A Fool for Ireland

On Sunday 2 September a new Irish language Sunday newspaper will be launched by Gael-linn. Tom O'Dea profiles Donal O Morain, Chief Executive of Gael Linn.
HAD DONALL O'MORAIN CHOsen to practise law, when he was called to the Bar in 1946, he would now be earning £80,000 a year and disclosing half of it to the Tax Commmissioners. Instead, he chose to be a fool for Ireland, and the Tax Commisssioners know all too well that his inncome is modest and his worldly posssessions few. But no tax man could assess his earnings in fun and his expenditure in service. His moral legacy, reckoned in achievement, will amount to a huge estate.

Though 0 Morain left Kerry in 1935, at the age of 13, to go to school in Dublin, no one could mistake him for anything but a Kerryman still. His language is vibrant with ringing Kerry consonants dancing round open Kerry vowels. His penetrating dark eyes are a warning to the wary, and his wolf-grin reminds the unwary of their failure to take the warning. Kerry cuteness is something he has never unlearned; he has it in a measure allmost equal to Kerry generosity. He has acquired much sophistication in the ways of cities and in the nice bitchery of the cocktail hour, but give him a gun and a fishing-rod and he is off to Kerry at dawn. Behind the focused eyes and the wolf-grin, he is thinking a favourite thought: "I like a good night's fishing." Interpret that as you may.

There is a logic in Donall 0 Morain's life that comes out of his family backkground. He was born in Waterville on 6 September 1923, son of Micheal 0 Morain, an army officer turned farmer, and of Eibhlin Ni Loingsigh, a teacher. His mother was a sister of Fionan Lynch, a companion of Michael Colllins who later became a Government Minister and finally a Judge.

Donall's mother died when he was two. When he went to school in Dublin, it was to live with his granddmother and his aunt, Brid Ni Loinggsigh; both were teachers; the latter was the author of many children's books. After six years in Colaiste Mhuire, he went on scholarship to UCD, where he read economics and history and where he became involved in An Cumann Gaelach and An Comhhchaidreamh, out of which came the magazine Comhar.

In 1946, the year after he graduated from UCD, he was called to the Bar. The reason he never practised law, he says, was that he disliked the prospect of changing his brief from day to day. He points to parliamentary politics as another example of constantly shifting ground. "I didn't like the prospect of changing stance from day to day. I didn't want to become a professional liar; it creates a state of mind that didn't appeal to me."

Turning his back on the Bar, he became managing editor ("with virrtually no experience") of The R GDA TA Review, the journal of the retail trade.

In 1949, Donall 0 Morain married Maire Beaumont, whose father, Sean Beaumont, was a mathematics lecturer in TCn, Irish editor of The Irish Press and founder of An tEireannach, the first weekly newspaper in Irish. Mrs o Morain is a grandniece of Eoin and James McNeill .. Through his marriage, therefore, Donall 0 Morain's stake in the linguistic, cultural and historical life of the country was increased.

From 1950 to 1957, while still in business, he was Honorary Controlling Director of Comhar. He was the author of the leading article in that magazine, in May 1951, which opposed the hierarchy on the Mother and Child Scheme - a piece of legislation prooposed by Dr Noel Browne, part of which visualised pre-natal training for pregnant women. Comhar and The Irish Times were among the few publiications to take the side of enlightennment. "I was read off every second altar," 0 Morain says, "over what has become the orthodoxy of today." The episode was one of the earlier public indications of the steel of which 0 Morain is made.

For twelve years, from 1951 to 1953, he was General Manager of Hugh McLaughlin's publishing and printing company. Hugh McLaughlin was the man who, in later life, was associated with the launching of The Sunday World, and who, a few years ago, conceived The Daily News, which he aborted after three weeks. While with McLaughlin, 0 Morain managed and edited a range of trade journals. "Through printing of football pool fixtures and results," he says, "I gained experience in pool manageement."

IT WAS THIS EXPERIENCE THAT caused him, in 1953, to propose the establishment of Gael-Linn, to be financed by a football pool on Gaelic games. For ten years, he was Honorary Controlling Director of Gael-Linn and Chairman of the Board of Trustees. From 1963 to the present time, he has been Chief Executive of Gael-Linn (as well as Ceannasai, which is an honorary title). He must be elected every third year. A close observer of the organiisation says, "0 Morain could be thrown out at any time by the Board, most of whom are sober." Indeed, just

such an attempt was made last year; the struggle was protracted an d nasty, but Donall weathered it as successsfully as he has weathered many a scrape. Knowledge of the struggle was widespread among journalists for a long time, but nothing was printed about it until it was almost over. This might be taken as an indication of the respect in which 0 Morain is held, and of the belief that a man who had given thirty years of unselfish devotion to the Irish language was being baited by snarling dogs, some of whose grounds for snarling were a little less than credible.

Donall 0 Morain has his thumb in .•.. many pies. He has been Chairman of Convocation of NUl for the past thirty years. In 1958, he masterminded the Gael-Linn application for the teleevision franchise, for which he negootiated the financial and technical backking with the Munster and Leinster Bank, with NBC of America and with Roy Thompson, the lTV franchise holder in Britain who said that commmercial television was a licence to print money.

The American, Ed Roth, who was the first Director-General of RTE, was to have been employed by Gael-Linn, if it had got the franchise, "to get the damn thing electronically on the road," o Morain says. When Roy Thompson came over to talk about the Gael-Linn application, Donal asked him why a man with his huge media empire should be interested in Ireland. In the back sheds of Hugh McLaughlin's printing works, Thompson replied, "One more pound in my fist and one more feather in my cap." Of such metal are moguls and tycoons made.

In 1960, 0 Morain planned the publication of a Sunday tabloid newsspaper, which was to have been printed by The Irish Times. Two things stopped the venture: commercial disstribution was then impossible; and there was a drop in Gael-Linn income when the Government cut off its lottery operation in the USA because it was considered harmful to the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake.

From 1958 to 1964, Donall 0 Morain was a mem ber of the Governnment's Language Commission. From 1965 to 1974, he was a member of the Department of Finance's Central Advisory Committee on Irish. He was on the RTE Authority from 1965 to 1972 (for the last two years of that period as Chairman), until Gerry Collins fired himself and the Authority. From 1973 to 1976, he was Chairman of the Authority again, until, this time, he was dropped by Conor Cruise O'Brien. He was the first Chairman of Comhairle Raidio na Gaeltachta, from 1971 to 1976. In 1979, he was awarrded an LL.D. (honoris causa) by the NUI.

Gael-Linn has applied for a whack of the local, commercial radio system, which the Government is taking such a long time to establish. And on 2 Sepptember, when Anois hits the streets, Donall 0 Morain will have realised his old ambition to publish a tabloid Sunday newspaper in Irish - an in colour, forby!

THOSE, THEN, ARE THE OUTER events of a full life and some of the preoccupations of a complex man. Let us now try to gauge the effects of those events and attempt to penetrate the psychology of the man.

Gael-Linn was never an Irishhlanguage organisation in the sense in which the Gaelic League and some others were. For one thing, it did not have nationwide membership, but rather was a small, tightly-controlled body which collected money and proomoted Irish-language activities with the money. As well as that, it has always been its policy to do someething practical for Irish speakers rather than merely bitching about the loss of the language and pleading for its revival. A close observer of Donall o Morain over many years says, "GaellLinn actually did things for the lannguage, unlike the Gaelic League and many of the others. "

So, we come back to the beginning and to the organisation of the pools based on Gaelic games - hurling, football and handball. (For anyone who has forgotten, it may be pointed out that "linn" is the Irish for "pool"; as a prepositional pronoun, the word means "with us" - a subtlety that must have been in the mind of 0 Morain.)

When he had conceived the idea of the pools, and had it approved by An Comhchaidreamti (the organisation of Irish-speaking university students), Donall 0 Morain took it to the GAA, which sniffed at it and found it accepttable, and thus began the long associaation between Gael-Linn and Gaelic games.

o Morain harnessed the Irish 0 bsesssion with gambling and generated money for The Cause. From there on, Gael-Linn grew and grew; it was a commercial enterprise from the beginnning and remains so to the present day; it was a pioneering organisation in several ways.

In 1954, Gael-Linn introduced the first 'school-term' Gaeltacht scholarrships. In 1955,it went into the producction of records and, later, cassettes.

His penetrating dark eyes are a warning to the wary, and his wolf-grin reminds the unwary of their failure to take the warning.

Kerry cuteness is something he has never unlearned; he has it in a measure almost equal to Kerry generosity. He has acquired much sophistication in the ways of cities and in the nice bitchery of the cocktail hour, but give him a gun and a fishing-rod and he is off to Kerry at dawn.

Irish-language theatre, and commisssioned Brendan Behan to write An Giall, which later reverberated about the planet as The Hostage. From 1957 to 1960, film shorts were prooduced for exhibition in cinemas; these grew into a major weekly newssreel, called Amharc Eireann ; for which Padraic 0 Raghallaigh did the voiceeover. Once television came, the newssreel went out of production.

Padraic 0 Raghallaigh also preesented a radio programme for GaellLinn, from 1955 to 1964. It ran at eight o'clock on Monday mornings, live. At six o'clock in the morning, Riobard Mac Gorain arrived at Padraic's house with the GAA results from the day before; then, a script had to be written before going on air.

In 1960, George Morrison produced Mise Eire for Gael-Linn. Donall O Morain describes it as "the first actuality film epic anywhere." It was followed three years later by Saoirse? which took up the history of Ireland after the Treaty. Both films made a deep impression on cinema audiences, as did Sean 0 Riada's symphonic theme music.

It is sometimes said that George Morrison, Padraic 0 Raghallaigh, Breandan 0 hEithir and others were badly rewarded by Gael-Linn for the work they did for it; perhaps they were. It is conceded, though, that Donall 0 Morain himself has never been highly paid by the organisation that he founded and, to a considerable extent, controls. Gael-Linn is highly commercial and highly profitvated, but there is a total ban on the distribution of profits, which are ploughed back into the organisation. It generates money for educational purposes, and 0 Morain points out that, at the time of its foundation, there was virtually no economic proomotion of the Gaeltacht. Gaeltarra Eireann then existed only in name and was part of the Department of Lands.

Among the Gaeltacht industries in which Gael-Linn is involved are handdknits, lobsters and oysters. There was no lobster boat in the Gaeltacht when Gael-Linn moved in. Bord Iascaigh Mhara insisted on new boats, the cheapest of which was then £3,500. When a curragh cost £50, this was too great a psychological leap for local fishermen to make. Gael-Linn bought liner lifeboats and converted them at £400 each. With that flagrant look in his eye, 0 Morain says, "We own Ireland's largest non-public oysterrbeds." And we all know the reputaation oysters have.

Under Donall 0 Morain's chairrmanship, Raidio na Gaeltachta may have been rushed on air before all the broadcasting problems - not to menntion the huge local political probblems - had been ironed out. Thus, life was hell for the first Ceannaire who went there, Padraic 0 Raghallaigh, who at one time had to have police protection. Things were so rough in Casla for the first few years that the new service took a huge toll of the energy and of the health of two or three Ceannairi.

ALL FORMS OF BROADCASSting - indeed, all the communiications media - interest 0 Morain deeply. He misses very little in the newspapers, and his concern for RTE has hardly diminished since he was on the Authority; some would say that the need for concern is now greater than it has ever been and that the public service ideal is dying fast in RTE. Though he wants a commercial radio channel, 0 Morain also wants public broadcasting to keep, or regain, its old strengths.

Donall 0 Morain was a highly vocal critic of RTE, especially of its policy on the Irish language, before he beecame a' member of the Authority. Once he was on the Authority, and esspecially when he became Chairman, others were as critical of him as he had been on the outside. He found the Authority a coalition of individuals, whom it was hard to move all in one direction. As Chief Executive of GaellLinn, he made decisions and had them implemented, but he had to struggle with persons of varying views on the RTE Authority and try to bring them with him. In addition, he probably found that the constituency for Irish language programming was not as great as he had imagined. Here is one of his comments on the situation: "I can say broadly that there never had been a majority of the Authority in favour of the type of programming which I perrsonally or Gael-Linn would try to foster. >f

In October 1971, Gerry Collins, as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, served a direction on RTE under Section 3 1 of the broadcasting legisslation. The Government was transmittting a message to R TE indicating its displeasure with broadcast matter, most likely with RTE coverage of Northern Ireland and with persons having access to the airwaves. It is impossible to be specific about the exact reason for its displeasure, howwever, as the Government refused point blank to elaborate on its direction, though RTE asked it to do so. Thirrteen months later, the Minister fired the entire Authority and replaced it with persons of such political persuaasion as it thought it could rely upon to toe the Government line.

The RTE coverage of Northern Ireeland in the late 1960s and early 1970s was more elaborate and more intense than it is now. That intensity possibly reached its highest pitch on the day of the 'Bloody Sunday' funerals in Derry. The radio coverage was espeecially ardent, and some believe that it led directly to the burning of the British Embassy in Dublin. That event happened between the time the Section 31 direction was issued and the firing of the Authority.

A certain school of thought might have blamed Donall 0 Morain for failing to read the signs of the times, or for misreading them, but no one would accuse him of deliberately flouting a ministerial direction for political reasons. His youthful poliitics would have been grounded in Cumann na rrGael, but the views of the mature man are both more radical and, curiously, more moderate than the politics he inherited. Because he was a friend of the late George Colley, some thought 0 Morain a supporter of the Colley wing of Fianna Fail. This is unlikely. Though a perceived member of the Establishment, 0 Morain is something of a controlled iconoclast. His politics, as I evaluate it, is close to the philosophy of Wolfe Tone before it was perverted into ultraanationalism. 0 Morain genuinely beelieves in the right of the dissenter.

And yet, on this very point, his philosophy deserted him when the Language Freedom Movement clashed with Irish language supporters in the Mansion House in the late 1 960s. He turned vicious that night - a night that was far from his finest.

Anyway, back to RTE, to which 0 Morain returned as Chairman half a year after he was fired. Conor Cruise o 'Brien, the new Minister, reappointed him. Three years later, when O'Brien came to appoint a new Authority, he dropped 0 Morain. When he is asked why this happened, he says, "I was the victim of a major conspiracy." The conspirators were inside RTE, he claims, and their motivation was "power complexes". The executive at that time was "playing games with the Board".

Some believed that O'Brien dropped O Morain because, as Chairman of the Board, he was in constant contact with the Minister but failed to bear the Minister's thoughts to the Board and have them translated into action. For the time being, Donall 0 Morain's final word on the matter is that "when time passes and all the personalities have long since retired, perhaps one could be justified in disclosing all I could disclose, and also give opinions as to conspiracies and so on."

Those last quotations .are taken from a previously published interview I did with Donall 0 Morain. When I did that interview, I sat for five hours in front of him knowing little about the private man but listening to the public man carefully chisel his answers to my questions. In Irish or in English,

O Morain's language is precise, muscuular and stylish. When we had finished that earlier interview, we went for a drink, and only then did I get a glimpse of the private man.

It is only when you get behind the burning eyes and the wolf-grin of Donati 0 Morain that you know why he chose to be a wild Kerryman in the Mansion House in face of the plausible arguments of the Language Freedom Movement. As a wild Kerryman, half tamed by Dublin, his rugged Kerry sensibilities were offended not so much by the arguments of the LFM as by its epicene and vapid leadership.

The private Donall 0 Morain is convivial, gallant, watchful, advennturous and generous. Only his adverrsaries are honoured with his devioussness; his friends must make do' with the straightest of straight dealing. He is a practical visionary, receptive to ideas. He is a good Irishman who has no need to thump his craw. With his business acumen, he could have made millions; instead, he has become the acceptable face of Irish culture bridging the gulf between modernism and atavism.

Doctor 0 Morain (to give him his proper handle at last) enjoys that good night's fishing as much in a late-night Dublin restaurant as in a Kerry stream. He says he is not gregarious: it is a cross he is learning to bear. •