Cloch le Carn is a new series from the Scannal team which takes a constructive but not always uncritical look at public figures who’ve made a controversial contribution to Irish society in their lifetimes.
The first programme in this occasional series profiled the life of Tony Gregory, the recently deceased TD for Dublin Central. And the 2nd programme looks at the life of Conor Cruise O’Brien (CCOB), a former diplomat, politician, Government Minister, writer and controversialist.
Conor Cruise O’Brien could be said to have lived several lives – born in Dublin in 1917 – his father Francis – a committed atheist died when Conor was just 10 years old. His Mother Kathleen was a Sheehy – from both sides Cruise O’Brien came from strong nationalist stock.
A Trinity Graduate of outstanding distinction – Conor joined the Civil Service as a career diplomat – He worked closely with both Sean MacBride & Frank Aiken during their terms as Minister for External Affairs, producing comprehensive anti-partitionist propaganda for the Government.
It was when he was working as part of the Irish Delegation to the UN in New York he came to the attention of the Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld who sent him as his personal representative to head up a UN force in the newly independent Belgian colony of the Congo which was in danger of breaking up under the weight of internal and external pressures. The mandate included the use of force is necessary and Conor made world news by having the temerity to do what he was asked to do, without fear or favour. However, the old colonial powers didn’t agree and the UN buckled. Conor was later to say that;
‘You can safely appeal to the United Nations in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down.’ CCOB
This was after his dramatic resignation from both the UN and Irish Civil Service and his dramatic tell-all account of his experiences in the Congo – ‘To Katanga and Back’.
“Despite the disillusionment and even the hostility towards him which many people including myself would have developed later. You don’t have a rounded picture of the man unless you give him credit for his work in the Congo in the early 60’s”
Eamonn McCann
It was during his time in the UN that he met his second wife Máire Mhac an tSaoi – daughter of Seán McEntee, TD (Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance). This marriage, O’Brien’s second, proved controversial, both nationally, and privately within the family.
After a period working in Universities in New York and Ghana, Conor returned to Ireland and was elected to the Dáil as a Labour Party TD in 1969. During 1972 he published ‘States of Ireland’, probably one of his most important works. This seminal tome examined not only North and South, but also the notion of the Irish nation and race, and more particularly, the states of mind that go to make up the who and what we are.
‘Yes, I am pro-British. I am also pro-French and pro-American. I am even pro-Russian, in that I am pro the Russian people. But I am more pro-Irish than I am any of those things. Ireland is my country, and I am just as Irish as any bloody IRA man.’ CCOB
“States of Ireland – I thought that was a brilliant book – I thought it was the most important thing he’d done in his whole life. and for someone of my generation this was the book that pointed out the militant republicanism was fascist…anti-democratic” OLIVIA O’LEARY
As Minister for Posts & Telegraphs in the 1973 – 1977 coalition Government, his re-drafting of Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act defined over two decades of exclusion, and in the view of some, censorship in our radio and television.
‘If the Provos are successful, there will be civil war into which the south will be drawn.’ CCOB
Conor lost his seat in the 1977 election – some said he spent too much time on the north and not enough on the job of work to be done with his ministerial brief as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. He was a one-term Senator and it was he who coined the “GUBU” phrase from C.J Haughey’s account the bizarre happenings surrounding the Malcolm McArthur/Attorney General Connolly debacle which occurred when Haughey was Taoiseach.
In the 1980’s and 90’s Cruise O’Brien was a constant thorn in the flesh of nationalist Ireland, finally throwing in his lot with Bob McCartney’s UK Unionist Party. Many considered the spectacle of the by now venerable O’Brien parading among Unionist and Loyalist slogans as ‘final proof’ for all his detractors, of both a blind, unquestioning faith in the efficacy of Unionism, and further indication of a now proven intellectual dishonesty at the heart of his polemic.
“Most observers who despised the IRA warmed to the SDLP & John Hume whereas O’Brien didn’t warm to Hume…he thought that Hume was in some way giving succour to the republican movements at key moments, by engaging with Adams in the peace process. Which O’Brien so despised. I think in that sense he probably got things wrong.” Prof Richard English, Queen’s Univ. Belfast
Conor Cruise O’Brien died and was buried in a sort of obscurity he rarely achieved in his productive lifetime. Having outlived most of his enemies, a good number of his friends and a great deal of his causes, Conor Cruise O’Brien was interred last December in what was in effect a private service, pointedly in the absence of ruling class ‘Official Ireland’.
The man with seven lives is assessed by Eoghan Harris, Olivia O’Leary, Alan Titley, Eamon McCann, Póilín Ní Chiaráin, Ite Ní Chionnaith and Dr. Richard English, Professor of Politics at Queens University Belfast.