| |
Con Houlihan
Loved and cherished throughout Ireland for his insight and clarity, Con Houlihan has nevertheless retained his unpretentiousness and humility Jackie Goodall talks to the Kerry journalist, writer and gentleman.
‘A wise man’s wialom needs to be extracted”Bertolt Brecht.
A BRONZE BUST of Con Houlihan stands in the Coat Grill in Stillorgan bearing the inscription Journalist, Writer and Gentleman.
If Con were to write a curriculum Vitae, not that he’d do such a thing, but if he were, then teacher, philosophet turf-cutter,fisherman and rugby player could be added to the list.
“I don’t know who I am,” he said recently. “Pm 83 now, but I’m somebody who never grew up. I never settled. I’ve been looking for something. questing for something all my life, but if in the end I never find it... 1 don’t know.
“Am I sincere? Am 1 honest? 1 don’t know, that’s the point. Samuel Coleridge once said that he felt himself to be an involuntary charlatan. I have the same feeling too. I’m full of uncertainties; but what about it. they keep me going.
“When I played rugby and football I was very confident, but that’s completely different to what I’m doing now When you write something you think it’s brilliant, then you see it in print and think.in the name of God what was all that about? I don’t think I’llchange now.”
Con was born into a working-class family just outside Castle Island (his spelling), in Co. Kerry. “About two miles from the town going north toward the mountainy country.
A fluent Gaelic speaker (he wouldn’t be lost in Spain or Italy either), his best language is Gaelic. “Speaking in the company of other Gaelicspeakers in West Kerry I’d feel very uninhibited. My pronunciation in English is a bit suspect, but not so in Gaelic.
English is a funny language, but I love it of course. 1 grew up speaking Hiberno English: English woven on a Gaelic loom.”
His father worked in the coalmines in Wales before he returned home, married, and started work as a mechanic in the newly opened creamery in Castleisland in 1921.
“He loved the creamery,” Con reminisces, “he was a born mechanic. I had an older brother and a younger sister, but they are both gone away to another world now.”
Con attended a number of local schools, including three years atboarding school before doing his Leaving certificate at 17. He thentook two years out and worked at “all kinds of jobs”, before goingto University College, Cork, at 19.
Con said he studies at Cork where “greyhounds and horse racing!”However he emerged with a BA First Class in English, Latin and History, followed by a First Class Masters in 1949.
Are you interested in everything and anything about County Kerry? If you are then you will also be interested in these. Just Go To This Page and find out for yourself.
Quite an achievement for a working class boy from Castleisland in the dark days of —the 1940’s.
Con earned a living as a teacher before going to work for TheKerryman around 1965. He says “1 was dabbling in Journalism allmy life - magazines and radio mostly”.
During this time he acted like a public ombudsman in CastIeisland, he also gave grinds to the local schoolchildren but, too little money and too much awkwardness.’ meant ho was seldom paid for them.
It was then that he decided to move to Dublin. “Things happened at home and I couldn’t
Have You Found What You Are Looking For?
|
