus helped to control muscular movement and breathing. It was, literally, a miracle machine. At that time, Guinness introduced the big aluminium pressure kegs, to replace the traditional barrels. The drinking fraternity discovered that there was a consistency to the drink from the new barrel, so they’d say they wanted a pint “from the lung”. That’s when the universal drinking of pints of stout started.
‘One particular night we went into McDaid’s and we were into our second bottle, and someone said, “There’s Behan coming in the door,” and we all just left our drinks and went out the other door. When Brendan Behan walked into a pub, contrary to what everybody is writing now, as many people as possible drifted out, because he could be the most obnoxious individual – a dreadful personality. He’d insult everyone in sight, and demand that you buy him drink – and then pass remarks about your sisters and mother. I find it very amusing, and difficult to take seriously, all these famous people talking about the Brendan Behan they loved. He had no friends in my young days. I think he only got friends when he’d earned a lot of money. Naturally, he got friends then, but he was a dreadful nuisance and a bowsie.’
‘I started my apprenticeship at eight o’clock on the 8th of July, 1940, and it ended seven years later, 1947. I was now on full pay; I’d a pocket full of money. I got slightly silly drunk with a lot of my friends, celebrating. I came back down to earth the following week when I discovered that a lot of people had been hanging around, waiting for me after my seven years in Purgatory, and their hands out in all directions. The Revenue Commissioners took a greater interest in the few bob. My mother thought I was earning a fortune now, and demanded that I make a bigger contribution, because she had a house full of younger ones who had to be looked after. I thought they were already well-looked-after but, however, I increased my contribution. At one stage, after two or three weeks as a journeyman, I was contemplating going to Australia.* However, I settled down to life as it was.
‘I stayed on at Juverna Press for a year or so. But I was beginning to get restless because I’d been there seven years and, as well as that, I’d been regularly promised that I was going to be flung out when I’d finished my apprenticeship; there was no doubt that I was going to get the boot. That was the usual fate of apprentices; you got your walking papers and became a journeyman, and there were seldom jobs to be had in Dublin. It was a bit of a worry, there in the back of my mind. But here I was in 1947, and into 1948, and there was a scarcity of craftsmen, business was beginning to pick up, and there was no sign of anyone wanting to deprive me of a livelihood. So I started looking around. I discovered that the best-paid jobs were in the newspapers. But you had to get into a newspaper first, and that wasn’t easy. You had to take the chance of applying for summer work. The papers had such huge staffs that, during the holiday season, there were always vacancies which were filled by casual labour. You took a chance of being appointed to a permanent job. So I took the great gamble and applied to the Irish Independent. I was interviewed by the works manager, an Englishman called Bell. To my surprise, I got a job almost straight away; I got a telephone call, at Juverna Press. Then I gave in my notice and all hell broke loose.
‘Jacko, my uncle, was out sick,* and the manager, Hennebery, went wild when I gave in my notice. He didn’t w
‘So I went to work for the Independent, to a totally different world. There was no yesterday, no tomorrow, only today – now. When you commenced in the paper each day, there was hardly a sound. The odd metallic sound, if somebody dropped something, but everything was quiet. But then, very gradually, the tempo began to rise. People would arrive, editors, journalists, advertising clerks. They’d whisper something to the stone man,* who was busy assembling the pages. And then the bits of paper began to fly out from the overseer’s little office; each story was cut up into small takes.† The linotype operators, when available, would walk up to the overseer; they were handed a piece of the story, and the noise would increase, especially after 9 pm. The linotype hall was an absolute bedlam of clanking machine parts. And the stink of metals, all beautiful – you were part of it. Then everybody would be shouting at everyone, as you came near to printing time; an enormous amount of din that kept increasing. Certain pages were sent away to be processed by the stereotypers, into big metal plates that were fitted on to the printing press. But the main, important pages, like the news and the sports, were held back until the very last minute. Journalists dashed hither and yon. In the clamour, men exchanged the vilest of insults and forgot about them until the next time they’d had a few jars. And then the editor, in all his majesty, would appear and he would make a pronouncement about closing the edition. The din and the shouting and the roaring gradually ceased, but it happened every day. And you never discussed yesterday’s paper, unless you’d made an awful mistake and there was an inquiry. And tomorrow’s paper – that was non-existent.
‘In terms of mistakes, the only things that were absolutely sacrosanct were the births, deaths and marriage columns. These were so important that there was a standing rule of the house that, if you made a mistake or passed a mistake, you were sacked on the spot. And the union concurred with that.
‘I worked with Mick Molloy, the man who set the type for the Proclamation of Independence in 1916, and Charlie Bevin, another 1916 man, who was interned in Lewes Jail, and Paddy McKee, brother of Dick McKee, who was murdered by the British in Dublin Castle on Bloody Sunday.* There were also British Army veterans who’d fought in the Boer War and the Great War, and veterans of the Civil War. But these matters never intruded into the workplace, and were never referred to. There was a strange civility among the men; there was never any unpleasantness and I wasn’t aware of any undercurrent and, actually, I was only made aware of the situation later, by an older friend of mine. There was an unwritten rule that you didn’t draw on certain subjects; religion was never discussed. You’d be told that somebody was a Protestant, but just for your information, so you wouldn’t say anything derogatory about another religion and cause offence. Politics wasn’t discussed, as it was a subject that was likely to cause rows. Football was discussed, a lot, especially English soccer, and sex.* But the overriding moral force was the strength of the companionship – the chapel.† No outside influence was allowed to intrude.
‘I made a couple of close friends, Nick McGrath and Stephen Judge, and we’d have a different kind of conversation; we’d talk about how we’d change the world. Nick was particularly interested in socialist politics, with the result that he was labelled a Communist. But I liked him. He was older than me. Stephen was an older man too; he had eight or nine kids. He had a great store of information, because he’d been all around Dublin in lots of different jobs. He was very good-humoured. We were quite good friends. It wasn’t fighting politics we talked, more union matters, because of the fact that we lived and worked in that atmosphere all day or night. We were immersed in printing and with printing people – the functions of the job, whether they were being overstepped – young, over-enthusiastic journalists lifting linotype slugs, doing what they shouldn’t have been doing – or being restricted; all of these matters were given deep consideration. I also made a lot of money, very good wages. After about six months, when the summer season was coming to an end, I was formally told by Tom Hopper, the overseer, “Mister D, you have been appointed to the staff.” So I asked Nick what exactly being appointed to the staff meant, and he said, “You get a fortnight’s fuckin’ notice, the same as the rest of us.”’
‘I became involved in Fianna Fáil because I was born into Fianna Fáil. I never joined; I was born into it. I never joined, and I never left.* My father was one of the Republicans who followed de Valera when he founded Fianna Fáil in 1926. I remember Fianna Fáil as a very small child; I remember working in that famous election when we made the McEntee paste for the posters. Then the Irish Press arrived, and that reinforced it. A marvellous paper it was; it was a good literary paper as well as displaying a republican side of politics. And it made balanced papers of the Irish Independent and the Irish Times, who’d never given any reporting of republican matters before the founding of the Irish Press.* Then de Valera came to power and said, “Don’t give the British any land annuities.” And this was great; this was really fighting talk. He did things like that – a land war, which made us feel that we were big enough and gave us a sense of national pride. It cost money but we really didn’t have much to lose, and it gave us that sense of pride that sustained us. That is his great legacy. There was no great material gain but, then, nobody had anything – the whole world was in recession. The 30s were bad years for most people. So all you had was your pride. And Fianna Fáil was a socialist party, in the real sense; the aim was to help the poorest in the country.
‘After that famous election, when we made the paste, I had very little hand or act or part in any elections, until the election held during the War.† I became involved in canvassing and putting up posters, and suchlike. We were nearly always at the wrong end of election results in County Dublin. You could nearly write down on the register who was going to be voting for whom, and get it right to within the two or three people who might have been telling lies. There were a lot of Unionist-types and old Blueshirts in our area. We were fighting a losing battle, but we kept going. And one of our greatest antagonists, Liam Cosgrave,‡ came along and swept up most of the votes. He caused us great annoyance, he was so popular.
‘During 1948, I was secretary of the Tallaght cumann* of Fianna Fáil. I went to the Árd Fheis,† I represented the cumann at constituency meetings, and, as secretary, I organised everything. I carried out all that, and went to the College of Art, and worked, and did all sorts of other things. It’s amazing what one could do in those days. I actually attended several Árd Fheiseanna in the Mansion House, presided over by Eamon de Valera. My abiding memory is of the large numbers of tough-looking country men, wearing big rough overcoats, smelling of damp and farm life. They invariably had their breakfasts, dinners and teas in their overcoat pockets. I remember one particular Sunday, when de Valera was winding up the proceedings. These thousands of country men listened with rapt attention as Dev described for them, in great detail, a method for sewing a fáinne‡ on the lapels of their coats. Said he, “Let ye get an indelible pencil and put the cap of your fountain pen on the lapel of your coat and draw a circle. Now get the little woman, with a needle and darning wool, to sew a circle over the pencil mark. Everybody will then know that you have an interest in the Irish language and you won’t have the expense of buying the silver fáinne.” Poor old Dev, he was an innocent. He’d be astonished to discover what his “litt
The College of Art friends decided that they needed a studio, ‘for our artistic advancement. But, finally, Kevin and myself decided to take the plunge and we went in search of a suitable place. We were told that a room was available in a house at the end of Nassau Street, just at the beginning of Clare Street. The house front was set back from the street, and it had a peculiar overhanging balcony-type window. We arrived at the door and knocked, and knocked. Kevin decided to look up, to see if there was any life in the house. There was. As he stepped back from the door to look up, the window above opened and the contents of a bucket were poured over poor old Kevin. He was very annoyed, and didn’t smell too good. So, we got on our bikes and went home. We then heard of a place on Marlborough Street, and we eventually rented a room up four flights of stairs, in a very rickety building. We paid the first week’s rent and, before we’d even installed our studio equipment, we had a constant stream of visitors of the female persuasion; they’d heard that a couple of fellows were setting up a peculiar establishment, and they wanted in on the act. In spite of our best efforts, we couldn’t persuade them of our artistic bona fides and, after a week, we packed it in. We never did have a studio.
‘There was a College of Art fancy-dress hop, at the Bolero, a café-restaurant near the Stephen’s Green end of Grafton Street; there was a small ballroom at the rear of the restaurant. I persuaded Des Sharkey and Michael Kennedy to come to the hop, and when they didn’t appear, I was slightly worried. However, at the midnight hour, Mick appeared in the doorway, dressed in a sailor’s gear, and he told me that Des had had an accident. He’d been dressed up in a doctor’s white coat; he’d a large pocket watch, a stethoscope, and a black tall hat. Cycling down the South Circular Road, his wheel got caught in the tram track and he was catapulted over the handlebars. He split his forehead and an ambulance was sent for. As the stretcher was being lifted into the ambulance, some kind soul placed the tall hat on his chest, and away he went to the Meath Hospital. He was alive and well and bandaged the next morning when we were allowed in to visit him.