VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: [1] ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 17:40:31 09/04/02 Wed
Author: Eamonn McCann
Subject: The late J.McGuffin

>The Blanket http://lark.phoblacht.net
>
>Latest News & Views Good men must die, but death
>cannot kill their names.
>- Proverb
>
>
>John McGuffin
>
>
>By Eamonn McCann - Author "War & an Irish Town" et al.
>
>
>The obituary cliche that "He didn't suffer fools
>gladly" was never more apt than for John McGuffin,
>which occasionally presented him with problems of an
>inter-personal nature, since McGuffin tended to regard
>a remarkably wide section of the earth's population as
>fools. Anybody who voted in an election ("It's wrong
>to choose your masters!"). All who had ever darkened
>the door of a church after reaching the age of reason.
>People opposed to cannabis. And that was just for
>starters.
>
>One day in the late 1960s, when we thought we'd heard
>the chimes of freedom flashing, I drove to Dublin with
>McGuffin and the American anarchist Jerry Rubin. A
>mile or so out of Newry, McGuffin explained to the
>fabled member of the Chicago Seven that the town we
>were approaching was in the grip of revolution. The
>risen people had turned en masse to anarchism. We'd
>better barrel on through. If we stopped for a moment
>the fevered proletariat would surely engulf us...
>
>Down were in the All-Ireland final that weekend. Every
>house, lamppost and telegraph pole was festooned with
>red-and-black flags. Rubin was agog, at risk of
>levitation when we passed under banners strung across
>the streets, reading, "Up Down!"
>
>"These people really got the revolutionary ethic",
>enthused the ecstatic Rubin.
>
>"As much as yourself, comrade", allowed the gracious
>McGuffin.
>
>He turned up on the Burntollet march with an anarchist
>banner but couldn't persuade anybody to carry the
>other pole. He marched all the way with the furled
>standard sloped on his shoulder, managing to convey
>that this was sure evidence of his singular
>revolutionary rectitude, the easy-oozy reformism of
>the rest of us.
>
>McGuffin was interned in August 1971, as far as I know
>the only Protestant lifted in the initial swoop. He
>wrote a fine book on internment afterwards, "The
>Guineapigs". He was later to publish "In Praise of
>Poteen", "The Hairs of the Dog" and, recently, "Last
>Orders, Please". He was a gifted, utterly
>undisciplined writer, eschewing the pedantries of
>structure and all strictures of taste. Various
>newspapers agreed to give him regular space, but it
>never lasted. Editors physically winced at his
>ferocious philippics. He said to me of this column a
>few months back, "If it's any good, why havn't they
>sacked you?"
>
>For a time, An Phoblacht published his scabrously
>brilliant "Brigadier" column. Frequently, the Provos
>wouldn't print it because they thought their readers
>would find it offensive. They weren't bad judges.
>
>I first became aware of McGuffin within a week of
>arriving at Queen's as a wide-eyed innocent from the
>Bogside. He erupted into a debate addressed by Sam
>Thompson, the former shipyard worker whose play, "Over
>The Bridge", had convulsed the Unionist establishment
>with rage. Thompson was the hero of the hour for
>Northern liberals. But not for McGuffin. The only
>achievement of "Over The Bridge", he raged, had been
>to enable a section of the useless middle class to
>feel good about themselves for having a night out at
>the theatre. "Meanwhile, Basil Brook is roaming the
>streets..."
>
>He took off for California in the early '80s, where he
>practiced as a lawyer for 15 years, advertising his
>services under the slogan, "Sean McGuffin, Attorney at
>Law, Irish-friendly---No crime too big, no crime too
>small". He only did defences and preferred getting
>people off who he reckoned were guilty because that
>way it was more fun.
>
>He was my friend for 40 years. The announcement of his
>end told that he died peacefully on the morning of
>April 28th after a long illness, and that two days
>before turning sideways to the sun had married his
>long-term collaborator, comrade and partner
>Christiane.
>
>He was laid out in his coffin with a smile of final
>satisfaction on a face sculpted like a chieftain of
>old, in a black t-shirt with square red lettering,
>"Unrepentant Fenian Bastard".
>
>Way to go, McGuffin.
>
>#######################################################
>>
>The IA-PL wish all within our network to know that the
>cause of Ireland and the cause of labour has lost a
>true champion with the untimely passing of J.
>McGuffin. Unfortunately, the way it looks to me is
>that we only fully appreciate some of our finest
>comrades, only after they have breathed their last.
>Farewell John, when I think of civil rights, People's
>Democracy, or Burntollet, I will always see you in the
>long black coat, matched by tossed long black hair,
>with the contrast of a radiant, and warm personality
>for most of us in struggle. Defiance would have been
>an appropriate second name. May your major written
>works be appreciated by this and future generation.
>Your name has since entered the history books, because
>people like you helped write that history of
>struggles. - Acting Sec. Gen. - IA-PL.
>
>#######################################################

Taken from "Stormont-Watch" via www.voy.com/70381/

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.