The forgotten tragedy

Writing in the Irish Times afterwards, Vincent Browne pointed out that nobody thought to mention that the day of the Queen's arrival in Dublin was also the anniversary of the combined worst atrocity to arise out of the conflict in Northern Ireland: the bombings in Dublin and Monaghan in 1974 which killed 34 people (including an unborn baby but excluding a subsequently stillborn baby and a mother who allegedly died of shock). Most of the victims were young women, including civil servants from rural towns waiting to travel home for the weekend. One victim was a young Jewish French woman whose family had survived the Holocaust; another was a World War one veteran. One entire family from central Dublin was wiped out. There were a number of children also among the dead. The numbers of injured ran into hundreds, many of them suffering severe mutilations. The descriptions of the scenes make grim reading - one young woman standing close to the second bomb was decapitated and so badly mutilated that the only clue to her gender was her platform boots.

The bombings took place against a background of organised loyalist resistance to a new constitutional arrangement in Northern Ireland which was designed to allow power-sharing with nationalist politicians and minimal consultation or involvement of the Dublin Government in Northern Irish affairs (points the loylaists have now conceded under the Good Friday agreement). At the time - as I remember well - loyalists had ordered a general strike to bring down the new Government. Within a week of the bombings they were successful and Northern Ireland was condemned to 20 more years of continuous violence. It was only in 1993, after being "outed" by a British TV documentary, that the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force admitted responsibility. In doing so, they refuted the persistent allegations of British Government collusion. On that point my mind is not made up. Nevertheless, collusion with loyalists has been proven in other cases, while loyalist terrorists failed to demonstrate such sophisticated bomb-making and planting skills during all the remainder of the "troubles".

Writing after the incidents, the then British Ambassador, Arthur Galsworthy, commented as follows:

"..there is no sign of any general anti-Northern Protestant reaction ... The predictable attempt by the IRA to pin the blame on the British (British agents, the SAS, etc) has made no headway at all. ... It is only now that the South has experienced violence that they are reacting in the way that the North has sought for so long."

The newspaper noted that "despite these feelings of schadenfreude", Galsworthy continued,

"it would be ... a psychological mistake for us to rub this point in. ... I think the Irish have taken the point."

Commenting on the fact that a demonstration outside his residence scheduled for the following Sunday was cancelled, he said: "I almost felt neglected."

(I should comment that this crassness on his part did not justfy the murder of his successor by the IRA in 1976.)

Nobody is contesting the fact that, when it comes to grisly body counts of innocent civilans, violent republicans have nothing to boast about. From Bloody Friday, in 1972, through Birmingham, Guildford, Woolwich, Warrington, Enniskillen and Omagh (to name just a few of the worst cases) they have shown scant regard for innocent life - and this is before one considers the many soldiers and policement they murdered. But it seems to me that these victims have at least had spokespersons in the establishment willing to speak for them, as have the victims of British Army atrocities - in particular, the murder of 14 unarmed civilians on Bloody Sunday, in Derry in 1974.

By contrast - and expecially at the time - the Irish and British Governments really did not want to know about the bombings. They were working to a simplistic paradigm that IRA violence was the sole cause of the North's problems and that it demanded a robust reponse. As with the British Ambassador, all of the officlal comments sought to blame the IRA indirectly for bringing the situation about (ignoring the complex factors which had brought the IRA about to start with). Among such commentators was Garret Fitzgerald, who was Foreign Minister at the time and who was the subject of widespread eulogies following his death last week (only partially deserved, in my view). The Irish police investigation of the bombings was subsequently wound down within a matter of months. RTE, the Irish broadcasting company, subscribed fully to this editorial line - it is telling that subesquent exposés of police torture in Northern Ireland, framing of innocent people for the bombings in Guildford, Woolwich and Birmingham, and an alleged cover-up of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings were all aired by British television.

More recently, some judicial enquiries have been undertaken in southern Ireland and have failed to establish British Government collusion, although their credibility has been weakened by British Government refusal to hand over key documents. But, as Vincent Browne pointed out (and this was not the Queen's fault), had the plight of the "little people" (mostly working class) victims and their families been anywhere on the radar of the Irish Government, she would almost certainly have been advised to acknowledge them in her speeches during her visit.

It only remains for me to list again the innocent victims of this outrage:

• Patrick Askin (44) Co. Monaghan
• Josie Bradley (21) Co. Offaly
• Marie Butler (21) Co. Waterford
• Anne Byrne (35) Dublin
• Thomas Campbell (52) Co. Monaghan
• Simone Chetrit (30) France
• Thomas Croarkin (36) Co. Monaghan
• John Dargle (80) Dublin
• Concepta Dempsey (65) Co. Louth
• Colette Doherty (20) Dublin
• Baby Doherty (full term unborn) Dublin*
• Patrick Fay (47), Dublin & Co. Louth
• Elizabeth Fitzgerald (59) Dublin
• Breda Bernadette Grace (34) Dublin and Co. Kerry
• Archie Harper (73) Co. Monaghan
• Antonio Magliocco, (37) Dublin & Italy
• May McKenna (55) Co. Tyrone
• Anne Marren (20) Co. Sligo
• Anna Massey (21) Dublin
• Dorothy Morris (57) Dublin
• John (24), Anna (22), Jacqueline (17 months) & Anne-Marie (5 months) O'Brien, Dublin
• Christina O'Loughlin (51), Dublin
• Edward John O'Neill (39), Dublin
• Marie Phelan (20), Co. Waterford
• Siobhán Roice (19), Wexford Town
• Maureen Shields (46), Dublin
• Jack Travers (28), Monaghan Town
• Breda Turner (21), Co. Tipperary
  
• John Walsh (27), Dublin
• Peggy White (44), Monaghan Town
• George Williamson (72), Co. Monaghan

The capital of cake

I have just come from an absolutely lovely weekend in Vienna, following three days of (pretty hard) work there.

The last time I was in Austria (the only time) was nearly 30 years ago and on that occasion I just got to Salzburg and Innsbruck. I didn’t really know what to expect with Vienna – based on what I’d seen in movies I’d expected somewhere a bit like Prague but it wasn’t like that at all.

For one thing, it’s not as quaint. Much of the centre is alomost grid-like and many of the streets are wide and grand – like the paris boulevards. Other points in common with Paris are the proliferation of green spaces and the grand inperial architecture. However, it is much more compact and, as with Rome or Prague, a moderately energetic person could easily walk from one side of the historic centre to the other. The Schönbrunn palace – home of the Habsburgs in the last centuries of their reign – is a little further out but not nearly so far as Versailles.

There is so much to see that we could only hit it in spots. We went tot he Kunsthistorisches Museum, which houses the prime classical paintings. For me the main highlights there were the Vermeer and the impressive collection of works by Breughel the Elder (I reckon that if you google B the E on Google images you’ve about a 50% chance of turning up a piece from the collection but I haven’t tried for myself). The Belvedere has the modern artists – most notably, a number of works by Klimt (including The Kiss) as well as some oft he best bonsai pieces I’ve ever seen. It’s also an impressive building in its own right, with a beautiful view of the city.

The Schönbrunn proved to be more interesting than I had expected, with intimate insights into the lives of some of the later Habsburgs. These confirmed my impression that Maria Theresa was basically a bitch and Franz Josef a stick in the mud. Next to the gardens is a superb zoo. We saw pandas and greater one-horned rhinos, among other things (though the polar bear enclosure was a disgrace).

For me, though, Vienna’s maverick is the ingenious architect Hundertwasser, a man who could out-gaudi Gaudi himself. His buildings are delightful flights of fancy, with wavy, crooket lines and bright colours. I saw his waste disposal building and the social housing project he designed but did not have time to see the museum in another building of his design that is dedicated to his work. Like many other things, that will be for a return visit.

You might be waiting form e to talk about music (and I will in a minute, I promise) but there is one other art that is treated with as much reverence in Vienna and that is confectionery. Vienna, as I said on Facebook, is the capital of cake. There are other cities where the cakes are as good (though not better) but there are no others where confectionery and pastry are treated with such reverence. In the famous Demel coffee shop, on the Sunday morning, we were able to sit sipping coffee while watching apple strudels being made. A Viennese applre strudel is pure delight – apples soft enough to melt in the mouth but firm enough to retain their texture, seasoned with brown suggar and cinnamon and wrapped in the finest of pastry. We saw the pastry chef take a piece of pastry of about A3 size and stretch it to cover an entire worktom (which had first been covered with a cloth sheet). He then sprinkled the pastry with the sugar and spice mixture, added the apples (which, I trust, must have been slightly pre-cooked), then more sugar and spice, before rolling the pastry up and separating it into three tubes of about two feet each, to be baked.

As for the music, we attended a Mozart mass on Sunday morning sung by the Vienna Boy’s choir (who else ?) and then, that evening, saw an absolutely sizzling production of Janacek’s Jenufa at the Wiener Staatsoper. What an opera (searing, moving, but above all – like all the Janacek operas I know – one where you are dying to know what’s going to happen next). The production matched the quality of the piece – no sign of any pretentious priam donna of a director who wanted to ram his interpretation of the opera down the audience’s throat.

The toughest part of the weekend was the heat – the upper twenties all the time and no rain. Which is kind of ironic because now I’m in Bergen and, although the rain has stopped now, it was lashing earlier. Now, at 11pm, as I look out, it’s still light…

A teenage masterpiece

Everyone knows that Mozart was already writing music as a child. However, nearly all of the music for which he remembered was written between his mid-20s and his death 10 years later. By contrast, there are other composers who wrote well-loved pieces in their teens: Bizet’s Symphony in C, Mendlessohn’s Midsummernight’s Dream overture and several works by Schubert, for example.

On Sunday Magdalena and I attended a short concert at which her friend, pianist Joanna Brzezinska. It was hosted by a couple who hold invitation-only concerts in their large front room in an old house in Dardagny, a village in the wine-growing region just outside Geneva city but still within the canton’s borders. (It’s always nice to travel through vineyards at this time of the year, when there is still a lovely golden-green sheen on the rows of vines.)

Anyway, Joanna played a selection of pieces by Chopin and Liszt, including the latter’s piano transcription of Schubert’s song, Gretchen am Spinnrade (Gretchen at the spinning wheel), which is one of the most powerful art-songs ever written.

The text is from Goethe’s Faust. With the aid of the devil, Faust has bewitched and seduced Gretchen and has now left her alone. While spinning yarn, she mourns his absence. This isn’t some droopy sentimental kind of mourning – through Schubert’s setting it comes across as a physical ache - or an itch she can't scratch. Schubert repeats the opening verse, in which she speaks of how calm has deserted her and will never return, as a chorus, while the piano accompaniment imitates the whirring of the spinning wheel - not as an acoustic gimmick but rather to build up tension. The song reaches its highest note and emotional climax when Gretchen, listing the things she misses about Faust, mentions – above all else – his kiss. At this point, the piano falters and momentarily stops.

Later on, Schubert went on to portray the physical anguish of thwarted love from a Man’s point of view in his cycle of 24 songs, Winterreise (Winter’s journey) and this work is a masterpiece on a bigger scale. But his concise, searing portrayal of Gretchen’s pain (just 4 minutes long) was written when he was just 17!

You can access a recording of the song here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY0eeotSDi8

And here are the words in English:

My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy,
I will find it never
and never more.

Where I do not have him,
That is the grave,
The whole world
Is bitter to me.

My poor head
Is crazy to me,
My poor mind
Is torn apart.

For him only, I look
Out the window
Only for him do I go
Out of the house.

His tall walk,
His noble figure,
His mouth's smile,
His eyes' power,

And his mouth's
Magic flow,
His handclasp,
and ah! his kiss!

My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy,
I will find it never
and never more.

My bosom urges itself
toward him.
Ah, might I grasp
And hold him!

And kiss him,
As I would wish,
At his kisses
I should die!

I wouldn't have sold it!

I was insane with jealousy when I read today that a South African tourist in Ireland picked up a copy of Wuthering Heights for €3 at a flea market in Limerick, only to discover that it was a first edition. he subsequently sold it in South Africa for the equivalent of €8,000.

Had I found the book I wouldn't have sold it as it is one of my favourite books and I would be immensely proud to own a first edition. I first read it when I was 10 and I loved it, even though my mother's efforts to get me to read other English 19th century classics at that age were much less successful. I was lucky enough, subsequently, to have it as my chief English fiction assignment for the Leaving Certificate - the Irish school leaving exam.

Even though I have read many other English 19th century books since (and liked or loved most of them), I still believe this is the best. In terms of judging Emily Bronte as an author, there are several other English writers of that period who can arguably be considered as better in their overall achievement because their achievement was not limited to one book (Austen, Eliot and Dickens spring to mind). However, I would argue that there is no single novel from that period and country that's as good as Wuthering Heights. In fact' it's almost unfair to the other novelists to make the comparison because Bronte's book is so diffferent. If anything, it's easier to compare it to books like Crime and Punishment than to, say, Middlemarch, Great Expectiations or Pride and Prejudice.

Most English novelists of the period had very strong moral and social values that they bring out in their work. Even Emily's sisters did. She herself did not. The whole point about the book is that Catherine and Heathcliff demand that the reader judge them by their own standards, where the only thing that matters is their constancy to one another. In the face of this consuming and destructive passion, we barely notice that they can be callous, cruel, selfish or vindictive. It's not surprising that contemporary critics found them shocking - "pagan" is a word that was used. Indeed, religion doesn't play a major part in the book. Nellie Dean - though she can't refrain from passing judgement at times - is a tolerant person. Joseph - the only truly religious character - is a crabby caricature.

There's very little one can say about the book that hasn't been said already. To me, the core of it is that the Heights and the Grange represent parallel universes. Although the former belongs to the Earnshaws at the opening, it's Heathcliff who dominates it - just as, ultimately, he comes to own it. Catherine's departure to the Grange sets off a destructive chain reaction that only ends when she comes back from the dead to claim Heathcliff. Interestingly, at the end of the book, Cathy and Hareton are going to set up home in the Grange - suggesting that the more conventional and conformist world of ordinary people triumphs over the more turbulent world of the Heights in the end.

Some of my friends who are Jane Austen fans fall into the trap of thinking that, because Wuthering Heights is so passionate and violent, it is, therefore, less subtle than Austen's understated and witty style. Personally, I consider this very unfair; my own experience is that every time I read it I discover new subtleties both in the meanings of the book and the craft with which it's written. Relative to what's being described, it's actually very controlled and understated. Emily Bronte, despite her own turbulent character (many of the things spoken between Catherine and Heathcliff are thought to have been said between her and her brother Branwell), is able to carry off the attempt at rendering Heathcliff and Catherine convincingly. At the same time she can also portray more prosaic characters like the Lintons as believable. She filters the story through two narrators - the gentle but slightly judgmental Nellie and the dull Mr Lockwood. The split time sequence - starting the story near the end, going back to the beginning and, finally, catching up with events that took place after the opening of the book - is very unusual for the time. Not until Joseph Conrad starts to write a generation later is it used with greater effect.

So, if I had found that copy of Wuthering Heights, I would have kept it.

Not for the squeamish

One of the issues that I've been dealing with in WWF over the last two years is the escalation of rhino poaching in southern Africa. First Zimbabwe and the South Africa have seen a massive increase in poaching in recent years. More recently, Zimbabwe seems to have brought it under control but we have yet to see signs that South Africa is doing so (despite some efforts); the rate of loss comes close to one rhino every day. The escalation seems to be driven by an explosion in demand for rhino horn in Viet Nam - a country which, unlike China, did not have a long-standing tradition of use of horn for medicinal purposes.

What is the horn made of? Well, whereas most horns (deer, antelope, cows, sheep, goats etc.) have a core that is bone, those of rhino are made of compacted keratin - the same material that makes up our hair and fingernails. That is not to say that they are any softer - they are, in fact, extremely hard.

So what is the horn used for? Traditional Chinese Medicine in the past recommended its use for a variety of ailments but principally as a fever cure (it is no longer part of the Official Chinese medicinal pharmacopaea). There is some evidence that it has a small level of effectiveness compared to a placebo but the effectiveness is negligible compared to aspirin, leading some experts to remark that you might as well just chew your own fingernails. Contrary to the popular urban myth in western countries, there is no tradition of use of rhino horn as an aprhodisiac.

UnfortunatelyIn Viet Nam, it is currently being touted as a cure for cancer - another urban myth. This is based on rumours of a persion with high political connections who went into remission after taking rhino horn. However, the person concerned has never been publicly identified so we are not even sure that he really exists. Moreover, the reasons as to why people go into remission and then come out of it are one of the mysteries of cancer. What most of us do know from personal experience with friends and relatives is that cancer sufferers are often driven to try anything that has even the faintest reputation for effectiveness - especially if they are in severe pain. So the marketing of horn for this purpose - as well as leading to the loss of rhinos - is merely cruel exploitation of the vulnerable.

A group of South African university students decided to draw attention to the issue in a novel way. I post the link to the clip here but I warn you - it's not for the squeamish!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUGtrLB_k_U

Springtime lemonade

I did mention a few weeks ago that I'd write about elderflower lemonade. As it turned out, I was worried that the elder flowers wouldn't oblige me by blooming before I head off on three weeks of travels next week but, thankfully, they are just beginning to open out now.

Yesterday evening I collected a bagfull (about the equivalent of a standard plastic supermarket bag) from the garden of our office and another bush across the road. I was just in time to get enough for making lemonade before a thunderstorm started. However, I got several savage insect bites which are still swollen and sore, despite several applications of gel.

The flowers have a lovely light honey-fragrance that works very well in summer drinks - subtle and not overpowering. There are several recipes for elderflower lemonade (not to mention elderflower wine and elderflower champagne) on the Internet. However, I've just adapted Delia Smith's homemade lemonade recipe. Essentally, you need 6 lemons, 1.4 l of boiling water and 150g sugar, as well as approximately a bag full of flowers (you can pick the clusters, stalks and all, where they join the branches). You peel the zest off the lemons carefully, avoiding taking any of the white pith as well. Then you squeeze the lemons into a bowl, adding the peel, sugar, flowers and boiling water. You press the flowers down to make sure they're more or less immersed, cover the bowl and leave overnight. In the morning you'll have a lovely lemony, flowery liquid, which you can strain through a sieve (you may decide to add more sugar).

On its own the lemonade is quite rich but it'd delicious when diluted with sparkling mineral water. If you like something a little sweeter (kids do) you could add it to white lemonade instead.

The flowers are only out for a few weeks so get out there now!

Two British detective series compared

Inspector Morse was one of the most popular detective series ever made in Britain. it has a lot going for it too - a lovely location, excellent classically trained guest actors in every episode and - perhaps its greatest asset - the brooding presence of the excellent - and, sadly, deceased - John Thaw. However, when I bought the series and started to watch it again, I fould it unsatisfying.

Just one incident illustrates the series' shortcomings. In the first ever episode, Morse visits a woman who is reading Oedipus Rex. Soon after, she is found dead. Later again, Morse has a brainwave and announces that he knows who has killed the woman - it was Sophocles. Whereupon Lewis asks "Are we goin' to arrest this Sophocles bloke then?"

The patronising way in which Lewis's character is drawn as a well-meaning yokel is typical of the of the series. It is too Agatha Christie - that is to say, too old-fashioned and genteel. There is very little blood or gore - not a failing in itself but, with all the other elements, it makes for a series that is nice to look at but basically formulaic.

By contrast, in Waking the Dead, when the hero, Boyd, makes a remark about Oedipus, everyone in his team knows what he's talking about and Grace, the team psychologist, simply says "very witty".

The series concerns cold cases - lie the US series of that name, which it pre-dates (and probably inspired). Boyd is simply my favourite police character in book or film. Brilliantly played by Trevor Eve, he has just the right mix of real heroism and nastiness. He has lots of demons (the lack of a stable relationship is, perhaps, a cliché for detective heroes but there's also his missing son). He can be a control freak and a bully towards his team, even though he is ultimately loyal to them. He is ruthless and sometimes violent towards suspects (my favourite is when he invents a twin brother who died of lukemia at the age of 12 in order to manipulate a witness into giving confidences). Some of his jokes are gloriously tasteless (when an unidentified and dessicated corpse is recovered and Grace suggests that it deserves the dignity of a name, he suggests "crispy duck").

There is a wonderful brooding mood about the series - not least in the low-lit office suite where the team works. The stories are set mostly in and around London and cross all sections of society - from the wealthy to the homeless and abused. As with Morse, many well-known, classically-trained actors appear as guests. It merits comparison with Cracker (my second-favourite) in terms of the grittiness and balck humour but it has more style.

Sadly, the last episode aired just a few weeks ago but the first nine series are available on DVD. If you like detective series, you MUST buy them! You will watch them more than once.

My real-life heroine

It was in May 1942 that Sophie Scholl, one of the most enigmatic figures of the German resistance, arrived in Munich from Ulm to study in the university and to join her older brother Hans, who was already studying medicine there. She was almost twenty-one.

Her photos show a small, slender young woman, with unruly dark hair and penetrating dark eyes. She is usually serious – even frowning - but we see her smiling on outdoor excursions in the countryside, which were her favourite pursuit. She was a talented artist and an avid reader. Much of her reading – particularly the writings of St. Augustine – tended to feed her melancholic thoughts and her innate pessimism. She is also remembered as a good listener, with an extraordinary capacity to empathise with the pain and suffering of others, while she inherited a deep religious faith from her mother.

After a flirtation with Nazism in her mid-teens, she had come to share her father’s hatred of the regime. On her arrival in Munich, she soon came across the leaflets which were appearing there under the signature of “The White Rose”, denouncing the Nazi regime and calling for passive resistance. On leafing through Hans’ books, she was excited and terrified to unmask the conspiracy, when she found the same passages from Schiller and others, marked and underlined, that had appeared as quotations in the leaflets. She insisted on joining with Hans and his friends - mostly other medical students, such as Willi Graf, Alexander Schmorrell and Christoph Probst. She did not write any leaflets herself but acted as treasurer to the group and helped with distribution (a very dangerous job).

With the months passing, the strain of the conspiracy began to tell as they spread their activities to other cities. There were some arguments and concerns that Hans, in particular, was becoming increasingly reckless. The secrecy must have been a burden – they could not mention their activities even in letters to closest friends.

News of the German defeat at Stalingrad in early 1943 was the impetus for the group’s sixth leaflet. On the morning of February 18th, Hans and Sophie left surplus copies around the university campus. Apparently on impulse, Sophie threw some leaflets from a top balcony into an inner courtyard. What prompted her to this reckless act? I am inclined to think that it resulted from desperation and exhaustion. However, it led to her and Hans’ arrest.

She almost convinced the Gestapo of her innocence but a search of her and Hans’ flat found evidence incriminating them and Christoph Probst. She confessed, taking the entire blame on herself and Hans in an effort – ultimately futile – to save others. Interrogation the first day lasted seventeen hours and continued for two further days. When her cellmate sympathised with her over the strain, she replied that she found it “interesting”. She refused the offer to save herself by saying that she had been “led on” by her brother.

When she received her indictment on the fourth day, it was for the capital charge of treason. She is said to have experienced a brief moment of fear but to have regained her nerve, convinced that her and Hans’ death would prompt a student revolt. Her copy of the indictment, with the word “freedom” inscribed on the back, still survives. Her State-appointed lawyer almost ran from her cell when she asked him in matter-of-fact tones whether she would be hanged or beheaded.

Her trial - with Hans and Christoph Probst - was conducted on the 22nd of February by Roland Freissler, one of the most contemptible figures of the Nazi regime. She responded to his bullying with dignity. “What we said and wrote are what many people are thinking,” she said, “they just don’t dare say it out loud.” All three were sentenced to death. She and Hans saw their parents later that afternoon. In a poignantly mundane moment, she accepted the sweets they offered, saying that she had missed lunch.

At five, they were led to the guillotine, Sophie first. The guards remarked that they had rarely seen anyone face death so courageously.

Many people were executed during the Nazi years for such courageous actions as speaking out against the regime or harbouring Jews. Sophie Scholl was only one of five members of the White Rose who were executed. Some, such as the historian Ruth Sachs, have complained - understandably - that the focus on her story is unfair to the memory of the others. However, it is inevitable that the execution of a young woman will always draw extra sympathy and shock, although Sophie herself might not have wanted that. In any event, her life has been the subject of numerous books and films, including the beautifully acted "Sophie Scholl, the Final Days", starring Julia Jentsch.

Perhaps we can best understand Sophie from her own words. “Life is always on the edge of death;” she once said, “narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”