Recollections of Sean O’Casey by C.D. Greaves
[These notes were probably written in the late 1970s or early 1980s, after Greaves had written his book “Sean O’Casey: Politics and Art, which was published in 1979. Three letters from Sean O’Casey to Desmond Greaves – two in connection with Greaves’s research for his biography, “The Life and Times of James Connolly”, and the third a response to an appeal for money for the “Irish Democrat”, the paper that Greaves edited – were reproduced in “Saothar No. 20, Journal of the Irish Labour History Society” in 1995 in an article by Anthony Coughlan titled, “Some New Letters of Sean O’Casey”. See these letters in the accompanying item in this section of the Greaves Archive website.]
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It was while I was living in Abbey Wood (Woolwich) that O’Casey wrote an article (or letter) in the “Daily Worker”. The date should not be hard to ascertain. The D.W. was suppressed while I was in Woolwich [where Greaves worked for some months as a research chemist in Woolwich Arsenal]. I think it was not restored until after I left in August 1941. It may have been at the end of 1940. In this he criticised Eire for not entering the war. I remember writing a defence of Irish neutrality, pointing out that British aims in relation to Ireland were aggressive ones. I went to Woolwich in November 1940. So that will fix the date. I cannot recall whether my letter was published. I doubt it. That was the first time I noticed O’Casey’s “anti-national” attitude to Ireland, in this case even bringing him to a toleration of imperialism.
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While I was General Secretary of the Connolly Association we drafted a new constitution. Previously it had been the Connolly Clubs. Pat Dooley argued that the centre exercised no control over independent clubs [James Lawrence (Pat) Dooley, 1902-1958, born in Yorkshire, leading light in the Connolly Association during World War 2.] He proposed changing the name to Connolly Association. I think I was President of the CA in 1942. At the end of the year 1941 Dooley, who had just become editor of “Irish Freedom” (forerunner of the “Democrat”), was called up into the army. As a scientist I could not be called up. I remember staying in London over Christmas 1941 to edit the January ‘42 issue. But I cannot recall if I was president then, or became it when Dooley got out of the army on the grounds of wrongful conscription and resumed editorship of the paper. I think it would be the middle of 1943 when I became General Secretary. Among the things we decided to do was to have a distinguished person as President, our committee man to be content with the less glorious title of Chairman. I remember writing to offer the position of President to O’Casey. He replied to the effect that he could only accept the position if we understood quite clearly that in his opinion it was Larkin and not Connolly who founded the modern Irish Labour movement. We were young and interpreted this as an effort to change our constitution. Now I think it was simply an act of honesty on O’Casey’s part. He wanted to reserve his own position. This makes me think that we offered him the position after we had offered it to Peadar O’Donnell. O’Donnell objected to our statement of aim as a “workers’ republic” in Ireland, and did ask us to change our constitution. Peadar was of course right, we should never have had it in it, but we refused, and Peadar was most hurt and spread quite a deal of antipathy to us in Dublin. In this of course he was wrong. His amour propre was hurt. But probably this led us to believe that O’Casey wanted us to revise our constitution in the reverse sense.
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I recall many a discussion about O’Casey at the flat of Mrs Elsie O’Dowling of 438 Russell Court, London WC1 [Elsie Timbey, a long-standing CA member]. I think she knew him in his earlier days, but how well I do not know. She used to say he was very bitter about Ireland, and had been spoiled by all that lionising in London. But unlike O’Donnell he did not hold our not giving him the presidency against us. We did without a president until 1955 (I think).
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There were periodical articles etc. by O’Casey in the “Irish Democrat”, which can be found in the files. Krause asked me about them and I think he looked them all up [David Krause, editor of Sean O’Casey’s letters]. He also asked me for the originals of letters, but I had not kept them. We moved premises too often. There were not many such articles, however.
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I went to see Casey in 1948 (I think) when I first started research into Connolly. At that time I was interested in turf – I visited the Bord na Mona offices while the famous strike was on, which was 1949, so the visit to O’Casey might have been 1949 [Greaves was then working as a research chemist on coal products for Messrs Powell Duffryn]. In Bovey Tracey, Devon, there are deposits of Braunkohle, halfway between coal and peat, and I availed of going down to see these – with the intention of seeing would be better, since I didn’t do it for some reason – to call in to O’Casey. He was not in Torquay then. If he wasn’t in Bovey Tracey it was somewhere very near to it. I seem to recall it was his birthday – even his 70th birthday. It was very near to his birthday anyway.
I met his wife and youngest daughter. There was a screen in front of a coal fire (it was late in the year, but not cold; perhaps October or around then) and the daughter walked towards the fire and stopped about three feet away. O’Casey jumped up to warn her not to go too near the fire. He could not see the screen. He told me his writing time was severely rationed because of the poor sight.
We talked about Connolly and he gave me his copy of Desmond Ryan’s “Life of Connolly”, which I still have. He told me he had no sympathy with Connolly, who was dour and unresponsive, with no appeal for Dublin workers. He was more suited to the North. O’Casey had what I call a “silky” Dublin voice. It is not an accent you hear much now, and I would say it had a touch of gentility, but for the fact that Seamus McGowan of the Citizen Army had almost the same pronunciation and intonation, so that it may have belonged to a period. It was extremely soft, and very pleasing to the ear. His eyes glistened when he spoke of Larkin, and I can still hear the way he spoke of Connolly and then turned to Larkin by contrast, “but, Jim!”. One thing he said about Connolly I thought unworthy and did not include it in my book. He said it was “common knowledge” that Connolly was “living apart from his wife during 1914-1916”.
The Implication was clear, namely that he was living with the Countess Markievicz. I tried to press him on this, but he retreated, and would not return to the subject. There is ample evidence that Connolly left his family in Belfast solely because his daughters had employment there, whereas in Dublin they would get none. He was constantly back and forward between Dublin and Belfast.
O’Casey was surprised that I had come to Devon to look at coal deposits and said he had imagined I had been to see George Jeffares, then a dashing young fellow teaching naval cadets in Dartmouth. Jeffares may have seen quite a bit of O’Casey at this time. He has a good memory too [Jeffares was later a leading member of the Irish Workers’ League and its successor, the CPI, in Dublin].
He told me that he had received the offer of £100,000 or some such enormous sum for film rights of one of the earlier plays. He had refused because there had been a stipulation that an additional “love interest” must be incorporated. He said he was not very well off. There was little coming in from the plays. On the other hand the house was most comfortable and attractively furnished. Talking about the past he used the phrase, “I had a very rough time of it until I was forty.”
I took no notes of the interview then, being young enough to believe people lived for ever. But I do recall his saying some forgiving or forbearing thing which made me reflect that his “embitterment” had not clouded his generosity. I may yet recall what it was.
Speaking of Larkin and himself he said, “The Irish people can sell you terribly – look at the way they sold Jim Larkin.”
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I think the name of the place was Totnes. Elsie O’Dowling had taught at a do-as-you-like school down there, and perhaps that is where she met O’Casey. His son was in the Communist Party and used to deliver “Daily Workers”. He withdrew from this when he started studying, and some of the local people thought it was Sean’s fault – if fault is the word – so that for a time there was estrangement. It blew over of course as these things do.
I think this meeting was O’Casey was after the time he wrote in the “Democrat” that he wasn’t interested in Ireland until there were communist deputies in the Dail. It was only from this time on that I had anything personal to do with him. But I would usually ring him up. I was still continuing my work as a scientist after becoming editor of the paper in 1948, and had very little time but plenty of money.
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There was a closely knit little trio in London, Ewart Milne, Stella Jackson – daughter of the historian [ie. T.A. Jackson, author of “Ireland Her Own] – and Patrick Galvin, and in my estimation Stella was the brains. Ewart is a poet who is reasonably well established. Stella wrote a historical novel about Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Galvin started singing Irish songs to the accompaniment of a banjo in the Ewan McColl tradition. He then discovered a gift for verse and wrote poetry in what was then, I imagine, called the “apocalyptic” style, with plenty of violent images. First the trio – through which one’s pen I forget – launched an attack on Yeats as not being a truly Irish poet. I think it was Galvin wrote it in the “Democrat”. After that I subjected Milne’s “Diamond Cut Diamond” to a full-page review. He wrote thanking me for the exhaustive examination of his work. Then a day or two later he protested that I had held him up to comparison with the totality of all his predecessors. What was a critic supposed to do? Anyway it was soon after that that Galvin wanted to give O’Casey the same treatment. Stella joined the hue and cry. I set my face completely against it and refused to publish or call the meeting that was being asked for. It may have been around 1955 when Sinn Fein was on the upswing and Ewart was all for it, and writing poems about it [i.e. leading up to the IRA’s “Border Campaign” of the late 1950s]. Galvin asked me if I objected to his submitting his article to O’Casey and would I publish it if O’Casey consented. I said that of course that would make matters different. I understood from Galvin that O’Casey had no objection. But I wanted to know whether he had given his approval. I rang O’Casey up and he promised to write to me next day. When his letter arrived it was to indicate he had told Galvin to publish whatever he liked; it was his responsibility. I recall O’Casey’s last sentence. It was, “I’ve no time to go gallivanting with Galvin.”
In one of his autobiographies O’Casey speaks as if Galvin’s article was published in the “Democrat”. It was not. I am pretty certain I told him that it would not be. I was now full-time editor of the paper and would have had time to write. But I am not certain on this point. I did not however write to O’Casey pointing out the error in his book.
I took the view that whereas O’Casey’s outlook on Irish politics was coloured by the defeat of the national revolution, which was only too clear by the time he began to produce his famous plays, and he did not understand the way forward in modern times, first, that when the people began to move forward he would be bound by his very nature to support them, and secondly that we must on no account weaken his fight for world peace, which was very real and important. O’Casey was on the side of the angels, and a careful analysis of his political pros and cons could wait a bit. I also objected to giving the old man the annoyance, so I thought the young people should wait.
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I recall around 1948 sending O’Casey a copy of a volume of my poems [That would have been the publication “By the Clock ‘Tis Day”, a joint production by Greaves and his friend the botanist Alan G.Morton]. He acknowledged it very courteously and said he thought he liked it but that he understood nothing about poetry. I was surprised when I found he had been quite productive in this field himself.
C. Desmond Greaves