Cashmans Diary - Feb 1982

Tuesday 5th:

An edifying and pleasant hour with Flor Crowley TD, Cork South-West. We discuss some rather obscure and intricate points of similarity, or perhaps agreement, between Engels and Teilhard de Chardin. Deputy Crowley tells me that such conversation nowadays, is, as a rule, only available inside the portals of Dail Eireann. He is most gracious, and suggests that I am the only citizen in Ireland worthy of our legislature. I am afraid that I blush somewhat at this.

Monday 11 th

I ring Cardinal O'Fee to arrange my ClWeekly Communion. He will be down on Thursday.

He mentions the great numbers of Born Again Christians on the Shankill Road arid Sandy Row. A brace of Taig scalps and a quick run before the Bench is the sovereign specific that heralds this new dawn of the soul. Then, 4p for sweeties from the judge, and away these delightful little Fedkas scamper to spread the Gospel.

Tom estimates that, working on this norm, and if the thing were put on a sound organisational footing, we could, at a stroke, be rid of a halffmillion turbulent and slightly distasteeful peons, and acquire in the process an Army of a quarter of a million freshly-redeemed, onward-bound Christian soldiers.

I consider this an eminently sound and commendable plan. I congratulate Tom, and wonder why I did not think of it myself. We chew it over a little more and anticipate no objections from Messrs Daly, FitzGerald, Haugghey, Philbin, Fitt etc., etc.

Saturday 16th.

I am awakened with news that I -.Yhave been awarded an aBE. I ponnder whether to invite Her Majesty to our own dear City Hall and have the honours done there. I consult our most estimable Lord Mayor, Councilllor Black. He drools and slavers coppiously, and, I am afraid, rather pathettically. He has no equal at the Teddy Bears' Picnic, but alas! not the fibre for the big occasion. I shall have to innstal Flor Crowley as First Citizen for the day.

I am at a loss what to present to Her Majesty in response to her recoggnition of my services. Perhaps I shall give her Pairc Ui Chaoimh as an occassional residence. It would be a gentle reminder of her duty to spend more time amongst us, and, even if she does not, she might tum the place into something useful. '

Wednesday 20th

I notice a mob forming at White Street, outside the hideous heap known as the 'Labour Bureau', or some such tomfoolery. I perceive' tliat while many were clearly born in the purple of unemployment, others, equally clearly, have only recently risen from the ranks of commerce. They scruff the doors and walls with their Texan boots and write their wretched names on the window panes. They boisterrously and unashamedly lay feats of the most astonishing sexual and financial gymnasticism- to the accounts of their civic and religious betters.

I call a constable, but he tells me there is no hope of setting matters to rights, and that he, personally, has no intention of trying: indeed, I have to use the utmost sternness to get the fellow to stand to attention whilst I speak to him.

I foresaw just such a turn of events when Murphy began to show the white feather in Late '15, and I immediately warned the Kaiser. But the dear fellow would have his mind on oth~r things and he soon totted off to Amerongen with that von Reuss doxy.

MondaY 25th

Word at last from Sean French. He writes: "What does exisstence mean? The word designates a mode of Being; specifically, the Being of those beings who stand open for the openness of Being in which they stand, by standing it. This 'standing it', this enduring, is experienced under the name of 'care'. The ecstatic essence of being there is approached by way of care, and, conversely, care is experiennced adequately only in its ecstatic essence. 'Standing it', experienced in this manner, is the essence of the ekstasis which must be grasped by thought. The ecstatic essence of exisstence is therefore still understood innadequately as long as one thinks of it as merely 'standing out', while interrpreting the 'out' as meaning 'away from' the inside of ,an immanence of consciousness and spirit. For in this manner, existence would still be understood in terms of 'subjectivity' and 'substance'; while, in fact, the 'out' ought to be understood in terms of the openness of Being itself. The stasis of the ecstatic consists - strange, as it may sound - in standing in the 'out' and 'there' of unconcealedness in which Being itself is present."

I must say there is a whiff ofheteroodoxy about all of this that may not be altogether to the taste of the rest of our little group - Toddy O'Sullivan, Joe Sherlock, Flor Crowley, Paddy Hegarty, et al.

I shall call them together and attempt to gloss over Sean's little stumble. But this, I fear may not be easy, in a company of such strict Desscartians.

Friday 29th.

In. Grand parade. I notice a little man Clof a most heathenish vacuity of countenance. I conclude that he is a toper and am about to give him a shillling when I observe that he looks banefully like Raymond Smith. I withhhold my alms.

Later I see the little man being pellted with flour, horseshit, "States of Ireland" and similar trash by some public-spirited young citizens. He whimpers that he is a "Lord Mayor", that he will complain to the Execrrable (!?), and other such piffle. He grasps my coat-tails and gabbles. I shoo him a way.

I am rather mystified and stop a passing minister in hopes of enlightennment. He explains that these people have devised a species of talkshop over which the -little fellow presides and gives himself the style of "Lord Mayor". It seems that they have also contrived a kind of broadsheet called "Examiner" which records their goingsson, and generally seeks to present them as respectable and significant persons.

I have no doubt that the whole thing is harmless and concerned entireely with the liquor trade.

My informant is polite and most knowledgeable, although, I must say, his extreme familiarity with such prooceedings . and persons smacks some-: -what of a lack of discrimination. •