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An Irish Times columnist reflects on mortality after the deaths of former colleague Frank McDonald and BBC journalist Stephen Walker, invoking poet Patrick Kavanagh.
In a reflective column for The Irish Times, a writer has drawn on the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh to contemplate mortality following the deaths of several former colleagues, including Frank McDonald and BBC journalist Stephen Walker. The piece, published amid what the author describes as a sombre autumn, uses Kavanagh's line about October to frame a personal meditation on life's later stages.
Kavanagh's October and Life's Seasons
The columnist notes that when Kavanagh wrote the line “It is October all over my life” around 1957, he may have been describing a mood rather than calculating his life expectancy. Rereading the poem this week, however, brought the sobering thought that, on a calendrical scale, it may be October in the author’s life now too. Even allowing for medical advances, the writer concedes it must be late September at best, and jokes that this is if AI does not kill us all before Halloween.
Kavanagh’s own history is revisited: when he wrote October, it was later in his life than he knew, more like November. Although only 53 when the poem was published, he was weakened by a recent bout with lung cancer, and barely a decade remained to him. Still, he was on an artistic high, having produced that and other poems in a weeklong burst of energy. Far from sombre, their tone was exuberant, written as by a man delighted to be still alive.
Frank McDonald and a Case of Mistaken Identity
The columnist recounts being often confused with Frank McDonald, a former colleague who died in early September. The similarity in their names led people to congratulate the author for writing The Destruction of Dublin, and it was sometimes tempting not to correct them. The confusion peaked when, thanks to McDonald’s campaigning work, the author got to cover dramatic events such as the planning tribunal’s exposé of another Frank – Dunlop.
Among various misdemeanours, it emerged that Dunlop had systematically bribed Dublin councillors with stuffed envelopes in Conway’s Pub, a venue traditionally associated with fathers celebrating events at the Rotunda Hospital across the road. The author’s colour piece about the lobbyist delivering “little bundles of joy” to expectant city fathers wrote itself. In football terms, Frank McDonald had beaten several defenders before setting the author up for a goal line tap-in. But then he generously quoted the author in one of his subsequent books, adding to the confusion. Now that he is gone, the author may be even more tempted to take the credit from anyone who still thinks he is him.
Stephen Walker's Death and an Unanswered Email
The day after Frank McDonald died, another journalist also passed away. Although the author barely knew Stephen Walker, it was in some ways more shocking. The author had just returned from a holiday and was compiling a to-do list, with “Reply Stephen Walker” at the top. They had met in July at the Hinterland Book Festival in Kells, where both were speaking. The organisers booked them into a small authors dinner with Walker’s wife Katrin and another Belfast journalist, Sam McBride.
During a wide-ranging conversation, the affable Stephen told the author about his own fledgling book festival at Magheramore in Co Antrim, which had debuted last March. A week or two later, he emailed to inquire about doing An Irishman’s Diary, presumably about the festival. The author could and should have replied instantly, clarifying that he is just the column’s anchor tenant, writing it four days a week usually, with no editing role, and that other contributors are commissioned by the Letters Ed. Then he would have wished him well. Unfortunately, he was busy or distracted and forgot about it for a fortnight until that day when, post-holiday, it topped the list of things he knew he could easily do. But no sooner had he written Stephen’s name than his picture popped up in social media, accompanied by an obituary. He was dead at 61, after an illness of which there had been no hint at their dinner.
Finding Solace in Kavanagh's Optimism
Revisiting October this week, the author was reminded that Kavanagh wrote another, lesser-known poem about the month. That one is called October Dublin and finds him exulting in the irreverent chatter of city street-traders: poor women who remind him of his country neighbours in Monaghan. This too cheered him up somehow. And despite the autumn gloom, as we begin the long descent into another winter, the author will try to cling to Kavanagh’s optimistic conclusion: “Life pressed in the gutter yields the gutter’s dream/Of flowers/I have no fears, new Aprils will be ours.”
Patrick Kavanagh Frank Mcdonald Stephen Walker Irish Times Mortality October Journalism
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