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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/

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