Gargelgate – A very Irish tragedy

Our very own Brian Cowen

Some years ago when the in laws retired to Co. Offaly in Ireland their TD (Member of Parliament) was a local auctioneer, Brian Cowen. Cowen was born in Clara, County Offaly, the son of May and Bernard Cowen, a former Fianna Fáil TD and Senator. The family owned a public house in Clara town, located adjacent to the family home. His father also worked as an auctioneer. Now it has been observed that languages invent words because they need them and Irish is sprinkled with words like Gombeen, “a pejorative Hiberno-English term for a shady, small-time "wheeler-dealer" or businessman who is always looking to make a quick profit, often at someone else's expense or through the acceptance of bribes”, Sleeveen “somebody who is sly, plausible, and ingratiating” or Spalpeen “a rascal.” You get the idea the Irish language had to invent these words / descriptors because it needed them, no more so than for the Irish Political Class who contain a fair proportion of Gombeen Men (and Women) who previously followed noble callings as Publicans, Auctioneers, Bookmakers or general multi-purpose shysters!


Tom Byrne's satirical depiction of Taoiseach Brian Cowen performing 'Lakes of Pontchartrain' at the Fianna Fail “Think-in” on display in the Apollo Gallery, Dublin.

Cowen became Taoiseach (Prime Minister) in May 2008 following the resignation of his predecessor Bertie Ahern after he was found to have received over £200.000 in unaccounted cash from “Benefactors.” Somewhat embarrassingly (for he was Minister of Finance for much of the time) he hadn’t accounted for tax on these “donations.” Indeed such was his faith in ready cash that he didn’t have a bank account for much of the time either! However, even if every allegation against Bertie Ahern was true it all pales into insignificance against the low standards set by his predecessor, the late Charles Haughey who, in his time, pocketed £8.4 million in “donations”. Although an Anglophobe by birth and conviction, Haughey cultivated the most elaborate tastes and mannerisms of the Anglo-Irish gentry. He had mansions, estates and a private island. He liked antique furniture, and fine art, horses, clothes and wines.


Charlie "The Squire" Haughey

Haughey’s Minister of Justice, Ray Burke, has previously been found culpable of receiving large sums of cash and indeed having his own house and its land “donated” by Brennan and McGowan, developers who benefited from wide scale rezoning of land. Liam Lawlor, another Fianna Fail T.D. (Irish Member of Parliament) was also found to have corruptly benefited from payments from developers who had agricultural land rezoned for development, often at great cost to the public purse in providing the infrastructure.


The Bold Bertie in typical heroic pose

Even squeaky clean former Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald was found to have a 320,000 pound loan from Allied Irish Bank to invest in the shares of Guinness Peat Aviation (of which he was a director) written off by the bank when the investment went wrong, as you or I would in similar circumstances. Dr. FitzGerald had previously been Prime Minister when the same bank had been bailed out to the tune of £121 million when their investment in the Insurance Corporation of Ireland went wrong.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/12/bertie-ahern-and-poverty-in-ireland.html

Since Cowen became Taoiseach the Irish economy has nose dived, its sovereign debt rating has been cut and he has launched a 4 Billion programme of cuts which has copper fastened his unpopularity. Cuts are not easy in a statist country like Ireland where Gombeen Pork Barrel politics are the order of the day. With the same population as Greater Manchester the country supports no less than 380 Quangos once again proving the truth of Brendan Behan’s saying “The Irish are very popular with themselves!”



Now to economic misery has been added National Mortification in the scandal of the allegedly drunken interview known as Gargelgate - Brian Cowen's now infamous early morning interview came five-and-a-quarter hours after he left The Blazers Bar in the Ardilaun Hotel following a night of drinking, singing and telling yarns.

It was a night typical of any party gathering, enjoyed by TDs, senators and assembled journalists. At the time, no one could have foreseen the political storm that would envelop the Taoiseach in what would become one of the most damaging episodes of his political career which has been picked up in America by Jay Leno on NBC’s Tonight Show.



US chat-show host Jay Leno says he is not going to apologise to Taoiseach Brian Cowen for mocking him as a "drunken moron" on his prime time show. Leno displayed a photo of Mr Cowen and asked his audience to guess if he was a bartender, a politician or a "nightclub comedian", before revealing he was the "Prime Minister of Ireland" to loud laughter. "He's Brian Cowen, the Prime Minister of Ireland. Oh God, it's so nice to know we're not the only country with drunken morons, isn't it?" Leno joked.

Mr Cowen has featured in the international media since it emerged he was singing and drinking in the early hours of the morning at the Fianna Fail party think-in (In itself a strange concept!) in the Ardilaun Hotel, Co Galway, two weeks ago. He was criticised for his performance on an RTE 'Morning Ireland' interview several hours later. He admitted afterwards that he needed to be more cautious in his social life but strongly denied he was drunk or hung-over during the interview.


Dublin - capital of a very free Ireland

But this national embarrassment doesn't stop even at Cowen's door – Irish State Broadcaster RTE's initial refusal to repeat the phrase 'drunken morons' proves that while Cowen can't control the antics of an NBC employee, he still holds sway over the national broadcaster.

Brian Cowen called a "drunken moron" in NBC Tonight Show segment from Sept 22, 2010



The Irish PM Brian Cowen has refuted claims that he sounded "halfway between drunk and hungover" in a radio interview.



Brian Cowen Drunk Live Radio Interview (audio slowed) before his breakfast on RTÉ News Morning Ireland, Tuesday, 14 September 2010. Taoiseach Brian Cowen drunk interview live on air.

Gargelgate – A very Irish tragedy

Our very own Brian Cowen

Some years ago when the in laws retired to Co. Offaly in Ireland their TD (Member of Parliament) was a local auctioneer, Brian Cowen. Cowen was born in Clara, County Offaly, the son of May and Bernard Cowen, a former Fianna Fáil TD and Senator. The family owned a public house in Clara town, located adjacent to the family home. His father also worked as an auctioneer. Now it has been observed that languages invent words because they need them and Irish is sprinkled with words like Gombeen, “a pejorative Hiberno-English term for a shady, small-time "wheeler-dealer" or businessman who is always looking to make a quick profit, often at someone else's expense or through the acceptance of bribes”, Sleeveen “somebody who is sly, plausible, and ingratiating” or Spalpeen “a rascal.” You get the idea the Irish language had to invent these words / descriptors because it needed them, no more so than for the Irish Political Class who contain a fair proportion of Gombeen Men (and Women) who previously followed noble callings as Publicans, Auctioneers, Bookmakers or general multi-purpose shysters!


Tom Byrne's satirical depiction of Taoiseach Brian Cowen performing 'Lakes of Pontchartrain' at the Fianna Fail “Think-in” on display in the Apollo Gallery, Dublin.

Cowen became Taoiseach (Prime Minister) in May 2008 following the resignation of his predecessor Bertie Ahern after he was found to have received over £200.000 in unaccounted cash from “Benefactors.” Somewhat embarrassingly (for he was Minister of Finance for much of the time) he hadn’t accounted for tax on these “donations.” Indeed such was his faith in ready cash that he didn’t have a bank account for much of the time either! However, even if every allegation against Bertie Ahern was true it all pales into insignificance against the low standards set by his predecessor, the late Charles Haughey who, in his time, pocketed £8.4 million in “donations”. Although an Anglophobe by birth and conviction, Haughey cultivated the most elaborate tastes and mannerisms of the Anglo-Irish gentry. He had mansions, estates and a private island. He liked antique furniture, and fine art, horses, clothes and wines.


Charlie "The Squire" Haughey

Haughey’s Minister of Justice, Ray Burke, has previously been found culpable of receiving large sums of cash and indeed having his own house and its land “donated” by Brennan and McGowan, developers who benefited from wide scale rezoning of land. Liam Lawlor, another Fianna Fail T.D. (Irish Member of Parliament) was also found to have corruptly benefited from payments from developers who had agricultural land rezoned for development, often at great cost to the public purse in providing the infrastructure.


The Bold Bertie in typical heroic pose

Even squeaky clean former Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald was found to have a 320,000 pound loan from Allied Irish Bank to invest in the shares of Guinness Peat Aviation (of which he was a director) written off by the bank when the investment went wrong, as you or I would in similar circumstances. Dr. FitzGerald had previously been Prime Minister when the same bank had been bailed out to the tune of £121 million when their investment in the Insurance Corporation of Ireland went wrong.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/12/bertie-ahern-and-poverty-in-ireland.html

Since Cowen became Taoiseach the Irish economy has nose dived, its sovereign debt rating has been cut and he has launched a 4 Billion programme of cuts which has copper fastened his unpopularity. Cuts are not easy in a statist country like Ireland where Gombeen Pork Barrel politics are the order of the day. With the same population as Greater Manchester the country supports no less than 380 Quangos once again proving the truth of Brendan Behan’s saying “The Irish are very popular with themselves!”



Now to economic misery has been added National Mortification in the scandal of the allegedly drunken interview known as Gargelgate - Brian Cowen's now infamous early morning interview came five-and-a-quarter hours after he left The Blazers Bar in the Ardilaun Hotel following a night of drinking, singing and telling yarns.

It was a night typical of any party gathering, enjoyed by TDs, senators and assembled journalists. At the time, no one could have foreseen the political storm that would envelop the Taoiseach in what would become one of the most damaging episodes of his political career which has been picked up in America by Jay Leno on NBC’s Tonight Show.



US chat-show host Jay Leno says he is not going to apologise to Taoiseach Brian Cowen for mocking him as a "drunken moron" on his prime time show. Leno displayed a photo of Mr Cowen and asked his audience to guess if he was a bartender, a politician or a "nightclub comedian", before revealing he was the "Prime Minister of Ireland" to loud laughter. "He's Brian Cowen, the Prime Minister of Ireland. Oh God, it's so nice to know we're not the only country with drunken morons, isn't it?" Leno joked.

Mr Cowen has featured in the international media since it emerged he was singing and drinking in the early hours of the morning at the Fianna Fail party think-in (In itself a strange concept!) in the Ardilaun Hotel, Co Galway, two weeks ago. He was criticised for his performance on an RTE 'Morning Ireland' interview several hours later. He admitted afterwards that he needed to be more cautious in his social life but strongly denied he was drunk or hung-over during the interview.


Dublin - capital of a very free Ireland

But this national embarrassment doesn't stop even at Cowen's door – Irish State Broadcaster RTE's initial refusal to repeat the phrase 'drunken morons' proves that while Cowen can't control the antics of an NBC employee, he still holds sway over the national broadcaster.

Brian Cowen called a "drunken moron" in NBC Tonight Show segment from Sept 22, 2010



The Irish PM Brian Cowen has refuted claims that he sounded "halfway between drunk and hungover" in a radio interview.



Brian Cowen Drunk Live Radio Interview (audio slowed) before his breakfast on RTÉ News Morning Ireland, Tuesday, 14 September 2010. Taoiseach Brian Cowen drunk interview live on air.

The Naked Taoiseach

The real Brian Cowen?


Since he took over as Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland in May 2008 Brian Cowen has looked even more hapless than, well, his hapless predecessor, Bertie Ahern.
( http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/12/bertie-ahern-and-poverty-in-ireland.html ) This is in itself quiet a considerable achievement for the politician from Clara, Co. Offaly (where my mother’s family hail from) but the Celtic Tiger is now looking like a very sick Celtic Pussycat as the economy spirals downwards, tax receipts go though the floor, public spending is out of control and unemployment heads inexorably towards 15%. On top of that Ireland has shot itself in the foot by nationalising Anglo-Irish Bank with its toxic debt mainly on overvalued (or in some cases non-existent) property assets abroad owned in many instances by speculators linked to Brian Cowen’s Fianna Fail political party. As stories of waste, extravagance and corruption abound the public perception of Irish Politicians has hit an all time low and none has looked more impotent and naked in the face of the economic maelstrom than Brian Cowen.

Well one talented artist has taken this perception further and hung (sic) two naked portraits of the Naked Taoiseach unnoticed in empty spaces in art galleries. Two unorthodox portraits — one in the National Gallery showing the Taoiseach on the toilet, and another in the Royal Hibernian Gallery showing him holding his Y-fronts — appeared mysteriously in Dublin among paintings of the country’s other famous citizens in more decorous poses. So just who did hang the unflattering paintings of a naked Brian Cowen, the Irish Prime Minister, in the country’s most prestigious art galleries?



The Irish media speculated that the prankster had created the artworks in an attempt to lift the nation’s spirits at a time of deep economic gloom. Judging by the chuckles of visitors and comments inundating the blogosphere, the stunt worked.

“Biffo on the bog”, was one gleeful response, referring to the Taoiseach by his nickname, which stands for “Big Ignorant F***er from Offaly”. The artist reportedly walked calmly into the National Gallery carrying a shoulder bag. He then affixed a prepared caption for the picture to a free space among portraits of Michael Collins, William Butler Yeats and Bono, before hanging his canvas, undisturbed by security.

The caption read: “Brian Cowen, Politician 1960-2008. This portrait, acquired uncommissioned by the National Gallery, celebrates one of the finest politicians produced by Ireland since the foundation of the state. Following a spell at the helm of the Department of Finance during a period of unprecedented prosperity, Brian Cowen inherited the office of Taoiseach in 2008. Balancing a public image that ranges from fantastically intelligent analytical thinker to Big Ignorant F***er from Offaly, the Taoiseach proves to be a challenging subject to represent.”



One woman who saw the National Gallery portrait of the Taoiseach, pictured gripping a toilet roll in one hand, commented: “Well at least that is one mess he has been able to clear up.” The Sunday Tribune reported that the portrait of Mr Cowen wearing nothing but his glasses hung for more than an hour, with hundreds of patrons believing it to be a genuine part of the collection. After security guards removed it, police were called to examine the portrait and CCTV evidence.

The guerrilla artist, emboldened by his success, went on to hang a second portrait of the Taoiseach in the Royal Hibernian Gallery. The second naked portrait depicted a portly Mr Cowen, still in his glasses, holding a pair of blue and white pants in his left hand. One woman who saw the work was impressed enough to make an offer.

Dublin is rife with rumour about the identity of the artist. Ian Whyte, of Whyte’s Gallery, said: “It was certainly a professional job; the two paintings were both very well executed. They are actually better than the work of a few artists I thought it might be. Everyone will be talking about it until the identity is revealed.




National Gallery of Ireland

“No crime was committed; whoever it was didn’t take anything. In fact, he donated something.”

The real news however is not that this picture was hung, but the censorship afterwards. After a story was ran about it on RTE, the Irish state broadcaster, Prime Minister Cowen and his political party rang the TV Station and demanded the story be removed from the RTE website, and it was, demanded the clip of the news item be removed, and demanded an apology, which they got on air! This is a display of blatant censorship, the Irish government putting political pressure on a television station to avoid embarrassment.


A happy Irish Voter

Consider the weasel words of this verbatim report from today’s Irish Independent;

Last night, it broadcast an apology for its story about the illegal (sic)hanging of hoax nude portraits of Mr Cowen in the National Gallery and the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin.

"RTE News would like to apologise for any personal offence caused to Mr Cowen or his family for any disrespect shown to the office of the Taoiseach," it said. A spokesman for Mr Cowen confirmed that he had made a complaint about the story, which he said "went beyond the news values of RTE". The report described how Police were investigating who was responsible for leaving the nude paintings of Mr Cowen in the two galleries. Last night, Fianna Fail Dublin-North TD Michael Kennedy called on RTE director general Cathal Goan to "consider his position".

What a wonderful description which confirms that Ireland is still a Nation of Master Debaters; “"went beyond the news values of RTE" and showed “disrespect for the Office of Taoiseach”. This is of course the Office which Brian Cowen’s predecessor resigned from after revelations of receiving “brown envelopes” of money in pubs because his friends felt “sorry for him”, where another Fianna Fail Taoiseach Charles Haughey received £8.5 m in untaxed “gifts” which we know about. This is a country which has had 21 “tax amnesties” in 30 years and where the planning system has been shown to be systemically corrupt with back handers the order of the day. Where there are open gang shootouts most weeks with the hapless Police force reduced to bystanders and which maintains 832 free spending Quangos which squander public funds without accountability for a country with the population of say, Greater Manchester.

Never have a Taoiseach and a discredited political party looked more hapless than when engaging in this sad attempt to control the state owned News Media in a way which is more redolent of Ceausescu’s Romania towards the end. All praise indeed to the Hero Artist who has wonderfully exposed not just this blundering Taoiseach but that the entire self serving Irish Political and Economic elite are former emperors who have been exposed as wearing no clothes!


The happy Irish electorate

The Naked Taoiseach

The real Brian Cowen?


Since he took over as Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland in May 2008 Brian Cowen has looked even more hapless than, well, his hapless predecessor, Bertie Ahern.
( http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/12/bertie-ahern-and-poverty-in-ireland.html ) This is in itself quiet a considerable achievement for the politician from Clara, Co. Offaly (where my mother’s family hail from) but the Celtic Tiger is now looking like a very sick Celtic Pussycat as the economy spirals downwards, tax receipts go though the floor, public spending is out of control and unemployment heads inexorably towards 15%. On top of that Ireland has shot itself in the foot by nationalising Anglo-Irish Bank with its toxic debt mainly on overvalued (or in some cases non-existent) property assets abroad owned in many instances by speculators linked to Brian Cowen’s Fianna Fail political party. As stories of waste, extravagance and corruption abound the public perception of Irish Politicians has hit an all time low and none has looked more impotent and naked in the face of the economic maelstrom than Brian Cowen.

Well one talented artist has taken this perception further and hung (sic) two naked portraits of the Naked Taoiseach unnoticed in empty spaces in art galleries. Two unorthodox portraits — one in the National Gallery showing the Taoiseach on the toilet, and another in the Royal Hibernian Gallery showing him holding his Y-fronts — appeared mysteriously in Dublin among paintings of the country’s other famous citizens in more decorous poses. So just who did hang the unflattering paintings of a naked Brian Cowen, the Irish Prime Minister, in the country’s most prestigious art galleries?



The Irish media speculated that the prankster had created the artworks in an attempt to lift the nation’s spirits at a time of deep economic gloom. Judging by the chuckles of visitors and comments inundating the blogosphere, the stunt worked.

“Biffo on the bog”, was one gleeful response, referring to the Taoiseach by his nickname, which stands for “Big Ignorant F***er from Offaly”. The artist reportedly walked calmly into the National Gallery carrying a shoulder bag. He then affixed a prepared caption for the picture to a free space among portraits of Michael Collins, William Butler Yeats and Bono, before hanging his canvas, undisturbed by security.

The caption read: “Brian Cowen, Politician 1960-2008. This portrait, acquired uncommissioned by the National Gallery, celebrates one of the finest politicians produced by Ireland since the foundation of the state. Following a spell at the helm of the Department of Finance during a period of unprecedented prosperity, Brian Cowen inherited the office of Taoiseach in 2008. Balancing a public image that ranges from fantastically intelligent analytical thinker to Big Ignorant F***er from Offaly, the Taoiseach proves to be a challenging subject to represent.”



One woman who saw the National Gallery portrait of the Taoiseach, pictured gripping a toilet roll in one hand, commented: “Well at least that is one mess he has been able to clear up.” The Sunday Tribune reported that the portrait of Mr Cowen wearing nothing but his glasses hung for more than an hour, with hundreds of patrons believing it to be a genuine part of the collection. After security guards removed it, police were called to examine the portrait and CCTV evidence.

The guerrilla artist, emboldened by his success, went on to hang a second portrait of the Taoiseach in the Royal Hibernian Gallery. The second naked portrait depicted a portly Mr Cowen, still in his glasses, holding a pair of blue and white pants in his left hand. One woman who saw the work was impressed enough to make an offer.

Dublin is rife with rumour about the identity of the artist. Ian Whyte, of Whyte’s Gallery, said: “It was certainly a professional job; the two paintings were both very well executed. They are actually better than the work of a few artists I thought it might be. Everyone will be talking about it until the identity is revealed.




National Gallery of Ireland

“No crime was committed; whoever it was didn’t take anything. In fact, he donated something.”

The real news however is not that this picture was hung, but the censorship afterwards. After a story was ran about it on RTE, the Irish state broadcaster, Prime Minister Cowen and his political party rang the TV Station and demanded the story be removed from the RTE website, and it was, demanded the clip of the news item be removed, and demanded an apology, which they got on air! This is a display of blatant censorship, the Irish government putting political pressure on a television station to avoid embarrassment.


A happy Irish Voter

Consider the weasel words of this verbatim report from today’s Irish Independent;

Last night, it broadcast an apology for its story about the illegal (sic)hanging of hoax nude portraits of Mr Cowen in the National Gallery and the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin.

"RTE News would like to apologise for any personal offence caused to Mr Cowen or his family for any disrespect shown to the office of the Taoiseach," it said. A spokesman for Mr Cowen confirmed that he had made a complaint about the story, which he said "went beyond the news values of RTE". The report described how Police were investigating who was responsible for leaving the nude paintings of Mr Cowen in the two galleries. Last night, Fianna Fail Dublin-North TD Michael Kennedy called on RTE director general Cathal Goan to "consider his position".

What a wonderful description which confirms that Ireland is still a Nation of Master Debaters; “"went beyond the news values of RTE" and showed “disrespect for the Office of Taoiseach”. This is of course the Office which Brian Cowen’s predecessor resigned from after revelations of receiving “brown envelopes” of money in pubs because his friends felt “sorry for him”, where another Fianna Fail Taoiseach Charles Haughey received £8.5 m in untaxed “gifts” which we know about. This is a country which has had 21 “tax amnesties” in 30 years and where the planning system has been shown to be systemically corrupt with back handers the order of the day. Where there are open gang shootouts most weeks with the hapless Police force reduced to bystanders and which maintains 832 free spending Quangos which squander public funds without accountability for a country with the population of say, Greater Manchester.

Never have a Taoiseach and a discredited political party looked more hapless than when engaging in this sad attempt to control the state owned News Media in a way which is more redolent of Ceausescu’s Romania towards the end. All praise indeed to the Hero Artist who has wonderfully exposed not just this blundering Taoiseach but that the entire self serving Irish Political and Economic elite are former emperors who have been exposed as wearing no clothes!


The happy Irish electorate

Jack Keyes T/A Hugh Leonard

Hugh Leonard

Jack Keyes trading as Hugh Leonard was the title on the VAT file which crossed my desk many years ago when I was an Irish Civil servant. For Ireland’s foremost playwright used the nom de plume of Hugh Leonard originally to hide his writing from his Civil Service bosses but he was born John Keyes Byrne on November 9, 1926. He died in Dublin recently on February 12, 2009, aged 82. The accountant’s firm handling his VAT affairs was Russell Murphy & Co. who had many high profile artists and writers on their books. They were (and still are) covered by a “creative writing “exemption in the Irish Income Tax code which meant their royalties from creative writing were tax free. Russell Murphy wrongly advised his clients who benefited from this generous exemption that they were also exempt from VAT and such were his high level connections that the Irish Tax Authorities disgracefully on “a concessional basis” wrote off over four years VAT just from his clients.

For Russell Murphy was well connected being a Governor of the Bank of Ireland and on the Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. He was a patron of the arts and his artistic clients revelled in his eccentricity including wearing a cloak with a red silk lining and on occasion being greeted by the sight of him hiding under his desk when they went into his office. The full extent of his eccentricity was exposed when he committed suicide a couple of years later in 1986 and it was found many of these high profile clients had invested money with him which had disappeared, Hugh Leonard lost over a million pounds and the broadcaster Gay Byrne a similar amount. They both took a High Court case against the Irish Institute of Chartered Accountants but, such is the quality of professional supervision in Ireland, they never received any compensation. This is the same Institute which didn’t feel the need to expel another high profile member, former Prime Minister and Chartered Accountant, Charles Haughey, even though he hadn’t paid a subscription for 22 years and had financed his millionaire lifestyle with over £8.5 million pounds of undeclared backhanders on which he hadn’t paid tax.

Hugh Leonard rose from humble beginnings as an adopted child to become one of Ireland’s foremost dramatists, a writer who discovered his talent for biting wit during the drudgery of clerking for the Land Commission, and, helped by television and film earnings, graduated from an Aston Martin to a Rolls-Royce and a boat on the Shannon.




Da

His most successful play, which earned him a reputed £500,000, was the autobiographical Da, a triumph in Dublin and New York, and later made into a film. But — and this was to be a constant theme in Leonard’s career — it made little impact in London. He pretended indifference to being snubbed by Shaftesbury Avenue, resigning himself to the British perception of Irish plays: “Our image is trouble, and who wants to pay good money for that?” His first West End venture, Stephen D, an adaptation of James Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist, had a success he was never to repeat. This brilliantly stage worthy rendering told how Joyce escaped from the ties of religion and country to call his soul his own, hammering out in words of iron his sense of identity and direction. Leonard was to achieve a similar escape.

The West End debut of his farce The Patrick Pearse Motel in 1971 nailed his strengths and weaknesses. He peopled his Feydeau-like rendezvous not with the cut-out dudes, oafs and termagants of farce, but with sharply observed contemporaries, such as the couple who patched up a cracking marriage by loading their house with costly gadgets. But in interrupting the rat-tat-tat of disaster upon disaster in order to develop character, he forgot the farceur’s obligation to be a sharpshooter. So in London the play failed, whereas in Dublin it had delighted a less impatient audience.

Born John Keyes Byrne in Dublin in 1926, and always known as Jack, he was brought up by foster-parents in a tense, bullying, guilt-ridden household where he learnt that “love upside-down is love for all that.” In his book, Home Before Dark, he described growing up in the Dublin of the 1930s as the adopted son of the gentle day-labourer Da portrayed in his play, a sweet old nobody exasperatingly contented with his lot who fought a fiercely proud wife with enough foolish stratagems to drive a saint to drink.



By way of scholarship and a religious schooling at Presentation College, Dun Laoghaire, Leonard wheedled himself into the Irish civil service, having meanwhile indulged his love of cinema by appearing as an extra in Laurence Olivier’s Henry V, which was filmed in Ireland. During his stint as a civil servant he began writing plays for amateurs and in 1956 The Big Birthday was his first work to be staged at the Abbey Theatre.

Further plays and a version of The Archers for commercial radio (geared to advertise Cadbury’s) enabled him to leave the civil service and become a full-time writer. In 1961 he joined Granada Television in Manchester as a script editor but he preferred writing for himself and soon moved to London as a freelance. He lived in England for some years until tax concessions drew him back to Ireland and his roots.
His expertise as an adaptor, confirmed by Stephen D, also served him well in television for which he produced skilful versions of Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, The Moonstone and Wuthering Heights as well as tackling Irish subjects in James Plunkett’s Strumpet City (1980) and The Irish RM (1983) from the stories of Somerville and Ross.


Home before Night

He also adapted Chesterton’s Father Brown stories and Norman Collins’s London Belongs to Me, wrote comedy material for Ronnie Barker and created a deliciously quirky situation comedy, Me Mammy (1968-71), which starred Milo O’Shea as an Irishman in London, successful in business but still a bachelor and under the thumb of his fiercely traditional Roman Catholic mother. For the cinema he adapted Shaw’s Great Catherine (1968), with Jeanne Moreau and Peter O’Toole and his own Da (1988).
But despite this prolific output for the small and big sceen he never abandoned the theatre and during 1976-77 he served as the Abbey’s literary manager. Notable Dublin productions included the comedies Summer and Time Was and in 1978 Da went to Broadway, where it won a Tony award. Two other plays, The Au Pair Man and A Life were nominated for Tonys and it was with the latter that Leonard wrote his masterpiece. The ingeniously structured play switched back and forth in time to show four young hopefuls in their 20s and the life-worn but mettlesome folk they matured into.

The comic hassles and bitter misunderstandings between the tough older folk were seen as the outcome of the foolish passions of themselves when young. The play also contrasted the stiff pedant the giddy girl had rejected — at whose funeral, he admits, “the only mourners will be a group of unsplit infinitives” — and the warm-hearted chump she preferred, a lusty incorrigible who sees the world through a Guinness darkly but sees it whole.

He was a notable dramatist and a very successful television scriptwriter, but he always saw himself as an outsider among his peers and was quick to take offence at perceived slights from critics or fellow playwrights. Indeed, in his long-running 'Sunday Independent' column (and before that in 'Hibernia' magazine), he was adept both at settling old scores and in making new enemies.

"A literary movement in Ireland," he once quipped, "is two writers on speaking terms with each other." He chuckled as he said it, though he was keenly aware of the personal truth behind the jibe, given that he always felt distant from, and wary of, most of his writing contemporaries. Indeed, although his plays brought him considerable popular and commercial success, he was never granted the esteem that was routinely enjoyed by Brian Friel and Tom Murphy.


Dalkey Main Street

In his later years Leonard lived contentedly in Dalkey, continued to write plays for the Dublin Festival, hob-nobbing at night over a jar with folk he had known all his life. The hack work behind him, his writing became informed with a canny awareness of the sad complexities of life and the warmth that came from his ability to enjoy people of every kind for what they were. With his quick dry wit he contributed a weekly satirical column to the Sunday Independent and had his own regular Saturday morning radio show.

The violence, the fecklessness, the charm and that peculiar Irish blend of arrogance and sweetness in his countrymen were studied by Leonard with a humanity which ranks his later work with the best of his time. Mischievously, Leonard would sometimes exploit the naivety and ignorance of his people, spinning tall yarns and building up mad aunts and fiery schoolmasters and priests into entertaining but incredible grotesques. But his best work is alive with delectable Dublin characters as well as domestic horrors. He took delight in debunking the mealy-mouthed primness and excessive religiosity of a country quick to put respectability before humanity. Paule Jacquet, his wife of 45 years, died in 2000. He is survived by Kathy Hayes, his second wife, and by his daughter from his first marriage.

I will remember Jack Keyes t/a Hugh Leonard above all not for the quality of his vitriol but for his honesty and integrity. That is not to discount the quality of his vitriol for as Brian Behan once remarked “he was a man without enemies, it is his friends who hate him!” Brian had been upset by Leonard describing his brother, the playwright Brendan Behan, as a second rate talent rescued by Joan Littlewood’s editing. But in an Ireland where there was tacit support for violent republicanism only Conor Cruise O’Brien and Hugh Leonard consistently spoke out against the crypto-fascism of the Provos when such sentiments were far from mainstream. Indeed Hugh Leonard’s vitriol against Charles Haughey was a persistent theme of his Sunday Independent column and for his New Year Awards each year Haughey invariably was awarded the “Gobshite of the Year” award. The only exception was the year Haughey nearly drowned when his trawler Yacht went aground on the south coast of Ireland. That year Haughey was awarded the “Sailor of the Year” award and the “Gobshite of the Year” went to God for not taking his chance when he had it! An honest voice who no doubt at this very moment is causing an argument in heaven.


Dalkey

Jack Keyes T/A Hugh Leonard

Hugh Leonard

Jack Keyes trading as Hugh Leonard was the title on the VAT file which crossed my desk many years ago when I was an Irish Civil servant. For Ireland’s foremost playwright used the nom de plume of Hugh Leonard originally to hide his writing from his Civil Service bosses but he was born John Keyes Byrne on November 9, 1926. He died in Dublin recently on February 12, 2009, aged 82. The accountant’s firm handling his VAT affairs was Russell Murphy & Co. who had many high profile artists and writers on their books. They were (and still are) covered by a “creative writing “exemption in the Irish Income Tax code which meant their royalties from creative writing were tax free. Russell Murphy wrongly advised his clients who benefited from this generous exemption that they were also exempt from VAT and such were his high level connections that the Irish Tax Authorities disgracefully on “a concessional basis” wrote off over four years VAT just from his clients.

For Russell Murphy was well connected being a Governor of the Bank of Ireland and on the Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. He was a patron of the arts and his artistic clients revelled in his eccentricity including wearing a cloak with a red silk lining and on occasion being greeted by the sight of him hiding under his desk when they went into his office. The full extent of his eccentricity was exposed when he committed suicide a couple of years later in 1986 and it was found many of these high profile clients had invested money with him which had disappeared, Hugh Leonard lost over a million pounds and the broadcaster Gay Byrne a similar amount. They both took a High Court case against the Irish Institute of Chartered Accountants but, such is the quality of professional supervision in Ireland, they never received any compensation. This is the same Institute which didn’t feel the need to expel another high profile member, former Prime Minister and Chartered Accountant, Charles Haughey, even though he hadn’t paid a subscription for 22 years and had financed his millionaire lifestyle with over £8.5 million pounds of undeclared backhanders on which he hadn’t paid tax.

Hugh Leonard rose from humble beginnings as an adopted child to become one of Ireland’s foremost dramatists, a writer who discovered his talent for biting wit during the drudgery of clerking for the Land Commission, and, helped by television and film earnings, graduated from an Aston Martin to a Rolls-Royce and a boat on the Shannon.




Da

His most successful play, which earned him a reputed £500,000, was the autobiographical Da, a triumph in Dublin and New York, and later made into a film. But — and this was to be a constant theme in Leonard’s career — it made little impact in London. He pretended indifference to being snubbed by Shaftesbury Avenue, resigning himself to the British perception of Irish plays: “Our image is trouble, and who wants to pay good money for that?” His first West End venture, Stephen D, an adaptation of James Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist, had a success he was never to repeat. This brilliantly stage worthy rendering told how Joyce escaped from the ties of religion and country to call his soul his own, hammering out in words of iron his sense of identity and direction. Leonard was to achieve a similar escape.

The West End debut of his farce The Patrick Pearse Motel in 1971 nailed his strengths and weaknesses. He peopled his Feydeau-like rendezvous not with the cut-out dudes, oafs and termagants of farce, but with sharply observed contemporaries, such as the couple who patched up a cracking marriage by loading their house with costly gadgets. But in interrupting the rat-tat-tat of disaster upon disaster in order to develop character, he forgot the farceur’s obligation to be a sharpshooter. So in London the play failed, whereas in Dublin it had delighted a less impatient audience.

Born John Keyes Byrne in Dublin in 1926, and always known as Jack, he was brought up by foster-parents in a tense, bullying, guilt-ridden household where he learnt that “love upside-down is love for all that.” In his book, Home Before Dark, he described growing up in the Dublin of the 1930s as the adopted son of the gentle day-labourer Da portrayed in his play, a sweet old nobody exasperatingly contented with his lot who fought a fiercely proud wife with enough foolish stratagems to drive a saint to drink.



By way of scholarship and a religious schooling at Presentation College, Dun Laoghaire, Leonard wheedled himself into the Irish civil service, having meanwhile indulged his love of cinema by appearing as an extra in Laurence Olivier’s Henry V, which was filmed in Ireland. During his stint as a civil servant he began writing plays for amateurs and in 1956 The Big Birthday was his first work to be staged at the Abbey Theatre.

Further plays and a version of The Archers for commercial radio (geared to advertise Cadbury’s) enabled him to leave the civil service and become a full-time writer. In 1961 he joined Granada Television in Manchester as a script editor but he preferred writing for himself and soon moved to London as a freelance. He lived in England for some years until tax concessions drew him back to Ireland and his roots.
His expertise as an adaptor, confirmed by Stephen D, also served him well in television for which he produced skilful versions of Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby, Dombey and Son, The Moonstone and Wuthering Heights as well as tackling Irish subjects in James Plunkett’s Strumpet City (1980) and The Irish RM (1983) from the stories of Somerville and Ross.


Home before Night

He also adapted Chesterton’s Father Brown stories and Norman Collins’s London Belongs to Me, wrote comedy material for Ronnie Barker and created a deliciously quirky situation comedy, Me Mammy (1968-71), which starred Milo O’Shea as an Irishman in London, successful in business but still a bachelor and under the thumb of his fiercely traditional Roman Catholic mother. For the cinema he adapted Shaw’s Great Catherine (1968), with Jeanne Moreau and Peter O’Toole and his own Da (1988).
But despite this prolific output for the small and big sceen he never abandoned the theatre and during 1976-77 he served as the Abbey’s literary manager. Notable Dublin productions included the comedies Summer and Time Was and in 1978 Da went to Broadway, where it won a Tony award. Two other plays, The Au Pair Man and A Life were nominated for Tonys and it was with the latter that Leonard wrote his masterpiece. The ingeniously structured play switched back and forth in time to show four young hopefuls in their 20s and the life-worn but mettlesome folk they matured into.

The comic hassles and bitter misunderstandings between the tough older folk were seen as the outcome of the foolish passions of themselves when young. The play also contrasted the stiff pedant the giddy girl had rejected — at whose funeral, he admits, “the only mourners will be a group of unsplit infinitives” — and the warm-hearted chump she preferred, a lusty incorrigible who sees the world through a Guinness darkly but sees it whole.

He was a notable dramatist and a very successful television scriptwriter, but he always saw himself as an outsider among his peers and was quick to take offence at perceived slights from critics or fellow playwrights. Indeed, in his long-running 'Sunday Independent' column (and before that in 'Hibernia' magazine), he was adept both at settling old scores and in making new enemies.

"A literary movement in Ireland," he once quipped, "is two writers on speaking terms with each other." He chuckled as he said it, though he was keenly aware of the personal truth behind the jibe, given that he always felt distant from, and wary of, most of his writing contemporaries. Indeed, although his plays brought him considerable popular and commercial success, he was never granted the esteem that was routinely enjoyed by Brian Friel and Tom Murphy.


Dalkey Main Street

In his later years Leonard lived contentedly in Dalkey, continued to write plays for the Dublin Festival, hob-nobbing at night over a jar with folk he had known all his life. The hack work behind him, his writing became informed with a canny awareness of the sad complexities of life and the warmth that came from his ability to enjoy people of every kind for what they were. With his quick dry wit he contributed a weekly satirical column to the Sunday Independent and had his own regular Saturday morning radio show.

The violence, the fecklessness, the charm and that peculiar Irish blend of arrogance and sweetness in his countrymen were studied by Leonard with a humanity which ranks his later work with the best of his time. Mischievously, Leonard would sometimes exploit the naivety and ignorance of his people, spinning tall yarns and building up mad aunts and fiery schoolmasters and priests into entertaining but incredible grotesques. But his best work is alive with delectable Dublin characters as well as domestic horrors. He took delight in debunking the mealy-mouthed primness and excessive religiosity of a country quick to put respectability before humanity. Paule Jacquet, his wife of 45 years, died in 2000. He is survived by Kathy Hayes, his second wife, and by his daughter from his first marriage.

I will remember Jack Keyes t/a Hugh Leonard above all not for the quality of his vitriol but for his honesty and integrity. That is not to discount the quality of his vitriol for as Brian Behan once remarked “he was a man without enemies, it is his friends who hate him!” Brian had been upset by Leonard describing his brother, the playwright Brendan Behan, as a second rate talent rescued by Joan Littlewood’s editing. But in an Ireland where there was tacit support for violent republicanism only Conor Cruise O’Brien and Hugh Leonard consistently spoke out against the crypto-fascism of the Provos when such sentiments were far from mainstream. Indeed Hugh Leonard’s vitriol against Charles Haughey was a persistent theme of his Sunday Independent column and for his New Year Awards each year Haughey invariably was awarded the “Gobshite of the Year” award. The only exception was the year Haughey nearly drowned when his trawler Yacht went aground on the south coast of Ireland. That year Haughey was awarded the “Sailor of the Year” award and the “Gobshite of the Year” went to God for not taking his chance when he had it! An honest voice who no doubt at this very moment is causing an argument in heaven.


Dalkey