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Vol. 7,No. 7 Contents February 1984

The Last Hurrah

The US State Department is moving in on Noraid. Maire Crowe reports from what mayhave been their last Annual Testimonial dinner.

FitzGerald in Government

"He still wobbles - the fumble factor will never be entirely under control - and he can'thelp glancing warily over his shoulder at the school bully on the opposition benches readyto send him sprawling." Olivia O'Leary profiles Garret FitzGerald - the man and thepolitician.

The Confession of Christy Lynch 18

by Gene Kerrigan

Christy Lynch found a body. He called the police and went to the Garda station to makea statement. Twenty-two hours later he confessed to murder. The circumstances of his,

confession raise serious doubts about the new powers being given to the police.

48

What God Hath Put Together 34

"Ten thousand people have been involved in applications to the Catholic marriage tribunalssince 1977. The success rate isn't high." Michael Farrell reports on what happens inside

the marriage tribunals.

The Golden Voice of Tommy O'Brien 40Colm Toibin visited Tommy O'Brien at his home in Clonmel and talked to him about his

life, his work and his music.

Barrie Cooke: The Moment of Seeing

Aidan Dunne writes about the life and art of Barrie Cooke.

Down On One K nee

After the French debacle, John Reason examines the performance of the Irish squad.

Legal Football 59

Eamon Dunphy has been attending the Shelbourne F .C. trial in the high court.

DEPARTMENTS

Diary ...................... 4Subscriptions 31Computers .. , . , , .46

Motoring , 52As Time Goes By , 54Wigmore , 61

C01:er photographs by Derek

Speirs - Hi .J' Stickland;illustration by Arja Kajermo

Publisher

Vincent Browne

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14Merrion Row, Dublin 2.Telephone: 606055Magill is published by

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~ IA BC ' I The averagenet paid salesascertified by the AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS for the period~ l!: : _' ===:!J. J uly-December 1982was 30.945 copies oer month.

Editor

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Reporter

GeneKerrigan

Political Correspondent

Olivia O'Leary

Executive Assistant

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Miriam Barrett

MAGILL FEBRUARY 1984 3

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A L L R O A DS L E A D T O T H E

Forum and all roads leadtherefrom. It is the filter thatwill refine everything that

nationalist politicians havebeen doing and saying for thepast fifteen years. And at theSDLP Conference in Belfastlast weekend, speakers ex-pressed their gratitude toFianna Fail, Fine Gael andLabour for joining them inthe Forum, for spending timeand energy in the search forpeace and reconciliationamong nationalists and may-be, eventually, among all menand women in this country.

Other members of theparty, however, were worriedabout J ohn Hume. It isknown that he doesn't wantthe Forum's report to recom-mendjust one option, that heand Garret FitzGerald areboth in favour of a reportwhich outlines the threeoptions of a unitary state, afederal Ireland and jointsovereignty .

It was felt that somethingwould have to be done tostop Hume and that it wouldhave to be done in public atthe conference.

All eyes were on SeamusMallon, the greatest nationa-list of them all. He might doit, butjust in casehewouldn'tone leading member askedboth Austin Currie and DenisHaughey if they would firethe shot across John Hume'sbows. The code word was tobe "Dolly Mixture". Some-one who missed the speechwhich Seamus Mallon madelater asked if he had used theexpression "Dolly Mixture".

Yes, Mallon did. He wasagainst handing the Britishgovernment a '''bag of DollyMixtures". His speech wasseen at the conference as aclear attack on Hume's plans

James Shannon, who may become the first Irish citizen tobe handed over to the R UC following a Supreme Courtdecision last December which narrowed the definition of a"political offence". On that occasion, the Chief J usticesaid that Dominic McGlinchey had exceeded "what reason-ably civilised people would regard as political activity".Shannon failed in the High Court last week to have theextradition order against him quashed and will now appealhis case to the Supreme Court. The British authorities areknown to have shown an extraordinary amount of interest

in the case. Prior to the hearing, it is understood that theBritish Embassy rang the Chief State Solicitor's office everyday and a representative attended each day of the HighCourt action. Shannon is wanted in the North to facecharges relating to the murder of the former speaker atStormont, Sir Norman Stronge and his son J ames at theirhome at Tynan Abbey, Co Armagh on 21J anuary 1981.

. Ifor the Forum. tively impossible and too ex-

Fianna Fail, as well as a pensive. It would make Sinnfew Fine Gael and Labour Fein the only political partymembers of the Forum, are in Ireland which opposed thealso against "a bag of Dolly British presence. It wouldMixtures". They want the strengthen Sinn Fein NorthForum to issue a strong and South. Fianna Fail arestatement in support of a also afraid that the Britishunitary state. would make propaganda out

They are absolutely op- of Ireland's acceptance of theposed to both a federal British presence.Ireland and joint sovereignty. The Forum is thus splitA federal Ireland, they argue, between FitzGerald and Humecould not allowpower-sharing on one hand and Haugheyin the North because it could and Mallon on the other. Onnot allow it in the South. one hand they disagree, onIt would, in fact, involve the the other they desperatelyreturn of Stormont and all it want to reach consensus.implies. It would not help But that is only wherethe nationalists in the North their problems start. Thoseand it would cost the South involved talk about the im-too much money. portance and urgency of the

Fianna Fail are particular- Forum as those involved inly opposed to joint sovereign- the Treaty of Versailles mustty because they believe that have talked: as though theirsuch a policy would accept decisions were going to drawBritish presence in Northern borders andordain howpeopleIreland, would be administra- will live. Optimism, a word

T he P oliticsOf The Dol lyMix tu re

much used about this con-ference, is not the word.

Nobody knows what willhappen a year from now.Nobody knows what willhappen if the Unionists rejectthe report, as they will, andthe British ignore it, as theymay well do. One SDLPmember, when asked aboutthis, remarked that ayear is a

long time in politics. But helooked away in the distanceas though hoping it mightbe evenlonger.

T heCardinal AndT he R U C

CARDINAL 0 FIAI CH I Sreported to have been quitesurprised at the strong reac-tion to his statements aboutSinn Fein on This Week.Readers will. remember thatafter theinterviewthe Cabinet,having failed to ban Sinn Feinor intern its members, deci-'ded to urge the Cardinal todeclare membership of SinnFein some sort of mortalsin.

The interview on ThisWeek had been the secondattempt to broadcast theCardinal's views on these andother matters. The first wasdropped in the wake of the

Tidey rescue and the Harrodsbombing. For the. secondinterview the Cardinal put alot of thought not into whathe would say about SinnFein, but into statements hewanted to make about theRUC. He decided, it isunder-stood, to praise the RUC forarresting members of theUDR and charging them withmurder. He believed, it isreported, that any contro-versy caused by his interviewwith This Week would be"caused by his statementsabout the RUC.

The interview was recor-ded on the Saturday and thetape brought back to an RTE

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studio for editing. The tech-

nique used in editing suchtapes is called "dubbing"and it involves transferring

the material from one reel toanother. There were two reelsused in the interview and

when the second one was

being edited the two reelswere put the wrong wayaround and some of the

interview was rubbed out.This included one section

where the Cardinal talkedabout the RUC.

The error was not dis-

covered until late on Sundaymorning and it was too lateto do anything about it. The

interview was broadcast with-out the section on the RUCwhich the Cardinal had feltwould be controversial. How-

ever, RTE news bulletins onSunday carried a report on

this section of the interviewwhich had not been broad-.cast for "technical reasons".Although the Cardinal pub-licly stated his satisfaction

with the way the interviewwas handled, he is known tohave been privately upset by

the exclusion of the part

which he felt was most im-portant and by the subse-

quent controversy.

T e n Gr e e nBottlesR E A DE R S O F THESUNDA Y

World last Sunday must havewondered when they saw the

story about the nine worstheads in Dublin.

Nine?

Why nine? Why not, forexample, ten, or even twelve,or, say, twenty.

Nine. A funny number ofheads. And then there were

nine. The sort of number that

previously was ten and nowhas one missing.

After several days investi-

gation we have unearthed thetruth. Ladies and gentlemenread all about it.

Nine heads. Why nine?

Nine because Cedric Me-Clolland, the noble editor of

the Sunday World, didn't likeone of the ten the poor

reporters had been ordered toselect from his phone callsto barbers all over Dublin.

He didn't like one of themat all. The tenth was the

editor of another Sundaynewspaper. No, it was not thenew fellow at the Indo

("Munster must have the dogresults"), not the Deepest

Thinker of His Generation atthe Sunday Press. But the

other one. Cedric wasn'thaving his name in the Sunday

World. Some people thought

nine was a bit odd, butCedric stuck to his guns, soto speak.

"Trn not giving that f ...

any publicity," he muttered.

T H E EX PUL SI ON OF T H R E E SO V I E T D I P L O M AT S L A ST

Septem ber resulted from espionage activities involving NATO

nuclear SUbmarines, according to a US State Departmentreport. The Irish government has consistently refused to

give the reasons for the expulsions and a government sourcewas this week unable to say why the State Department

should apparently have inside information on the incident.The State Department reo

port is quoted in a press

handout from the US Inter-national Communication

Agency, which is based at theUS embassy and which regu-

larly keeps Irish journalistsinformed on US policy andgovernment statements.

Magill asked the press

office of the State Depart-ment in Washington DC how

such information had beencome by. They were unable

to say and referred us toIrene Piechowitz of the Pub-

lic Affairs Office, EuropeanSection. Ms Piechowitz toldus that three Soviet diplo-mats had been expelled from

Ireland in September butdidn't know any more than

that. She referred us to aMr Rohn at the State Depart-

ment's Intelligence and Re-

search Division. Mr Rohn was

on home leave. His deputy,Scott Thompson could notelaborate on the report. "Noone in the Department ofState had anything to do withthat," he said.

Mr Thompson suggested

we ring the CIA. We askedhim for the number. He

said, "We don't have very

frequent dealings with them,sir, and nobody here knowstheir number. Anyway, all

they're likely to say is nocomment."

We rang Bryan Carlson, a

State Department press offi-

cer, who had a copy of thereport on Soviet expulsions.Mr Carlson's report seemedto have a lot more detailthan the embassy handout.

It said that in addition to.he espionage involving the

submarines the three Soviets

had "contacted agents" and

also "collected intelligenceinformation for transmissionto Moscow". Mr Carlson'scopy of the report also

claimed that the diplomats

had "bugged other embas-

sies in Dublin ". It said thatthe Second Secretary, Mr

Lipassov, was "the KGB resi-dent" in Dublin.

Mr Carlson didn't knowvery much about how the

State Department obtainedthis information. He said he

would try to get someone toring us back, "but I don'thold out much hope that

they'll want to go furtherthan that." They didn't.

We rang the CIA. Aspokesperson; Dale Peterson,

said he would "have to refer

you back to the State Depart-ment. We would 'send infor-mation to them, but they ...

would have the ultimate res-ponsibility for that." Asked ifthat meant that the CIA had

provided the information forthe report, Mr Peterson refer- .....

red us back to the State ~Department. ~

We rang the home number e : -of Mr Rohn, the Intelligence .~

and Research officer who was ~

on home leave. A recorded '"announcement said that his ~line was being "checked for Cl

trouble ".

An Irish governmentspokesperson repeated the

refusal to elaborate on whythe Russians had been thrownout, other than to say that

they had "transgressed" be-yond their diplomatic roles.

The position seems to be

that the Russians know whatthey did, the Americans know

what happened, our own

government knows - but theinformation is being keptfrom the public. It is a rnys- .

tery as to how the US StateDepartment obtained infor-mation that the Russianswere expelled for spying onN A TO nuclear submarine sec-

rets. Did our government tellthem? Or did they tell ourgovernment? Was this beforethe expulsions, or afterwards?

There were, by State De-partment count, 27 Russian

diplomats expelled fromvarious countries in 1981. In1982 the figure was 49. Lastyear it rose to 135. Either

Russian diplomats are swear-

ing off vodka and suddenlygoing on an espionage ram-

page or, as East-West relations

deteriorated under Andropov/Reagan, someone who hasbeen watching the Russkiesfor a long time suddenly

decided to spill the beans on

them all over the place.

Gene Kerrigan

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nARD BY THE SUBWAY STATIONin downtown Queens, suburban NewYork, lies the Astorian Manor. A confectionof neon and plaster, it offered, on thisbelowfreezing night in late January, shelter fromthe kind of cold that drives people insane.Within the haze of its baby-blue womb laycomfort and Aid. Irish Northern Aid.

TheTwelfth Annual Testimonial dinnerof the Irish Northern Aid committee,America's most vigorous and most contro-versial Irish republican support group, wasunderway - perhaps for the last time.

It must havebeen relief at havingescapedthe elements that produced that momentarydisorientation. Why - this felt likehome, anArdFheis dance or aparish social, maybe.

Of course, some things were different.The help were Hispanic, the cooks wereprobably Chinese. But the party wasdefini-rely Irish - the cocktail "hour" was long,so were some of the speeches. Everyoneseemed ableto juggle the levity and deadlyseriousness of it all.

Including the man who said he wasfromBoston to the woman who wondered if hewas staying the night. He wasn't sure. Hey,she could show tum a good time, she said,squeezinghis knee. Hecogitated the offer.

BEFORE GETTING DOWN TO THEroast beef (nice and rare), string beanszad mashed potato one had time to stock=? on tee-shirts ("IRA freedom fighters"...as the messageadvertised on them), sweatsairts (ditto), caps (ditto), aswell asaselec-:ion ofbadges. Noflags.

Pinned to the lapels of many agood suit~ well-dressed bosom was the aforemen-~ned message, emblems that read "IRA -::ish Northern Aid", even an inspirational"Out of the ashes arosethe Proves". Martin:;z:-I;in, publicity engineer for Noraid and~or of 11s threatened newspaper, The:~.sil People, sported the straight-talking-England get out of Ireland". Michael::~.L.I]ery,the old boy whose selection asCrand Marshal of last year's St Patrick's' : : : : :! .y Parade in New York caused ructions,-:-~..;~do with hispioneer pin.

The important people of the night were::'=-.J:termarked by the white carnationsS O:: i :: i e generous soul had coloured with a=:::gdash of emerald green.

By ten o'clock the 1,800 people who. : : . : 0 .. : : paid f 3 35 each for the evening were:-.=22d.

Greers went up asthe Cork County Pipe:=.0 =::

led in the night's "honorees" (thosew '.: .s: were to receive Noraid awards), com-= - . . = c members and representatives of other:'..-.:'-rz2tions.The biggest cheer camewhen2 =ec.oed Michael Flannery marched intor - = - - - _ . . astheband played Roddy McCorley.

Joe Roche, chief of the Ancient Order ofHibernians, one who has on occasion, likeFlannery, disturbed the sleep of GarretFitzGerald, smiled (probably at the thoughtof having disturbed the sleep of Garret Fitz-Gerald).

C.

FACElHEFLAG ...."Soldiers are we

whose lives arepledged to Ireland.Some have comefrom a land beyond the wave .... "Father Maurice Burke, whose parish is

on Staten Island, lent hisWaterford City liltto Grace. Hehad learned i t off by heart:

"Heavenly father, we ask your blessingfor the food prepared for us. We pray thatour sharing this meal together will strengthenour commitment to the right of the peopleof Ireland to self-determination and inspireus to even greater efforts on behalf of thedependants of Irish prisoners of war .... "

Fr Burke who has "supported the IRAand continues to do so" writes a column as

Oisin in The Irish People. If he thoughtmoney collected by Noraid was going forIRA guns he "would condemn that - be-cause it would have been collected underfalse pretences - but I would not object tomoney goingto the IRA if it was collectedon that basis."

.It has been a hazard of Noraid's exis-tence that it has had to face charges ofcollecting funds for the IRA. Its leaderroutinely denies those charges, but it isnowfacing what seems to bethe strongest effortyet to put it out of business, as the StateDepartment closesinon it.

Noraid's stated aim is that it is "anAmerican based, humanitarian organizationwhich together with An Cumann Cabhrach

and Green Crossgivessupport tothefamiliesof Irish political prisoners and to prisoners'welfare."

. A L L OF THE IMPORTANT PEOPLEwere collected onthedais- honorees,

Noraid committee members and representa-tives of other organizations who deemed itpolite to signal support for Noraid as itfaced into the US State Department's on-slaught. Three representatives of NewYorkLabour were there. New York State Assem-bly man John Dearie, who started the cam-paign to have aUS envoy sent to the North,

was there. AswasPeter King, NassauCountycomptroller, Noraid's favourite for GrandMarshal - he's commended as being hard-line.

Onespeaker commended Joe Roche "forhaving the quiet courage to take the AOH

out of the closet". Roche smiled.James Delaney, the big Texan, head of

the new Irish Unity conference, who hasmade a lot of the running for "the Irishcause" in the past year didn't smile. Maybehe was thinking of the fact that, asheafter-wards explained, "I still have contact withthem (the Irish government), but I don'tknow if I'll be very welcome at the Con-sulate after tonight. Hetalked about 'effortsto discourage mefromattending'."

Hooleys - or testimonial dinners - arefor the crack, but they're also for seriousspeeches - one even invoked Plato andLocke.

They're also for sendingsignals- maybeto the State Department, more probably tothe lads at home - both to the ones youlikeand the ones youdon't like. Themessageis: Noraid fights for its life; AOH and IrishUnity Conference hold up the life supportsystem. So much for Garret's team trying totell the Yanks what to do ....

With all the talk offreedom fighters, therashof IRA badges, the thunderous applausewhen Old MikeFlannery, the most wantedman in the room (autographs andsnapshots)declared that "freedom can come only oneway; that is by the perseverance of the IrishRepublican Army," one was apt to becomea trifle confused - not about Noraid - but,well, about the AOH and the hard-sellingIrish Unity Conference. As for smilingJoeRoche, he said "Noraid is a rather demon-strative organization. We in the AOH,we're opposed to all violence - RUC, IRA,UDA, but most importantly we're opposedto what the British army isup to.

"I think it would be fair to say thatINA, AOH and the Unity Conference arenow coming together more formally. Ofcourse, you know that a lot of Noraidmembers arealso members of the AOH."

The IRA, bigJim Delaney "neither con-

demnsnor condones". Though not amemberofNoraid, he "isastrong supporter".

ITCOULD BE THIS WAS THE LASThurrah for Noraid. Let me rephrase that;it could be this wasthelasthurrah for Noraidas we know it. Michael Flannery was pessi-mistic about its chances of surviving theState Department attack - the seriousnessof which cannot be doubted since theHarrods bombing led British PrimeMinister,Margaret Thatcher, to a new condemnationof Noraid as the primary source in theUnited States of funds for the IRA.

Martin Glavin dismisses the notion of animminent demise as "ludicrous". But evenif it does go the road that Thatcher wouldelect for it "there would", he said, "beothers to take up the cause."

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ATCHING GARRETFITZGERALD IN THE DAIL LATELY ONE GETS THEimpression of a boy who has learned to ride a bicycle all byhimself. He still wobbles - the fumble factor will never beentirely under control - and he can't help glancing warilyover his shoulder at the school bully on the oppositionbenches ready to send him sprawling. But he's piloted hisgovernment's first independent budget through and the

ew Ireland Forum, has the merit at least of keeping

Fianna Fail quiet and showing FitzGerald to be busy about

the nation's unfinished business.ow, when Haughey catcalls in parliament, FitzGerald

has learned to blow him a raspberry and keep peddling. At

the opening of the Dail's New Y ear session, the oppositionleader huffed and puffed about the meeting of the Justice~ter and the Northern Secretary on security. Would not

Il:.S reduce Northern Ireland to a mere security problem in

:he world's eyes? Was it not a dangerous precedent andwould the Taoiseach keep that in mind? "No I wouldn't"

said FitzGerald impudently, peddling on by. "I don't

accept what the deputy says, so I won't keep it in mind."

Charlie subsided. Nuts to Charlie.FitzGerald will never learn totally, however, to cloak his

anxieties in the glossy mantle of power. Everything registerson that slightly dowager ish face. Under C.J. Haughey, the

morning ministerial troop-in to the Dail was done withmilitary precision and gravitas. Garret trots in with his

ragged troupe strolling behind him, grinning an embar-rassed grin at the part he has to play in this piece of parlia-

mentary pomposity.At the Forum, he beams at what he would regard as

useful contributors, like the two young unionist brotherswho braved Northern indignation to come and tell theForum that "British withdrawal" to them meant that theyand other unionists were being asked to leave No-rthernIreland. But when contributors drone on, particularlydroning members of his own delegation, he immediatelyshows his irritation , diving into the back of the IPA year-book to find an attractive statistic he can add and subtract

to his heart's content.The fact is that FitzGerald doesn't feel the need to hide

his ordinariness. The red braces are constantly on display.It doesn't cost him a thought, on his way into an RTE

studio to ring back down to his driver at reception and askhim to go and get rashers and sausages in Donnybrook forSunday breakfast. At home, he does the hoovering, helps

to get meals, gets down on the floor in shirt sleeves to play

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with his three grandaughters to whom he brings homepresents from summit meetings abroad.

He's cheerfully forgetful. He's been known to put hissuits into the drycleaners and then forget which drycleaners

he went to. So as not to disturb his wife one morning hegot dressed in the dark and put on two odd shoes. The

newspaper photographers had afield day. FitzGerald didn'tsee what the fuss was all about. He doesn't much notice

what he eats but he loves lots of butter. He likes a glass ofwine but doesn't look too hard at the label.

Some of his backbenchers complain that he's not aman's man. "When Garret comes into the Dail bar, it'shard to know who is more uneasy, the bar habitues, orGarret." He was told he should turn up more often in theOar. be a little more friendly with the boys. So diligently,

he decided he would make an effort and visited the bar toouv a round of drinks. He chose to go on Ash Wednesday.Everybody was drinking orange juice.

FitzGerald bought a round of tomato and orangejuice and listened earnestly as a young TD told him a story.

Deputy J ohn Kelly had been speaking in the Dail the week

before and had finished his speech with a quote from thehistorian Macauley concluding "As Macauley once said." Inthe Dail official record i t appeared "As deputy Macauleyonce said." Garret laughed and went on to speak at lengthabout Macauley's life and times. As he left, one bewildered

TD turned to another and asked "Hey, who is this deputyMacauley anyway?"

He's not one of the good old boys and he doesn't pre-

tend to be. He admits happily that when he was a young-ster one of his favourite books was a girl's school story

called "Bashful Fifteen". He's never felt any compunction

to pay slavish tribute to the nation's sacred cows.During the 1982 February election campaign, the Fitz-Gerald bus pulled up in a village in Co Cork. A large Teddy

swathed in red and white was pushed through the bus doorat Garret. It was a lovely Teddy, he exclaimed, and whatdid the red and white stand for? Was it a symbol of PolishSolidarity, he asked. The Cork faces looked up at him in-credulously out of the wet night. Sean Power, the Corkmanwho was press officer for the campaign, put his head in hishands and groaned. "They're the Cork colours, boy" hewept "they're the Cork colours." "Really?" said FitzGeraldhappily. It didn't bother Garret that he didn't know theCork colours. He doesn't measure his I rishness in terms ofshamrocks or Guinness or even the bould Thady Quill.

As well as the accusation that he's not a man's man -a commodity this countryneeds like Donegal needs rain -there are even more serious charges laid against FitzGerald.He is utterly faithful to his wife and pays.her constant andloving attention. He enjoys the conversation and companyof women, and he encourages them inpolitics. He loves hisfamily, his home, his children and his grandchildren andhe's not at all interested in sport. Men's men wince at these

unwholesome tendencies.He's friendly with the press corps - friendlier than he is

with some members of the parliamentary party, his back-benchers would complain. He first-names the press and is

unduly worried if they don't first-name him in return. He

never uses his position to give an importunate journalist abrush-off or a put down. Corner him with a sticky questionand he'll spew irrelevant statistics at you or blind you withscience. An intellectual bully he may be, but he never hidesbehind the grandeur of his office.

This attitude may spring from having been a journalistof sorts himself. In the sixties he did financial journalism

and was a correspondent for the Financial Times. Whensome major economic story broke in Ireland in the mid-seventies, the Financial Times' night-desk couldn't contact

their regular man and going down the list of Irish staffcame across a G. FitzGerald. They rang him in the small

hours and demanded he file a story. Garret demurred. Hehad a new job now, he explained, he was Minister for

Foreign Affairs. That was all very well, retorted the caller,the Financial Times still needed a story. Garret did thestory.

Garret FitzGerald has a clean sense of fun. Indeed, hissense of humour wouldn't be out of place in a nun's recrea-

tion room. He was enormously tickled on one occasionwhen a telephoned report to the Irish Times announcedthat "the Taoiseach was embarrassed" when it should haveread "the Taoiseach was in Paris".

"Who, me embarrassed?" he burbled. "Look at me, I'm

not embarrassed!"When Michael O'leary told a somewhat blue story to

Joan FitzGerald, FitzGerald ticked him off later. Not that

the redoubtable Mrs FitzGerald needs much protection inany discussion. Despite the chronic ill-health which makesit difficult for her to travel or move about easily, she isforthright and intellectually independent of her husband,while so shamelessly loyal to him that she has no compunc-tion about ticking off TDs or journalists who have been in

her eyes less than fair.

MAGILL FEBRUARY 1984 9

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During one election campaign, Garret FitzGerald gaveme an interview on a noisy flight to Cork. Informal as ever,

Mrs FitzGerald sitting beside him, put in an occasional

comment. She complained that I was concentrating too

much on economic matters. "Olivia O'Leary ," she announ-

ced to the airplane at large, "is doing a very boring inter-view with Garret. It's all about economics." When I wrote

her into the report of the interview next day, she tackledme down the length of the luncheon table. "Y ou mademe sound" she announced "like a pistol-packing Momma."

"But, Mrs Fitz," murmured one of the assembled hacksadmiringly "you are a pistol-packing Momma." The press

corps who travelled with her liked her enormously, likedher directness, liked the motherly eye she kept on certain

young men who showed the ravages of the night before,and admired the courage with which she faced into a cam-paign schedule which would have daunted someone in thebest of physical health.

She and her husband tried on these long tours to keepsome semblance of family atmosphere. Accompanied bytheir son Mark, they had meals together and tried to putaside a quiet hour or two, for instance, to read to one ano-ther. On one tour, they were reading Vera Brittain's "Testa-ment of Y outh". They are both interested in theology andhave attended conferences of the Irish Theological Associa-tion. Dr Enda McDonagh of the ITA is a close familyfriend.

That secure family background matters very much toFitzGerald. He keeps in touch with his wife throughout hisworking day and rings her frequently during the day whenhe's abroad. They live in the basement flat of their house

on Palmerston Road - son Mark and his wife Derval,daughter of Chief -Justice O'Higgins, live upstairs. TheFitzGeralds have no full-time housekeeper, but some dailyhelp and help with.cooking if they are entertaining.

Entertaining is simple - lasagne or roast beef and lotsof rioja downstairs in the flat. It usually involves family anda mix of political and academic friends, many of them

from FitzGerald's old UCD days. Martin McCullough ofMcCullough Pigott's - recently appointed Chairman of theArts Council by FitzGerald - whose father Dinny wasPresident of the Supreme Council of the Irish Volunteersin 1916, is a close friend - his niece Katherine Meenan actsas personal assistant to Garret. Other old friends are Profes-sors J ames and Paddy Meenan of UCD, the former SenatorAlexis FitzGerald of solicitors McCann, FitzGerald, Roche

and Dudley, who first persuaded FitzGerald to run for theDail in 1969; Senator J im Dooge, former Foreign Ministerand Professor of Chemical Engineering in UCD; HelenBurke who lectures in UCD's social science department andher husband Kevin.

Professor Desmond Williams, professor of history atDen and refreshingly unstuffy company, is a friend as isGabby Hogan and his wife Jacintha. Hogan is the SAABagent in Ireland - in opposition and government FitzGerald

uses a green SAAB. Hogan, an enterprising import/exportagent is a former student of FitzGerald's, a hospitable andgenerous host, very much a personal rather than a political

friend. His house in Sandymount is said to be one of thefew places outside his own home where FitzGerald reallyrelaxes. FitzGerald and Michael O'Leary worked out the

1981 coalition agreement there.Grainne O'Flynn and her husband Paddy are friends who

also date back to Garret's UCD days - Mrs O'Flynn has justbeen appointed to Gemma Hussey's new curriculum board.

On the crest of the UCD Gentle Revolution of 1969, Fitz-Gerald, who sympathised with the students, spoke at thestudent sit-ins and tried to curb the more politically radicalelements of the mutiny, helped plan a liberal onslaught on

the governing body.

Then an economics lecturer, he joined with PaddyO'Flynn, then prominent in the Irish Federation of Univer-

sity Teachers, Gus Martin, Paddy Masterson, Brian Altonand Sr Benevenuta to run a liberal panel for election tothe governing body. They all got elected except O'Flynn.

Despite differing political views on Northern Ireland,J ohn Mulcahy, the former editor of Hibernia, and his wifeNuala are friends, as is Labour's former Minister JustinKeating, a close cabinet buddy of FitzGeralds in the 1973-

1977 coalition, and lovely Fine Gael convert MichaelO'Leary - all have spent holidays with the FitzGeralds in

_l:

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she's in the middle of a Michael Innes trilogy. He himselfenjoys novels and detective stories. Trollope and GrahamGreene are favourite authors but his tastes are heterogenous.

He doesn't like rereading books, except for cherished chil-

dren's books or books about children. "Alice in Wonder-land", and American children's books like "Helen's Babies"

and "Other People's Children", books by Rumer Goddenand L.P. Hartley. Staying overnight once in former Liberal

Leader Jo Grimond's house, he was delighted to find abook-case of children's books belonging to the Grimonds

and the Bonham-Carters, and the Asquiths and to find hehad read eighty per cent of them.

He loves children, and everything about them, and whenas a student he organised a party outside in Iveagh Gardens

it was specially for children.He reads a lot of history and biographies, books on

theology, moral theology, dogmatic theology and Chris-tology, and on cosmology. He is enthusiastic about a book

he read recently on the first three minutes of the universeand the arguments as to whether the universe is going toexpand and die or contract and implode.

He enjoys music as an untutored listener. He enjoysMozart, Beethoven and a favourite piece of easy listening isBizet's "Carmen".

He's never been sport-oriented. As a schoolboy heplayed football only twice until he discovered that the balldidn't stop where he was, he had to chase it, so he gave itup.

He prefers a glass of wine, or cider or a gin and tonic tobeer and he's never taken naturally to pubs. He has pointedout that since he decided to get married at the ageof nine-teen, he didn't really have a bachelor period and missed outon going to pubs, so he never got used to it. In any case,it may be true that pubs in the past were all male domains

and FitzGerald has never seen the attraction lof all-malecompany. \

Despite his international reputation, and there is nodoubt that in EEC circles FitzGerald is highly respected, hehas never had any doubt that his political home is Ireland.His home, his friends, his interests are that of a Dublin 4or 6 academic Irish gentleman. He points securely to his

Southern politician father and his Ulster Scots nationalistmother as impeccable political forebears. He doesn't feel

the need to search for rural origins, or hurley playinguncles, or to wear a badge declaring "Dublin 4 is Ireland,

too".His Catholicism is an essential part of his Irishness and

his view of a New Ireland, "a non-sectarian pluralist Ireland"

(he rarely uses the term 'secular') presupposes the develop-ment of Irish Catholicism along liberal post Vatican II lines.It is this dual approach which makes FitzGerald suspectfrom the hierarchy's point of view. Reds and Prods can bedealt with. Miraculous meddlers within the Church are a

much more dangerous proposition.FiTZGerald has the dual impertinence to be an amateur

theologian and to tangle with the bishops publicly on poli-

tical issues. He has tackled Bishop J eremiah Newman on thebishop's contention that laws reflecting Catholic moresshould not be changed for a five per cent Protestant mino-rity, but could be changed for a twenty-five .per cent Pro-testant minority in a united Ireland. FitzGerald called it

"specious and casuistical. I think it should be rejected byevery honest Christian politician."

He has confronted Bishop Cathal Daly on CatholicChurch ambiguity towards violence and, more indirectly,

the Cardinal on ambiguity towards Sinn Fein. He has, in aFurrow article reminded the bishops that they are as humanas politicians ... "in a Church structure based on authority

there may be more opportunities for the abuse of power

than in a political system based on democracy."As an urban liberal Catholic, he identified in "Towardsa New Ireland" the two great orthodoxies which have domi-

nated Irish life and whose monopoly he is determined tochallenge: "The pre-Vatican II orthodoxy in the CatholicChurch, exclusivist and triumphalist - and the neo-Gaelic

cultural orthodoxy, which sought to impose on a verymixed Irish society the traditional cultural values of therural Irish-speaking tradition." He has come slap up againstboth thse orthodoxies, large as Irish life, in the New Ireland

. Forum - the first in the shape of the uncompromisingCatholic bishops presentation to the Forum, and the otherin the guise of Fianna Fail whose leader has continued toargue for no deviation from the demand for a unitary Irish

state.

The tensions which now exist between government andthe hierarchy might have been less had the Forum secre-tariat been more thorough. A number of groups, including

the Protestant Churches received a notice from the Forumin J uly advising them that there was a newspaper advertise-

ment requesting submissions.With extraordinary oversight, the Forum failed to send

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such a notice to the Roman Catholic Church who were

unlikely, without prodding, to want to brave the politicalsensitivities of a Forum presentation. It was October before

the Church was directly approached for a submission, amatter about which Cardinal 0 Fiaich has been heard to

complain, since by then he was in Rome for a meeting andhad to farm out the writing of the report to a sub-commis-sion. The final document never went before a bishopsmeeting and the Cardinal is known to have misgivings aboutthe crudity of some of its declarations i.e. "A Catholiccountry, or its government, where there is a very substan-tial Catholic ethos and consensus, should not feel it neces-sary to apologise that its legal system, constitution orstatute, reflects Catholic values." A Northern Catholicbishop could hardly fail to wince at the echoes there of "AProtestant state for a Protestant people". The fact that thedocument was presented in that form says something aboutthe strength of the Dermot Ryan wing within the Southernhierarchy.

Mr Haughey, whose unitary state idea is probably mostdamaged by the Church's statement, waved his delegationto silence in the chorus of condemnation that the reportproduced from Forum members, in a private session, but hemade it clear later that he was angry and disappointed.Garret FitzGerald was also angry and disappointed butrebuked a government backbencher who came out publicly

and had a go.Was it a case, as John Wilson of the Fianna Fail delega-

tion droned ponderously, of "Roma locuta est; causa finitaest?"

Hardly. If FitzGerald believes what he says, which isthat the orthodoxies, the conservative forces in this country

determined to avoid change, are destroying the possibilityof eventual unification, then he can't let the bishops state-

ment go unchallenged in the final report of the Forum. TheJohn Hume wing of the SDLP would be with him, and theLabour party.

But what of Charles J. Haughey, the guarder of the two

great orthodoxies? Mr Haughey, being a practical FiannaFaller, never wanted the churches in on the Forum act inthe first place, but now that the Catholic Church has beenforced to declare its hand, can Mr Haughey be seen to dis-agree with it? No change, as Bishop Newman says, until wehave a united Ireland? May not the twin orthodoxies oftriumphalist Catholicism and not-an-inch republicanismbring the Forum to a messy end.

The Forum at this point has a difficulty. It is understoodthat FitzGerald wishes to publish a report which presentsthe three options studied - unitary state, federation or

onfederation and joint authority - with the arguments forand against but not plumping for any particular one. JohnHume might agree to this but Seamus Mallon has condemn-ed it as a dolly mixture. Mallon represents a strong factionin the SDLP who want the Forum to plump for a united

Ireland option.The difficulty is for Fianna Fail - whether indeed Mr

Haughey can find it possible to stand behind a report whichoes anything less than demand a unitary state, or federa-

:ion within a united Ireland.FitzGerald knew' he would anger unionists and lose the

pport he had built up with Robert McCartney-type Nor-em Protestants, by setting up what was inevitably going

:0 e a nationalist Catholic debate. He did it out of his;;ca regard for John Hume, he did it to sh5\lwthe SDLP

-e:e still a real political force determined to pursue poli-

tical change in Northern Ireland.He did it hoping that it might help nationalists to face

up to the real cost of unity in terms of tolerance, patience,and fundamental social change.

But he did it, too, to show he was capable of being as

busy about Northern Ireland as Charles J. Haughey, andthat in the end, may be all it achieves. FitzGerald hasdeveloped a tendency to speak at length about his prin-ciples but to do what the immediate political situationdemands. He sometimes mistakes the saying for the doing.

His commitment to the Forum (neither he nor MrHaughey have missed a session) hasn't been resented by hiscabinet colleagues. Indeed they would rather see a lot lessof him - across the cabinet table that is.- than they havebeen doing. One minister put it in heartfelt fashion. "Doyou know, when I get into a plane to go to a meeting

abroad, and everybody's sympathising with me for havingto leave home, I close my eyes and say 'Thank God. I'llmiss the cabinet meetings'."

His relationship with Dick Spring is cordial but not cosy.Spring treats him with the same scepticism he applies tomost people. He sits back and watches Garret's verbal and

physical jerks with all the serenity of a K erryman whoknows that the less you say, the brighter people think you

are. Spring, it is said, sits silently through hours of talk andexplanation from Garret at cabinet, and then announcesbaldly: "That's not acceptable to us."

Consultations between the two men are informal. Fitz-Gerald rarely sits down, but pops his head around Spring'soffice door and announces a decision or demands anopinion. Spring, not the friendliest little soul, stays sensiblyin his seat.

. . .

.~ HE MEETI NGS

WOULD SOMETIMES START AT ELEVEN AND GO ONwith the odd break until nine at night or occasionally intothe small hours of the morning. "Y ou asked yourself,"said another cabinet member, "did the man ever drink, eat

or sleep."With the budget in sight and FitzGerald loose on the

figures, they were lucky to get home at all. He gets drunkon figures, drools over them, hungers after them, his arith-metical lust is insatiable. No decent figure is safe in hiscompany. He even assaults tots done by the Departmentof Finance itself. During one cabinet meeting he undresseda Department of Finance tot and discovered an adding mis-

take of 3.8 million. He was ecstatic.His obsession with figures, critics say, shows his agility

as a statistician rather than an economist. Indeed he has

little formal training in economics. His first school was atSt Brigid's in Bray. He then went to the Irish-speakingboarding school at Ring, Co Waterford - his spoken Irish

is still ropey but he has completed for the Royal IrishAcademy a study on the extent to which Irish was spokenbetween the mid-eighteenth and the mid-nineteenth cen-

tury. From there he went to the J esuit College, Belvederewhere one of his classmates was Archbishop Dermot Ryan.

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At UCD his bachelor's degree was not in Economics.He took first class honours and first place in both History'

and French. He studied law at the King's Inns and wascalled to the bar in 1947. By 1950, he had made his way

up the ladder in Aer Lingus to take direct responsibilityfor economic planning, the determining of rates and fares,scheduling and purchase of aircraft.

He worked so energetically, they say, that when he left,Aer Lingus replaced him with four executives and a com-puter.

His interest in economics was developed in Aer Lingus,and when he left to work as a freelance journalist he wroteabout university financing for the Irish Times and thenbroadened his focus to the economy generally. He workedas an Irish correspondent for the Financial Times and theEconomist Intelligence Unit engaged him as its representa-tive in Ireland. He then started to work as an economicconsultant for Irish firms and set up Economic Intelligence

Unit (Ireland) Ltd, of which he was managing director until1972.

It was as late as 1969, however, that FitzGerald took hisfirst degree in economics - a PhD from UCD for a study of

Irish state-sponsored bodies.The allegation that FitzGerald's view of economics is

arithmetical rather than practical would seem to be borne

out by recent budgets. As those who sat through the end-less budget meetings will attest, FitzGerald has an irresist-ible urge to tinker. He can be easily distracted by details.His ability to fix on a broad objective and to keep to apolicy line is weakened by the need to juggle with thesmallest figures. "He has an extraordinary mind," says a

colleague who has worked with him in cabinet, "but it has

-no filter, no perspective, no defence mechanism against allthe interesting but irrelevant details which come to distracthim."

The result is that no clear economic policy line has as

yet emerged from his government.It was FitzGerald who focussed the public mind on that

growing mountain of state indebtedness, on the level of thecurrent budget deficit, on the profligacy of state spending.

He acted as a sort of national bank manager, warningthat the account was woefully overdrawn, as indeed it was.

On this front he has had a limited success. The high ratesof growth in public expenditure and the size of the public

service, which characterised the late seventies and earlyeighties, is now under control. The problem -isn't solved but

it's under control despite the difficulties posed by a grow-ing young population and its demands on state services.

But borrowing continues at a very high level. Theexchequer borrowing requirement increased this year con-siderably from 1,756 million to 1,874 million.

And with all his talk about the need to bring down theborrowing level and assure foreign bankers of our credit-worthiness, he has managed in this year's budget to under-mine the securest source of government finance - thegovernment's own bonds - by taking away the incentiveto invest in them - by making dividends from the bonds

fully liable to tax. As a result investors tried to sell 1,000million worth of government bonds on the day after thebudget, representing about one-sixth of the 6,500 millionthat the government has borrowed from domestic inves-tors. The danger is that this could result in additionalforeign borrowing (though FitzGerald has denied this), as

well as being inflationary, thus damaging the government's

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main achievement, keeping inflation down.

Having started, however, on the path of contraction, hehas preferred to deflate by his personal taxation rather than

by sensible and possible cuts this year in public expenditure.

Why not cut back wasteful expenditure like the IDA's22 million for advance factories when they've alreadygot 2~ million square feet of empty factory space? Whynot cut the 2 million for the refurbishing of IDA offices,

the 9 million for the ESB to build itself a new headquar-ters? Is 140 million for local housing necessary' when

councillors in counties like Waterford will tell you that

their housing lists are depleted. The high personal taxationneeded to finance these projects is itself inflationary inthat it leads to higher wages.

But here, one is up against FitzGerald's reluctance as asocial democrat to follow the logic of his own economicanalysis - heavier public spending cuts. Neither would his

Labour colleagues in cabinet thank -him for it, exceptperhaps for Barry Desmond who has developed a zealot'srage at inefficient public spending.

His budget has left almost every sector unhappy because

it is directionless. The commitment to employment crea-tion he speaks of so often must, in the logical development

of his deflationary policy, wait for a real upsurge in theeconomy. But there could have been painless enough ges-tures to job creation, removing the sort of disincentives

John Bruton has spoken about, the heavy burden of PRSIon employers. PRSI actually goes up by half a percent inthis budget.

As for the budget's being "neutral", one has to ask, as

they did during the emergency, "who is it neutral against?"

For PAY E taxpayers, the real impudence of this budget is

the impression given that some small relief has been grantedto the PAY E section. Despite all the careful leaking of theterm "neutral" from government sources before the budget,and all the fancy figures done by Alan Dukes on the relief

for carefully chosen individual taxpayers, the figures showthat the government's income tax take increased by 205

million last year and by 288 million this year. Is this thegovernment's attempt, as Mr Dukes promised last year, tomove from the taxation to the expenditure side of theequation?

Watching the run on government bonds, and listening tohis Finance Minister debate on the radio post-budget

programmes the dilemma posed for those who have tallnine-year-old children who take twelve-year-old clothes,

one wonders at FitzGerald's unerring ability to wander into

the Land of the Little People. It seems extraordinary thata man who has fought and schemed so successfully to bring

his party into government should seem to lose touch withreality once in government, should so miscalculate the dras-

tic effects of relatively minor adjustments.He had two sub-committees to advise him on the budget

- one on its economic and the other on its political effects.Maybe Garret wasn't listening.

He tells a story about his childhood in Bray, where heloved to watch the trains go by. In the summertime, thetrain used to stop at the local hotel to let guests off. Theymust have been very important people, he thought, if thetrain stopped specially for them. He wondered if the train

would ever stop for him.In time, indeed, it did, and he's where every small boy

would like to be, in the driving seat. All he has to do now

is decide where he's going:

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The debate on theCriminal J ustice Billraises questions aboutthe wider powers beinggiven to the police. Thepowers and methodswhich arenow being.legitimised by the Bill

barged their way intoChristy L ynch's life andtore a family apart.

1.A J ob For Mr Martin

Christy Lynch had a key, but heknocked on the door. No answer. He

opened the dooi and went in and upthe stairs: There was music comingfrom the bedroom, a radio playing.He had work to do but he didn't want:he woman in the flat to come out andsuddenly happen upon someone - giveher the fright of her life. He knocked

on the door. No reply. He opened thedoor, put his head in. Vera Cooney~

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asked Christy to do some wallpapering,painting and plastering at anotherhouse owned by Brent Ltd, 77 StrandRoad, Sandymount. He would payChristy 80.

Around this time Christy Lynch

was going through abad patch. He wasgambling alot, on the horses and dogs.Losing part of his wages and then

going out with the rest of the money,sure he could win it all back - andlosing that too. It was beginning to

cause trouble at home and Christywas catching on to himself.

On September 2 or 3 Stuart Martin

drove Christy out to Strand Road. Onthe way out he stopped and got anextra key cut. Christy would need-

the key as most days the house wouldbe empty. The house was two-storey,Victorian style, in two flats. Thebottom flat was empty. The top flatwas occupied by Vera Cooney.

2. A Red Renault

The job began on Sunday September 51976. That was the morning that Vera

Cooney was lying on in bed whenChristy arrived. Christy worked awayuntil about 5.30. He was about topack up and go home when Vera

Cooney came out of her room wearinga long housecoat. She asked Christy

if he'd like a cup of tea. They dranktea and talked, had a great conversa-tion. Christy thought she was a verynice person, a bit lonely maybe, fullof talk.

Vera Cooney was 51. She worked

for the Dublin Gas Company and haddone so for 28 years. Neighbourswould say later that she didn't mixmuch, didn't often speak to people,but when she did she was friendly.Some thought she was a bit nervousof living alone. They said she put a"Guard Dog" sign on the gate, al-

though she had no dog.Stuart Martin of Brent Ltd, who

owned the house, was Vera Cooney'sbrother-in-law. Vera looked after thehouse and in return had the upstairsflat rent-free. She had lived there forten years.

After that first day's work ChristyLynch went off to the Glen of Immalwith his unit. He didn't go back to 77

Strand Road until Wednesday Septem-ber 15. The house was empty and heworked there all day without seeinganyone.

Saturday September 18. ChristyLynch was a bit late getting to workat McKee barracks. He had been at thedogs in Harold's Cross the night beforeand had lost. He and his wife Mariehad argued about what he was doingwith his wages. He worked until

about 12.30pm, changed into civilianclothes and walked up into town.Christy likes w..@ng, never gets a bus,walks everywhere. It helps you think.He visited a coin fair in the GreshamHotel, just for ten minutes or so. He

had an old coin and he had madeenquiries about it previously and hada letter from the museum saying it

was valuable. Someone at the coin fairtold him to 'go around to "the manwith the funny name in CathedralStreet". Christy went around to thecoin and medal shop run by EmilSzaver and found that the coin wasworthless.

He walked on out to 77 StrandRoad. This was about 1.30pm. Therewas no one in the house. Christy

turned on the radio in Vera Cooney's ..room. There was something boring onthe radio, something about cows,something about a fire. He turned it

off. He was in a bad mood, annoyedat himself because his gambling was

causing rows at home. His mind waswandering. He wasn't in the moodfor working. There was an electricalcable hanging down, running acrossVera Cooney's door. It was dangerous,he thought, and he took it down. Thatwas as much work as he wanted to dothat day. He pulled a few bits of wall-paper off the wall, picked up somescrews that had fallen, cleaned up andleft. It was about 2.30pm.

As he walked away from the househe saw two young men pushing a redRenault.

He walked back to Rialto and wentinto McCauley's pub for a pint. Hewalked some more, down by the canal.He sat down, sorting things out in

his head about the gambling, themessing. He liked his job, liked the

army life, had a fine marriage and alovely two-year-old daughter - gamb-ling wasn't fun any more, it was aproblem. He knew the argument withMarie had been his fault. He went

home. His wife was up visiting hermother. He put on the kettle and wentacross to the Mascot, bought a pack

of cigarettes and two birthday cards.His father's birthday was next day -one card from himself and Marie, onefrom little Debbie. After a cup of teahe went up to see his father, who wasin bad health. That evening he alsomet Eugene Delamere, aged 18, afriend who had helped him on acouple of previous nixers. He'd bedoing the stairs at 77 Strand Roadnext day, would Eugene give him a

hand with the ladder? They agreed tomeet at 11am next day.

Christy got home that night before9pm. His wife was there. He had wan-ted to get home in time for a pro-gramme he liked. Starsky and Hutch.

MAGILL FEBRUARY 1984 19

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3. Murder

There was a message on the patrol car radio. Report of abody found. Strand Road, Sandymount, number 77. GardaMartin Hynes was driving, Garda J ohn Dineen took the call.

It was shortly after noon on Sunday September 19.The house was on a corner on the seafront. The ESB

station out there just across the water. There was an ambu-lance there when the two gardai arrived. The two ambulancemen from the fire brigade were inside the house, withChristy Lynch and Eugene Delamere.

Garda Dineen spoke to Lynch. Lynch told him that heand Delamere had come here to do some wallpapering andfound the body. "It was an awful thing to come across," hesaid. Garda Hynes asked Lynch to come upstairs and lookat the body. Lynch was reluctant at first but went up any-

way. He appeared shocked and was very pale. He asked ifhe could get some fresh air.

Christy Lynch had left home that morning at about 11o'clock to meet Eugene De1amere and go to Strand Road.

They got there at around noon. Christy opened the doorand Eugene went in first, a step or two ahead, in and up thestairs. Eugene stopped. There was something at the top of

the stairs, legs and hands. Lynch, looking past Delamere,could see the body, something covering the head. Theywent on up, Lynch first. There was a quilt or bedspread ofsome kind covering the head. Lynch bent down and pulledit away. There was a knife sticking out of Vera Cooney'schest. Both men turned and ran down the stairs.

Delamere got to the door first and opened it. Lynch

called him back. They should call someone, call the police.

There was a phone in the hall and Lynch rang 999. He

couldn't get through. He handed the phone to Delamere."Y ou hold the phone, ring 999 again, dial again. I'm going

up to see is there anything I can do." Lynch went back upthe stairs. Vera Cooney was dead, no question.Down in the hallway Eugene Delamere dialled 999,

then dropped the phone in panic. He thought there mightbe a madman in the house. Lynch came down and calledfor the police and ambulance.

When the ambulance came up Gilford Road and aroundinto Strand Road Eugene Delamere was standing at thecorner, waving, this way, over here. Christy Lynch wasstanding at the gate. The gardai arrived then and after awhile there was quite a few of them. Lynch and Delamerewere asked to come down to lrishtown garda station andmake statements on finding the body. They got a lift downfrom a Sergeant Sweeney. When they got to the station

Sergeant Sweeney got them water, two or three cups each.

4. Heavy Days

The week before Vera Cooney was murdered was an event-ful one. There was continuing controversy about an inter-view Conor Cruise O'Brien had given to the WashingtonPost in which he revealed that he had been keeping a fileof letters published in the Irish Press and, no, he couldn'tdo much about the people writing the letters, but maybe

the editor, Tim Pat Coogan, might find himself in a goodposition to do the inside story on Mountjoy. RTE scrapped

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7 Days that week and there was much speculation as towhy this had been done. The day before Vera Cooney was

murdered, Friday 17, Fianna Fail announced its plans tocut taxes. There was an economic emergency, they said,and as soon as they got back into power they would put the

country back on its feet.There was even bigger news that day. President 0 Dalaigh

called a meeting of the Council of State. He wasn't happywith the Emergency Powers Bill which the government wasbringing in. He wanted to refer it to the Supreme Court totest its constitutionality. This was the action which wouldlead to the Minister for Defence, Paddy Donegan, publiclyinsulting the President in front of units of the army, the

Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave standing by his M inister and thePresident resigning.

The Emergency Powers Bill was one of those pieces of

legislation that was going to smash the IRA, attack therising crime rate and enable the citizens to sleep easier intheir beds. Such Bills were brought in every now and thenafter some atrocity caused public disquiet. Demands would

be made for something to be done and the politicianswould draw up yet another Bill to take the handcuffs offthe police and let them get at the criminals. The murder ofthe British Ambassador had given rise to this latest Bill.

This was a truly spectacular production. It involveddeclaring that a State of Emergency existed in the Republic.

This meant that the State of Emergency declared in 1939

and existing for nearly forty years would have to be de-clared over and a new Emergency declared. It also morethan hinted at government curbs on the press. This was notacademic: Hibernia, the Irish Times and the Irish Press all

found themselves in court during that period charged with

printing matter that cast doubts on the behaviour of thepolice and the Special Criminal Court.

The most contentious clause in the new Bill was theproposal to allow the gardai arrest and detain people forseven days. They need only have a "reasonable suspicion"

that those people had been up to no good. It was believed- not widely, but by a considerable number of lawyers,

journalists and others who in the course of their work cameinto contact with republicans - that the seven-day deten-tion was designed to allow a lengthy period for the bruisesto fade after suspects had been interrogated in the first 48hours. The belief was based on experience.

An informal but identifiable group of gardai had been

formed unofficially. These were known to their colleagues

as The Heavy Gang. In February 1977 the Irish Timeswould describe them thus: "The nucleus of the 'Heavy

Gang' comprises plainclothes detectives drawn from theinvestigative section of the Garda Technical Bureau. They

are assisted at times by members of the Special Branch andother units of the force, directed by some officers of C4,

the official title of the Technical Bureau. They operatefrom a base at the Technical Bureau headquarters in StJohn's Road, Kingsbridge, Dublin, and act as a flying squadtravelling to all parts of the country; Local uniformedgardai rarely participate in their interrogations." This groupsystematically extracted "confessions" from suspects. Theyused violence and various forms of pressure including depri-vation of sleep, threats, isolation from outside contact, theMutt and J eff routine (nice cop, nasty cop, alternating) and

anything else that came in handy. They were untrained,unsubtle, brutal and inefficient.

Lots of people had known about this for some time.Tn

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----=- ;9-:::6 ,ne Sunday Independent: had even carried aninterview with an anonymous member of the Heavy Gang."There is nothing sinister in what we do", he said. "Weknow they are guilty. We also know that evidence must be

produced for the Court and often that evidence is notthere. Our job is to find out the truth. There is only oneway these fellows understand. There is no use treating themwith kid gloves. We never use instruments. We are doing a

job for law-abiding citizens."

There was no secret about the Heavy Gang, it was justthat mostly the allegations about them seemed to comefrom individuals who would themselves have little com-

punction about punching your ticket if they-thought thatwas what the occasion called for. Government Ministersmade it clear that anyone casting aspersions on the policewas a Provo or a Provo fellow-traveller. Most people dis-creetly and prudently found something elseto be concern-

ed about and the few voices raised to suggest that this

might not be the most democratic way to run a countrywere dismissed or quickly stilled.

It was a time when Dublin Corporation hired a man witha little three-wheel van to go around the city pasting brown

paper over the political posters. It was called Keeping

Dublin Tidy.The thing that nobody seemed to notice was that

emergency laws didn't work. There were more gardai,

with wider powers, but crime kept rising. From the begin-ning of the 1970s there was a truly dramatic fall in the ratesof detection. As the emergency laws multiplied, the tradi-tional scientific methods of police work took second place.Short cuts became routine. By the late 1970s the Barra

o Briain Commission would be told that 80% of convic-tions for serious crimes were being secured by confessions.In short, the politicians' response to crime had produced apolice force that wasn't very good at police work but was

a dab hand at getting people to "confess".It was in this atmosphere that the investigation into the

murder of V era Cooney took place.There was a lot going on that week, few paid much

attention to the discovery of the body. The Irish Press andIrish Times carried short mentions of the murder on MondaySeptember 20. The Independent made the most of it. Frontpage, above the fold, large type: "Gruesome BedroomMurder". The opening paragraph read: "The brutal murderof a forty-year-old blonde spinster in her Sandymount,

Dublin, home yesterday morning is baffling gardai." Wrongand wrong. She was 51, the murder was the day beforeyesterday and gardai weren't baffled at all. The case was acinch.

5. Helping The Police With Their Inquiries

Vera Cooney died hard. She vias strangled first and there

were scratches on her neck where she apparently tried topull at the thing that was choking her. The strangling didn'tkill her. She was still alive and she was stabbed three timesin the chest. The third thrust was so powerful that the state

pathologist had to straddle the body on his knees and use apliers to extract the knife. Medical evidence could only

establish that she had died some time between 9am and

9pm on Saturday, the day before her body was found.No fingerprints were found in the house, apart from

Vera Cooney's. There was a considerable sum of money

left untouched in the downstairs flat. Nothing had been

stolen or interfered with. A bathroom window was open,but it was a difficult way to get in. Three people had keys

to the house: Vera Cooney, Stuart Martin and Christy

Lynch.After spending some time at the garda station Christy

Lynch and Eugene Delamere were asked to come back at4pm and make their statements. Lynch knew his wifewould be visiting her mother, and anyway it was his father'sbirthday, so he went to his parents' home. He told them

what had happened.Then, back to lrishtown garda station at 4pm. Christy

Lynch had never been involved in a policy inquiry before.He had no police record and couldn't remember ever being

in a police station. He was asked to give his fingerprintsand did so. He knew they did that for elimination purposes.

The police gave him tea. There were sandwiches, but he wastoo upset to eat. The statement was read back to him and

he signed it. Over four years later the Chief Justice of theSupreme Court, Tom O'Higgins, would say that at thatstage "one would have expected in such circumstances that(Lynch) would have been thanked for his cooperation and

encouraged to go horne to his wife and family." Gardaevidence would later be that at that stage and for a longtime afterwards there wasn't the slightest suspicion that

Christy Lynch had been involved in the death of Vera

Cooney."Is that okay now?" asked Christy Lynch. "Can I go?"

"There might be a few more things we will have to go over",

said a garda.In theory, Christy Lynch could have walked right out

the door and there wasn't a thing the police could do tostop him. Y ou'd want to know your law to feel confidentabout doing that - and you'd be less than a good citizenif you didn't do everything possible to help the police intheir inquiries. Christy Lynch didn't know that much aboutthe law - and, besides, he was a good citizen, a soldier ofthe state, a member of the security forces that Ministersget dewy-eyed about when they talk of holding the fabricof society together.

Christy Lynch stayed. Y ou want help, game ball, any-

thing I can do.Eugene Delamere's statement was taken and he too

stayed on or was kept in the station for several more hours.He began falling asleep. He was awakened by the sound of

Christy Lynch shouting from somewhere in the station,"I didn't do it."

6. Phone Calls

Marie Lynch left her flat in Portmahon House, Rialto, and

went to a phone box. It was about lOpm that Sunday night.She had returned from her mother's house at about 6pm.

An hour later, Brendan Lynch, Christy's brother, calledround and told her about Christy finding a body and beingdown at the station in Irishtown. He had visited his parentsearlier that day and they had told him. At about- 5.30pm

his mother had asked him to ring the station and find outwhen Christy was coming home. He did so and was told it

would be sometime later. He gave Marie the number of thestation.

Marie zangthe number from the phone box. Y es, ChristyLynch was there. Could I speak to him? Hold on aminute

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- there was a pause - yes, you can, hold on ....At the station, Christy Lynch was told his wife wanted

to speak to him. He was taken to a phone and picked it up.

Hello? The phone went dead.Back in the phone box. "I'm sorry, Mrs Lynch, you may

not speak to your husband, he's being questioned." Is he

coming home? Could you let me know for definite? Couldn'tsay. Will you send someone out and tell me if Christy isn'tcoming home?

Marie Lynch stayed up until 3am. No sign of Christy.In court, the gardai would deny that any such calls

were made. They had the station log book to confirm this.No such calls. Not even the one that Brendan Lynch madefrom Sundrive Road garda station. He had gone there sometime that night, said he couldn't get through, would thegarda there ring for him? Sure, no bother. The garda rang.The garda swore in court that he rang. There was no record

of the call.

7. Interrogation

It was cold. This new room hadn't had the heating on. Thegardai had just got the keys to it and one of them wasbringing Christy Lynch in. Christy had been in this room

and that, this garda coming, that one going, sit down therea minute, come on out here. Anywhere he went there was a

garda with him. He went to the toilet, there was a garda.Now, in the cold room, he had just come in, he was pullinghis coat around him, the garda who had brought him in

turned around and said, "Why did you do it?"Christy looked at him. "What?""Forget it", said the garda.Various gardai would swear in court that Christy Lynch

stayed in the station voluntarily, that he underwent all thatfollowed of his own free will. At no stage, they wouldswear, did Christy Lynch ask to go home.

The events of that night and the next morning as des-

cribed here are from Christy Lynch's point of view, astaken from various transcripts, summaries, press reports and

interviews with people present at the trials that followed.All allegations have been denied on oath by the gardai con-cerned. Christy Lynch had made his initial statement andthey were asking him questions about it, just chatting.

It is midnight. Perhaps. Christy Lynch doesn't have awatch. He has lost track of time. Before this is over he willsee dark outside the window and see light outside the win-dow and make a guess. It is, he thinks, about midnight. Itis eight hours since he came to the station, twelve hourssince he found the body.

"Why did you do it, Christy?"At first it was can I go now, are you finished - just a

:ew more minutes, Christy. Now he is, according to hisrestirnony, insisting that he wants to go home.

'Why did you do it, Christy?"At 130am Detective Inspector J ohn Courtney and

Detective Sergeant Michael Canavan arrived.

According to Christy Lynch's evidence, the two detec-rives sat him down, one on each side of him and told him:::'e:- wanted a statement admitting to the murder. Court-L :=:- and Canavan denied this in court.

'~-e are The special boys", said Courtney, according to

G~~'_ "were experienced at getting confessions. We've~::=-::::o~=:;s 0; mmC-CIS 2.D.l! know a murderer just by

looking at him." Courtney denied this.

Christy said in court that he was called a murderingbastard, that Canavan said his fingerprints had been found

on the knife. "Did you touch the knife when you found thebody?" Christy saw this as a ploy, an offer of a way to get

himself off the hook, to say he touched the knife when hefound the body so it would look like he had reason to fearhis fingerprints were on the knife and he was trying to ex-plain them away. He knew he hadn't touched the knife.Sergeant Canavan denied that all this happened.

It is now 3am. Courtney and Canavan leave and arereplaced by Detective Inspector Finlay. He is friendly, afather figure is Christy's description, and he looks a bit likeChristy's father. It is eleven hours since Christy came tothe station, fifteen hours since he found the body.

According to Christy's evidence the conversation wentlike this.

"If you tell me, Christy, I'll help you. If you confess tome about this I'll personally try and get you down for two

or three years. If not - we will prove you guilty anywayand get you ten or fifteen years."

"Inspector Finlay, I didn't do it. I never harmed any-body in my life."

"If I walk out that door now I will be finished with you.

There's nothing I can do for you to help you."Christy asked were his fingerprints on the knife, like

Canavan had said."Well, I couldn't say at this stage."Christy had mentioned earlier that his father was ill.

Finlay now said, "A long drawn-out trial would kill your

father, and if you admit to being guilty the trial will be overin a couple of days. There will be no notice in the paperand it won't affect your father at all."

Later.

"Is there any chance of getting out of here?""No, you won't be able to leave for a while yet."

Inspector Finlay denied in court that any of this hap-pened.

It is now 4am. It is twelve hours since Christy came tothe station, sixteen hours since he found the body. Finlayleaves. Courtney and Canavan come back.

8. Strip

It is lOam on Monday September 20. It is sixteen hourssince Christy Lynch came to Irishtown garda station. It istwenty hours since he found Vera Cooney's body. He hasnot slept. He has not been out of sight of a garda in all thistime. He has not been in contact with any relatives, friendsor solicitors. According to him he is being held against hiswill and has been constantly subjected to demands that he

confess to the murder. According to the gardai he is there

voluntarily, can leave at any time, but doesn't choose todo so. He is merely being asked to expand on his originalstatement. Inspector Courtney will say that they talkedabout his family, army life, things in general.

Between 4am and 6am he was questioned by Courtneyand Canavan. Then there was a twenty-minute break. Thenthe1lcame back again and stayed until 8.30am.

Christy's evidence covering part of this period is as

follows. "When I replied to Inspector Courtney's accusa-

tion that I was a murdering bastard he gaveme a dig in theside, because I said a man is innocent until proven guilty.

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And after Inspector Finlay left they had stripped me off

down to my vest and underpants and they made me standto attention just out from the wall - and I couldn't leanback against it and they stood on each side and I was like

that for about two hours. And when I swayed they pun-ched me to the left and I would go across and they wouldpunch me back to the right and they pushed me back andforth between the pair of them all night." They also, hesaid, asked him questions about his sex life and made re-

marks about his body.In court, Lynch's lawyer, Diarmud O'Donovan, would

say to Courtney, "I suggest to you there was a concertedconspiracy between you and Sergeant Canavan to get aconfession out of the accused."

Courtney replied, "That is not correct.""Were ribald remarks made about the accused man's

sexual powers?""Nothing like that was said at all."

"Did you hit him during the interview?"

"I certainly did not."Sergeant Canavan also denied that this happened.

ChristyLynch, 1976

Why didn't Christy Lynch ask for a solicitor? It's the

kind of thing everybody is supposed to know you can do.The onus is on the untrained to learn their rights from

some source or other and be sufficiently confident of thoserights to insist on them - rather than on the onus being on

the state to ensure sufficient safeguards are there. I n thefirst trial, Judge Butler seemed to think that everyone

should know their rights. "Do you watch television?""I do, my lord.""Do you look at it, do you look at Z ears Task Force?"" No."

"Or even Kojak?""I look at Starsky and Hutch."But that's all over now. It is lOam. Inspector Courtney

and Sergeant Canavan have gone. When they were leaving,according to Christy, one of them said, "We will be backtonight, and tomorrow night, and the next night, until weget a confession out of you." This was also denied in courtby the gardai.

But it is lOam, a long night over. It's a new day. Peoplewill be looking for him. Christy Lynch is taken from Irish-town garda station and driven to Donnybrook garda station.

The questioning continues.

9.The I ndependent

Another two hours. One garda, another garda. Admit it foryour own good. Y ou just picked up the knife and stabbedher, isn't that right? No, says a garda, he strangled her first.

Strangled? Christy had seen the knife. He didn't know

about the strangling.It is now twelve noon, Monday September 20. It is

twenty hours since Christy Lynch came to make a state-ment. It is twenty-four hours since he found the body.

Another two hours coming up.It was around then, noon, that Marie L ynch arrived at

Donnybrook garda station with two-year-old Debbie. Sheasked if she could see Christy. Not now, he's being ques-tioned. Would you like something to eat? No, thanks. Theybrought some cakes for Debbie.

Y our wife is outside, Christy.Marie ....Y ou won't see anyone until you admit to murdering

77 Strand Road

MissCooney.I can say yes, I can say I did it. It will all come out, if it

goes to court, they'll know I didn't do it, I'll tell them

about all this and they'll know I just said it.Anyway, Christy, your wife doesn't want to see you

until you confess.J esus, what are they after telling Marie, what is she

thinking?

Admit to it, Christy.Back tonight. And tomorrow night. And the next night.

Why did you do it, Christy?

Think.

Come on, Christy.Two or three years. Ten or fifteen years.

Christy ....

No.

At some point during this two hours of questioning,noon to 2pm, Christy Lynch was left alone for ten minutes.Tilere was a copy of the Irish Independent in the room. The

front page carried prominently a story on the murder. Thestory was hopelessly inaccurate. It got Vera Cooney's agewrong and got the day of the murder wrong. It said the

body was found in the bedroom - the body was found on

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he landing. It said that no knife was found -the knife was

all too .prominent at the scene. It said it was a three-storey

ouse. -I t said that two workmen had been unable to gainentry and called the police who opened the door with amaster key. It said Vera Cooney was dressed as if ready togo to Mass - she died on Saturday. and the evidence was

hat she was getting ready for bed. None of this mattered.What mattered was a sentence which read: "There weretab wounds in the woman's chest and a cord was fastened

around her neck."

It is 2pm, shortly after Christy Lynch has read the storyn the Independent. "I killed Vera Cooney", he says, "I didt with a bit of a cable. I stabbed her with a knife from the

kitchen table."

Vera Cooney wasn't strangled with a cord or a cable.She was strangled with a scarf.

It is shortly after 2pm. Christy agrees to make a state-

ment. Inspector Finlay suggests he get some sleep. Twenty-wo hours after he went to I rishtown garda station, twenty-

six hours after he found the body, Christy Lynch sleeps.

10. Trials and Errors

Central Criminal Court, May 27 1977, eight months afterhe murder of Vera Cooney. The trial had lasted five days.

The jury was out for four hours. They came back at lOpmand found Christopher Anthony Lynch guilty of the mur-der of Veronica Frances Cooney. Judge Butler sentencedhim to penal servitude for life.

In the body of the court Marie Lynch screamed. She hadto be helped from the court by Brendan Lynch.

Christy Lynch was taken to Mountjoy prison. In Decem-ber the Court of Criminal Appeal set aside his convictionand ordered a new trial. Christy was released a couple of

days before Christmas. .The new trial took place in April 1978 and lasted thir-

teen days, ever a three-week period. Just as in the first trial,there were lengthy legal arguments about the admissibilityof Lynch's confession. These statements were the onlyevidence against him. J udge D'Arcy admitted them, Lynch

was again found guilty and again sentenced to penal servi-

tude for life.The statements were many and varied. Once Christy

agreed to talk he talked and talked. Some parts of the con-fession, he said in court, came from what he had been toldby gardai, other parts from what he had seen at the house,

other parts from the Independent."How many times did you stab her?"

"Once.""No, you stabbed her three times.""Well, if that's what happened, it must have happened."He talked of strangling Vera Cooney with a cord or a

cable or something ...."No, this is what was used", holding up a scarf."Well .... "

This is Christy's version. The gardai denierfit in courtand said he made a straight confession.

Mountjoy was cold. What you do is take the two metalbowls and fill them with hot water. Put one on top of thebed - that warms the bed a bit. Put the other under thetable, the heat from that takes the chill off your feet. Pull

a blanket around you and eat your food. In Mountjoy youdon't blow on your food to cool it, you blow on it to heat

it up.After a while, he was sent to Arbour Hill. That was

much easier. It wasn't cold, for a start. Marie had hecome

pregnant again while Christy was between trials. She neverbrought Debbie up to Mountjoy, but then the kid beganfretting for her father so Marie started bringing her up when

Christy went in again.The army had been good in all this. Officers appeared as

character witnesses, Marie got 12 a week from the army

on top of her Prisoner's Wife's Allowance. There was a

collection at Christmas.Christy kept thinking this had to end, there had to be

some kind of justice. It seemed that his rights to appeal had

been exhausted, but the case was sent to the SupremeCourt. There was some question about whether that courthad jurisdiction for a direct appeal from the Central Crimi-nal Court. The court seemed reluctant to take the case,

possibly fearing a flood of such cases. Christy was receivingfree legal aid, but that would not apply in such an appeal.His barrister, Diarmud O'Donovan, had resolved to take thecase as far as possible, regardless of fees, but in the eventthe costs were indemnified and the Supreme Court agreedto take the case. Meanwhile, Christy got on with life in jail.Marie, Debbie and the new child, Paul, born in 1978, got

on with living outside.Christy held up well, maybe it was the army discipline.

More than once, when doing hard time was getting to aprisoner, a prison officer would suggest he go down andhave a chat with Christy. A senior prison officer at Arbour

Hill told Christy's parents that alot of prisoners say they'reinnocent, but Christy was the first one he had really be-lieved was innocent.

Christy's father was dying of cancer. Once a monthChristy was allowed out under escort to visit his father.His father told him he'd live to see his son cleared.

That year, 1978, turned into 1979, and that turned into

1980. Christy's new son, Paul, was one and then two years

old and Christy hadn't seen him. Debbie was fiveand then

six. Christy was missing important years.December 16 1980. Christy was working in the print

shop. He had first done a year and a half at carpentry in.Arbour Hill, then changed to the printing. When he was inhis teens he worked for Smurfits in Clonskeagh. About4.l5pm, ten 'minutes or so before knocking off, a prison

officer named McCann, a sound man, called Christy, toldhim to come back to his cell.

"Get your things together." Smile.

"Why?" ."Y ou're cleared, you're acquitted. The. Supreme Court

gave its decision today."Christy Lynch's father died six months later.

11. Technicalities

Chief Justice O'Higgins (sitting with J ustices Walsh andKenny) said in his ruling: "The fact that for almost 22hours the appellant was subjected to sustained questioning,

that he never had the opportunity of communicating withhis family or' friends, and that he never was permitted torest or sleep until he made an admission of guilt, all amountto such circumstances of harassment and oppression as to

make it unjust and unfair to admit in evidence anything he

said." And, since there was no evidence against him apart

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from his own statements, Christy was declared not guilty

a