A few of the lads from the Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds club were sipping large bottles and pints in Ma Molloy’s drinking emporium the day the news came through of Jack Lynch’s death and An Fear Rua was glad to be among them, to add his tuppence ha’penny worth to the stories being told, and to the tributes being paid…..

Undoubtedly, his likes will never be seen again, neither on the playing pitch – where he was supreme – nor in politics.

One of the lads in our company had the dubious privilege of having worked in the old ESB offices in the Albert Road in Cork City during the late Sixties. During that time, this misfortunate omadhaun fell in with a crowd that were involved in the Labour Party. He claims he was more interested in ‘coortin’ some lassie who was a member of the Party, rather than having any great interest in the writings of Marx or Engels, though not too many in the Cork Labour Party could claim any great familiarity with them either. The old papal encyclicals of that decent man, Pope Leo XIII – Rerum Novarum and the like – would be about as far ‘Left’ as the Cork Labour Party would rise to, An Fear Rua thinks.

Anyway, 1969 was the year of the ‘Red Scare’ General Election in Ireland. A few years earlier, the Labour Party had taken a slight lurch to the Left – when it was eminently safe to do so – but had incurred the wrath of many a bishop and Fianna Fáil politician. June 16th 1969 was the date of the Election and this young lad was sent to represent Labour on the polling booth at Eason’s Hill National School, right beneath the shadow of the famous Shandon Steeple, in the heart of Lynch’s constituency of Cork City North West. Indeed, Lynch’s birthplace, in the Glen Assumption Road, was only a few hundred yards away.

Representing Fianna Fáil at the same polling booth was none other than a sister of the great Jack himself, obviously intended to represent the family on their home ground and thus maximise the local vote. One of the things our Gowlnacalley boyo remembers is that only two voters came over to him that day to shake his hand and specifically tell him they were going to vote Labour. At the very end of the ‘Cuban Communism Red Scare’, these were none other than two Dominican priests in their full black and white regalia ! The same black-and-white colours, by the way, worn by Jack when he played football with the St Nicholas club.

Jack’s sister proved to be extremely friendly and outgoing and the two canvassers from opposite ends of the political spectrum got on famously throughout that sunny June day. Towards six o’clock that evening, just as the final rush of voters was about to begin, a sleek, black Mercedes slowly made its way up from Shandon Street and stopped a couple of hundred yards away from the polling booth at Eason’s Hill. Out stepped a tall, wide-shouldered man, looking extremely tanned and fit, with a broad, pleasant smile on his face. He began walking slowly towards the polling booth. Immediately, from the narrow lanes and side streets nearby, hundreds of young children sped out shouting ‘Jack … Jack… !’, jumping up at him and trying to pluck at his sleeve.

With a smiling Taoiseach at their head, this company of several hundred children slowly made their way to the polling booth. For all the world, our friend ruefully remembered, it was like the famous scene from ‘The Pied Piper’ re-enacted, but with children rather than the proverbial rats. At the polling booth, his sister stepped forward and they gave each other a great hug. Immediately, she said: ‘Jack, I want you to meet the Labour Party canvasser ….’

All our friend from Gowlnacalley remembers of that moment is of looking upwards into a pair of smiling blue eyes, with laughter lines crinkled around them, and an immaculately dressed man stretching out a firm handshake. It was a moment to savour and to treasure. And it was a measure of Jack Lynch’s greatness that he could always see the humanity behind the politics.

Many of the tributes paid to Jack have commented on his gentility, his sense of being a gentleman. Some have wondered how such a man could be so successful in Gaelic games, where there can be so much roughness and fouling at times. But that was the very mistake Lynch’s opponents made. An Fear Rua knows a few who had the privilege of seeing Lynch in action several times. Never did they see a man with a better athletic physique. Never did they see a player with greater intelligence and application to his game. And, though he was always a gentleman, Lynch knew too when a judicious application of the hurley in the ribs was needed to let an opponent know who was boss.

In that respect, the contrast with his implacable opponent, the Great Kinsealy Gurrier, Charvet J Haughey, could not be greater. While Jack held six successive All Ireland senior medals – four for hurling, followed by a football, followed by another hurling – the best Haughey could do was make it to a rather unsuccessful Parnells team of the Forties, where by all accounts he was a dirty little player at midfield. If you go along with the idea of sport as a metaphor for life – a great theory of An Fear Rua’s old sparring partner, Eamon Dunphy – nothing could sum up the contrast more between these two men than their respective sporting careers.

Jack Lynch’s death could not have come at a worse time for Charlie Haughey. As the country reeled with the shock of revelations about the taxpayers footing the bill for Charvet shirts and lunches at Le Coq Hardi for Mr Haughey, came the news of Lynch’s almost ascetic private life as Taoiseach and in retirement.

With a twinkle in those blue eyes, and a smile hovering about his lips, maybe the timing of his death was Lynch’s final jab of the hurley in the ribs for Haughey ….

Related Topic:
The Great Ring Conspiracy …