Irish X-Press 29 June 1995

THURSDAY 29 JUNE 1995

U2 WORLD EXCLUSIVE
Back issues of The XPress on Sunday featuring Liam Mackey's exclusive interview with U2 are still available from: Room 103, Liberty Hall, Dublin 1.

Con Houlihan: The Leaving of Castle Island
POINT BLANK - Irish Press Creditors' Meeting
RHYME FOR A REASON

Published by The Irish Press NUJ, Liberty Hall. Origination by Malcolm Kindness, Telephone 4962551.

CON HOULIHAN: The leaving of Castle Island

The story so far: Con Houlihan, stage Kerryman, B.A. (pass), great lover (failed), an enthusiastic cook who, as far as is known, hasn't poisoned anybody yet, turfcutter (retired), journalist (kind of), rugby player (a long time ago), has had a strange and misadventurous life.
Despite all this, however, he was never a deckhand on a freighter or a sparring partner to a heavyweight champion of the world or a short order cook or even a long order cook - he left all that to his old enemy, Ernest Hemingway.
We meet him now in a flashback as he is setting out from his humble abode to seek his fortune in London. Now read on...
If you picture a weeping mother and a grief-stricken father, you've come to the wrong shop. It wasn't that way atall, atall.
The Ma was too busy at the tasks that are the peasants' birthright.
Their mantra in my young days was extremely pragmatic: "Almighty God, 'tis nearly five o'clock and there isn't a cow milked or a pig fed or a child washed..."
And on that fateful morning as I set out, the Ma was in the fields keeping an eye or two on a hen that was rather reluctant to deposit her eggs indoors -she was politically incorrect, the hen, that is.
The Ma came to the hedge as I walked down the road and said: "I suppose we'll see you at Christmas."
If you understand the peasants' culture, you will realise that this was an extraordinry gesture of affection on her part.
Watching a rogue hen is a very serious business: you are monitoring the hen - she is eyeing you. And don't be deceived by the epithet "hen-brained" - hens are brilliant.
You may be watching a rogue hen for perhaps half-an-hour or so - and all the while she is pretending to be going about her lawful business, picking up unfortunate worms that have got up too early and ingesting whatever else is coming her way.
And then something distracts you: the postman perhaps comes by on the road and shouts "I've something here for you..."; you turn your back and then turn your front - and, lo, the bird has flown.
And where does all this leave the Da on that fateful morning when I was about to set out for the old city by The Thames, a Dick Whitington without a cat?
The Da was a man who excelled in wearing his heart inside his sleeve, indeed inside both sleeves. He reached his zenith in paternal uncare during The World Cup Finals of 1978.
It happened that on market day in Castle Island he was approached by a former girl friend of mine, a lass of mesmerising beauty despite her foxy hair, another lovely ship that had passed in the night.
And she said - and I quote: "Have you any account of Connie?" And, quick as ever on the draw, he replied: "As far as I know, he's down below in Argentina."
I wasn't - but that made his unsolicitude even worse. I was told about this by a guilty bystander who revelled in keeping me in my place, wherever that was.
Anyhow, despite the lack of tears and breastbeating I set out for our local railway station.
You will now have deduced that all this was a very long time ago, in the bright ages when there was a rail line to our town.
It has long-since been torn up at the behest of the bureaucrats, those proverbial little men who sit in rooms that are too big.
We were told that it didn't pay; it was just as well that they didn't apply the same criterion to the roads.
The good old steam train bore me to Cork in its own time; in that fair city I spent a few hours in Aherne's pub on Penrose Quay.
I could see the m.v. Inisfallen by looking out the window; there was no fear that she would sail without me. She didn't - and away we sailed down past Blackrock Castle and past Roche's Point and out into the Atlantic.
It was late September and, as dusk fell, I could see the lights coming on along the coast that I knew and loved so well.
I had bought The Great Gatsby that afternoon and had the great fortune to start reading it on my maiden voyage.
The sea was clam; I stayed on deck, in the steerage of course - and witnessed a little sight that I could never forget.
It was after midnight and I couldn't but feel for a little pale-faced girl who stood at the rails on the land side.
I was certain that she too was going to England for the first time; she looked even lonelier than Ruth when she stood in tears amidst the alien corn.
I hadn't the courage to approach her and console her by revealing that I too was emigrating for the first time.
All, however, was not lost: a young seaman came up from below (he could hardly come up from anywhere else...) and handed her a mug of steaming tea - it strengthened my faith in human nature.
The transformation in the wee lass was marvellous: her expresion had been woebegone - now it said: "woe, be gone."
And so we sailed on, past The Tuskar and into St. George's Channel.
(To be continued).

POINT BLANK

Small meeting in Dublin, not many there...

Yesterday's planned meeting of Irish Press Newspapers' creditors was rendered redundant by the High Court appointment of an Examiner on Monday. Nonetheless, uninvited creditor Donogh Diamond went along anyway - here are his impressions.
The black cloth was tangible gravitas draped over the walls, hanging from the ceiling, covering the high table.
Everything was prepared for this saddest of duties. Sad, but seductively grand. Like the Lord High Justice who must ask for the black cap.
Pre-printed signs inside the door of the Point Depot directed creditors of Irish Press Newspapers Ltd. around the black curtain into the echoing auditorium.
Ushers asked entrants if they were creditors and handed each a little card. A man behind a desk was dressed in sombre frock coat with an incongruous red carnation in the buttonhole.
The little knots of creditors, there to plead for the crumbs that might be left when the table was swept clean, were dressed in their lightest, brightest, summer clothes.
They laughed and chatted outside in the brilliant sunshine, before strolling inside.
Four little figures sat faraway at their table on the stage, blinking in the bright spotlights, like one of those mime acts performed against an entirely black background.
Two representatives of William Fry Solicitors, were joined by Dr Eamon de Valera, Chairman of Irish Press Newspapers Ltd, and Vincent Jennings, Chief Executive.
In front of them were rows and rows of empty seats. Further back were the higher, tiered, unbrokenly vacant, seats. To their right, more banks of unsat-upon chairs, and to their left, still more.
Mr Jennings lounged in his seat, hand to face, looking serious. Dr de Valera perched, bird-like, with that same expression that seems rarely to leave his face.
The ever-faithful Joan Hyland, elevated to a directorship as the waves lapped around the bridge of the IPN ship, sat in the front row gazing intently up at the stage.
The Chief Executive, betraying, perhaps, an impatience unworthy of a hanging judge, glanced at his watch and spoke to his colleagues.
Finally, about 35 people wandered into the great hall, subtly stressing its emptiness.
With a gesture to the soundman, the microphones became live, and Dr de Valera spoke.
"Good Morning. This is a meeting of creditors of Irish Press Newspapers Ltd. convened for the purposes set out in in Section 266 of the Companies Acts.
"On Thursday, 22 June, a petition for the appointment of an Examiner to Irish Press Newspapers was presented by three employees.
"On Monday, 26 June, in the High Court, Mr Justice Murphy appointed Mr Hugh Cooney Examiner of Irish Press Newspapers Ltd.
"The Court further ordered... that this meeting of creditors be adjourned sine die, without conducting any business.
"We are, therefore, required to adjourn this meeting and I therefore declare this meeting adjourned until further notice. Thank you for attending this meeting," said Dr de Valera.
A man who had flown in yesterday morning from England representing an air-freight forwarding company which is owed about £50,000 looked momentarily bewildered. Everbody else smiled.
As Mr Jennings strode from the corpseless funeral home, The XPress put it to him that last week he had said that nothing could stop liquidation. "Nothing to say," he replied.
The black cap had been snatched back. The power over people's lives had passed away.

RHYME FOR A REASON

IF YOU need someone to promote and support freedom of speech and expression in the media, then you need look no further than the Irish poets and traditional musicians.
In Bewley's cafe in Grafton Street, Dublin, on Tuesday night, seven of the best writers in the country were joined by musicians who played their hearts out to support Press journalists and raise funds for our campaign.
Michael Hartnett, Pearse Hutchinson, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, Theo Dorgan, Frank McGuinness, Paula Meehan and Macdara Woods read their work while top accordion player Tony McMahon set feet tapping. Sean nos singer Iarla O Lionaird sang unaccompanied and Irish Press sub-editor and chapel treasurer John Brophy played a lament on the flute.
The MC was Irish Press sub-editor Hugh McFadden, who read from AE's "Open Letter to the Masters of Dublin," recalling the 1913 Lockout.

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