CROOKED IN THE CAR SEAT

Brian in class in Coláiste

I always knew Brian Lynch was a writer. He was the favourite of our English master Michael Judge a really fine teacher and a great judge of writers.

The first piece of Brian's I read was Pity for the Wicked. This was a savage indictment of the IRA's assassination campaign during the troubles. It includes the Pat Gillespie incident and the collateral damage from the Mountbatten bombing in Mullaghmore. It made me weep and then burn with anger. Brian did not do himself any favours going against the prevailing grain in that one, but, as usual he has been vindicated in the long term.

Brian mentioned recently to our class that Colm Toibín's Preface to his recent publication of Crooked in the Car Seat is worth a read on its own, and that it is. Colm explores the nuances of how homosexuals coped in company at a time when homosexuality was a crime. There was much fear and insecurity and each person brought their bespoke closet around with them, so to speak.

It is no wonder that thinking back I can't remember ever meeting a homosexual in my youth.

In his introduction to Crooked in the Car Seat Brian cites Tomás MacAnna, then Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre, who asssured him that the Board's acceptance of the play would be a formality, only to have it stymied by internal board bickering.

He recalls earlier contact with MacAnna who wrote and produced our patriotic school pageants in Coláiste. In one of these he cast Brian as Douglas Hyde, below, a character about whom Brian has a lot to say in his introduction.

Brian as Douglas Hyde in MacAnna's Glóir Réim

Brian makes the interesting, and correct, comment that the famous Croke Park pageant in 1966 was a vast upscaling of our earlier school pageant. Incidentally, as Brian says, the term Glóir Réim, which is what we got, is completely inadequately translated into English as pageant. A pageant is sort of passive, what we had was a passionate and pro-active re-enactment of the Rising and, though I was not there, I'm sure the same can be said of the Croke Park venture.

The book is interesting for the script of the play with its overt references to homosexuality and women's periods, taboos of their day. Given that it's not exactly James Bond, my feeling is that you would need to see the play performed to get any sort of a feel for it. I found it quite a depressing read. The difficulty is that in our changed world it would surely lack its original impact.

So the value of this book, apart from recording the script for posterity and bringing us an interactive copy of the programme, lies in both Colm Toibín's introduction which I found fascinating and Brian's own story of the shinanegans at the Abbey.

I always love to see references to the long departed and much underrated Eblana theatre with which I had some minor association myself in its day.