Paul Malpas

Today’s text comes from years of considered and malevolent thought centred around one evil man who made my teenage years a nightmare.  I have written about him previously and to judge by the response my portraits have been at least accurate, if not as damning as they might have been.  If you google this man now,whereas previously he had been airbrushed from the pages of written history, now I take up the first 28 results on him.  How I have done that I do not know but at least I got the bastard some publicity.

For those of you who have not read previous blogs, Tommy Duggan was Rector of my school in Manchester,  St. Bede’s College, and one horrible, spiteful, unchristian, dreg of humanity he was.  Friends of mine have described him in many ways but nobody I know has shown a scintilla of compassion or expressed any remorse for his banishment to the wilds of the northern tracts of the diocese.  When priests are sent out there they have sinned most greviously which is a bit of a pity for the burghers of those wild and woolly wastes.  To put it simply he was an abuser and a pompous, evil prig of a man, who loved to see young boys squirm with terror.  There was no compassion, no goodness, no thought of  another’s feelings that you would expect in a senior educator.  Where he got his philosopy from must have been the dungeons of the Vatican where he was educated himself for a number of years.  At the school, he was in control of 700 boys, 50 staff and 20 nuns all at his beck and call, he must have thought he was in heaven.  He loved the outdated aura of the school and the so called quality of the alumnae.  He loved to look down and smile at the gifted morons who toed the line but anybody with any spirit who asked questions was despised and worse.

l was one of those boys who did not fit in, Mike Sheehan, my mate, was another.   He was very clever, I was only middlin.  He was persevered with for six years because Duggan thought he could make something of him.  He did after Sheehan paid one visit to his rooms.  He made a nervous wreck of him. I was kept on because I was good at cricket.  However we both outstayed our welcome and had disappeared off the screen by the time A Levels came along.  Sheehan baked bread at Tip Top Bakery for a while before joining a number of other recalcitrants at Mather Teacher Training College,  in Manchester on the premise that if you cannot beat them, join them.

I went Quantity Surveying and playing cricket with limited success.  However about two years after leaving school I was asked to play for the Old Boys in their annual all day game against the College 1st XI.  I was honoured, this was a prestige fixture and included lunch at the College.  At 10 o’clock am the Old Boys assembled at the pavilion for a “get to know you” session.  Everybody was older than me by several years, with names like a roll of honour of past cricketing heroes.  All professional men, lawyers, accountants, teachers, the odd priest and me, a snotty nosed kid from Longsight who was not worthy of cleaning the shoes of the rest of the team.  The game started and went on for two hours and then we retired back to the school for lunch.  Duggan had not put in an appearance that morning presumably readying himself for the shining talent that were his old boys.

We assembled in the boarders refectory, my natural shyness forbidding me  from pushing forward and I got a seat on the end of the top table.  The boarders were all assembled on long benches in the body of the oak panelled dining room.  Duggan was in the middle of my table beaming with pride at this wonderful advertisement of his school’s treasures and he was carving away at two massive ribs of beef when his eyes noticed something at the end of his table.  He dropped the carving knife in horror and took another look.  Yes it was Malpas, the piece of shit he had scraped off the carpet some time back and the rogue was winking at him.   He was not able to continue.  He asked one of the attendant priests to finish the carving and sat with his face in his hands, hardly eating a thing, as though in prayer.   I noticed the boarders did not get a slice of the excellent beef but I had my share, which was well washed down with glassfuls of St. Emilion.  Immediately the meal finished he excused himself and swept away in his patent leather slippers.

In the afternoon we got the upper hand and wiped the floor with the boys.  It was custom in previous years for Duggan to give a little homily at the end of the game and to award a shield to the winning captain which was kept in Our Ladies Corridor until the following year.  There was no show from Duggan and the day just fizzled out.

Now I cannot say that my presence was the reason for this damp squib, but for a man who was clearly enjoying himself one minute and to go down with severe colic the next must have had a cause and I suggest that cause might have been me.  It is a pity because in those two years away from Duggan’s devilry, life had taught me a lesson or two and one of them was that I was now scared of nobody least of all Duggan.  Unfortunately I never saw him again and he must be well and truly dead now and that is another pity as in this modern age he would be serving 10 or 12 years for the tricks he got up to.

With the Catholic Church going into hiding in order to devise a new knot with which to tie themselves up, it is time to look around the scene in Ireland to see where else the pent up fury of the population can decend.  The financial problem that Ireland is swilling around in has been forgotten about recently and Cowan from Offaly has been mighty glad that the Church attended during his hour of need, but money is again raising its ugly head and Brian’s sphincter is beginning to twitch once more.

News that the banks and building societies are slowly sinking beneath the waves and into NAMA’s unforgiving arms raises the question why  has it taken so long and how much money has been wasted over this last 18 months whilst the soul searching process has stumbled along.

I notice that the Financial Regulator, who is getting plenty of exercise these days in his new job has appointed a provisional administrator to Quinn Insurance.  It is a pity that his predecessor had not been as alert when the banks were doling out all that cash they did not have.  So with Quinn in a state of flux, is this the beginning of the end for this once mighty organization.There was hundreds of millions of euros passing between this Insurance giant and Anglo Irish Bank that even the money got dizzy.  Sean Quinn seemed to be playing some form of snakes and ladders, but it did not seem to make sense.  For the last couple of years I had been wary of them as there seemed to be no logic to their pricing.  I insured with them because their quote was reasonable and yet a year later with no claims, my policy went up €230.  I quickly removed myself to logic and Axa and I presume a lot more people are doing the same, because when my wife decided to do likewise this year, she must have had ten phone calls from Quinn, pleading with her to reconsider.  Their strong sales pitch, allied to their alleged poor payout performance must have gradually turned the wheel against them.

I also see that the public sector unions have reached agreement with management on pay and reform.  Well lets hope so because the reform section needed looking at for years.  The number of hours that I have wasted over time ringing various departments hoping someone, anyone, would answer the phone has been phenomenal.  Even in the good years this simple task of contacting a civil servant proved to be nigh on impossible.  The fact that they have all got jobs, as low paid as some of them possibly are, is better than many in the private sector who have no jobs at all, just dole to look forward to for the forseeable.  Let us all hope now that this slackness might disappear and at least my son can go to school more times than he stays at home.  This term has been remarkable for the number of teaching days lost.

However not everything is doom and gloom.  Ireland and Limerick’s own, Kamal Ibrahim, came home with the spoils in the Mr. World contest in Korea and Kevin Myers column in today’s Independent stresses once again what a stupid, egotistical, bullying bastard Winston Churchill really was and that thought always brings a wry smile to my face when I listened over the years to the adoration given to him by the people of England, who could not see the evil that was within him.

I have just been watching quite an unbelievable and emotional television programme by Fern Britton about the life of that great and inspiring man, Desmond Tutu, whose life’s work was his opposition to apartheid and his defence of human rights.  This programme should have been shown at night on mainstream television and not hidden away on a Sunday morning at 10.00am.  Any of you who can access this programme through BBC  iPlayer do so, it was remarkable.

Tutu chaired the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa and its success in dealing with feelings of retribution by the oppressed black community was ground breaking, but he claimed all along that the people had to have the truth before reconciliation could begin.

A lesson that the Catholic Church could do with learning.  The Church is all for reconciliation, Drennan’s laity in Galway are laying palms on the altar this morning to show penitence for the sins of their priests.  The Pope has said that the only way out is through forgiveness and reconciliation.  They are certainly all for it because through reconciliation will come comfort and ease.  What they have not talked about is Truth.  Truth is the essential element in rebuilding any kind of relationship.  It is the cement and sand between the bricks.  It binds.

So I am afraid the Pope and his minions are a long way from granting us the truth.  The Church is still ducking and diving, giving us dribs and drabs which they hope is enough whilst the media and other dissenters are trying to eke out more from this vast lumbering,shuffling and now unstable hulk.

Possibly the best recent article I have read on this subject was by Michael McCarthy and published jointly in today’s editions of the Belfast Telegraph and the Independent on Sunday.  Google Michael McCarthy: How could Catholics do such a thing.

He says that as priests are supposed to be permanently in a state of grace to receive communion every day during their obligatory mass, how did the many thousands of abusers round the world reconcile that state with their actions.  Once the bishops and other priests knew of the existence of these men they should have stopped them saying mass and removed them from the Church and told the civil authorities.  Not allow them to remain in sin and continue their priestly duties.  He considers the crisis is only beginning and as I have said for four months now, I think he is right.

The Church will not relinquish the truth: we cannot forgive or offer reconciliation.

Irish soldiers who enlisted in the British Army in their hundreds of thousands in late 1914 were faced with a massive dilemma by 1917.  What was their exact place in history?  Could they ever be let live with their families in their much changed homeland?  Would their blood sacrifice be forgotten?  What were they and who were they fighting for.  In some cases these questions were answered.  They were fighting for their regiment in this case, the proud Connaught Rangers and they were fighting for Ireland and they were soldiers in the true tradition.  What was left unanswered was what yet they had not faced.  Post war Ireland and the horrible way these heroes were treated by nationalistic dogma for the next 80 years.  It is only with books like Sebastian Barry’s Its A Long, Long Way and now with the play I watched last night is their place in history becoming resolved.

It was my privilege to attend The Little Theatre in Athlone last night, where Rain King Productions presented From The Shannon To The Somme.  A play based on the true story of Michael Curley, a native of Athlone, and an ex-sergeant in the Connaught Rangers, who was involved in forming the first company of Volunteers in Ireland in about 1912.  The Volunteer movement gathered pace and by late 1914 they had about 195,000 members when John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party appealed to them to join the British Army in their fight against Germany and thus ensure independence at cessation of hostilities.  175,000 did so immediately and Michael Curley and his friend Jack West were just two of these men.  The Easter Rising in April 1916 put paid to these ideals.  Michael and Jack were stuck there in France in charge of Irishmen who had in fact all joined up for lots of different reasons but they all faced the same problems on returning home.

Beautifully written by a young Irish writer, Neil Richardson, who has a book coming out this autumn from O’Brien’s Press called A Coward If I Return, A Hero If I Fall: Stories Of Irishmen In WW1. Look out for it.

Under the very able direction of  Caroline Barry the action skips along from pre-war Athlone to 3rd Ypres in 1917, with much humour, and especially in the 2nd act, pathos that visably hit the audience.  The absolute silence and then spontaneous bursts of applause mid-scene says much for the writing, directing and acting.  The barrack-room language ensured the attendance was treated to genuine reality.

The four actors, Stephen Jones, Gerard Adlum and Nessa Mathews, who cut their teeth in Dramsoc at UCD and Paul O’Bryan from Bull Alley more than impressed with their delivery and timing.  Star of the piece for me was Stephen, as Michael Curley, who was on stage throughout the play and had the audience in the palm of his hand when emotion was called for.  He was more than ably and comically backed up by Gerard’s Jack West, as the unwilling reservist who admirably took on his responsibilities.

Look out for these six names in the years to come, you will undoubtedly hear plenty more of them and thank you Rain King Productions for a magnificent piece of theatre.