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Extra.ie
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Extra.ie
Lord Henry Mount Charles: The reluctant earl who made ancestral home a rock 'n' roll touchstone
He might have been known as the rock 'n' roll aristocrat, but Lord Henry Mount Charles never held any airs or graces. Despite being a marquess and the owner of Slane Castle, Henry was a familiar face around the village and well-loved by those who attended his many concerts. At gig time, as 80,000 people flocked to the stately home, it was not unusual to see Henry in his panama hat and trademark single red sock mingling with the crowds. Lord Henry Mount Charles. Pic: As his family announced his death on Wednesday night after a 'long and valiant battle' with lung cancer, tributes from huge names in rock 'n' roll who had graced the stage of Slane Castle came pouring in. And it is no wonder, as Henry Vivien Pierpont Conyngham changed the face of music in Ireland and made us a country who could compete on the world stage, bringing some of the biggest names in music to Ireland, a place that many outside it had previously associated with bombings and religion. Born on May 23, 1951, in Dublin's Rotunda Hospital, Henry was the oldest son of Fredrick Coyningham, the 7th Marquess Coyningham and Eileen Wren Newsam. Lord Henry Mount Charles. Pic: RTÉ The Coyninghams were Anglo-Irish aristocrats descended from Ulster Scots heritage and Frederick was a peer. As such, Henry and his two younger brothers Patrick and Simon lived what he described as an 'upstairs, downstairs' existence, similar to many aristocratic families – the first time he dined with his parents was at the age of 12. He was then sent to Harrow public school in London before heading to university in Harvard. But the breakup of his parents' marriage had a big impact on Henry and his younger brothers, and Henry had to step up to be the lord of the manor. 'As far as I was concerned, my father was deserting his responsibilities,' he said in an RTÉ documentary. 'My mother continued to live at the castle and things sort of went on like it was before, although everything was different. I was expected at a very early age to replace my father and it felt bizarre.' Lord Henry Mountcharles with his wife Iona and daughter Tamara at Oxegen music festival in punchestown, Kildare. Pic: Arthur Carron/Collins Harvard gave Henry a huge amount of freedom. He was a child of the Sixties, he loved music and the wilder side of life. 'I will put my hand up and say I misbehaved in my first year at Harvard,' he said. 'I smoked a lot of dope and did what liberated students did in those days and I enjoyed myself.' He met his first wife, American Juliet Ann Kitson, and the pair moved to London where they had their first child Alex. Henry was working in publishing for Faber and Faber when, at the age of just 25, his father forced him to make a tough decision. Lord Henry Mount Charles. Pic: Courtesy of Slane Castle A new wealth tax being brought in by the Irish State meant Frederick was being faced with a huge bill and though rich in assets, he didn't have a huge income. The castle could either be taken over by Henry or sold. 'I really felt I had no choice,' Henry said recently. 'Even though it was, as it were, my heritage what I was born to deal with it was quite daunting.' The farm that was on the castle site was no longer viable as the family couldn't pay the wages to sustain it. Lord Henry Mount Charles. Pic: Arthur Carron/Collins Photos But Henry had a few other ideas. His parents had previously leased the castle to Hollywood to film the Rock Hudson classic Captain Lightfoot, even making a cameo appearance themselves, and this was something Henry decided to reinvigorate to gain some cash for the castle coffers. He also opened the castle up to visitors, entertaining film stars who needed privacy behind the castle walls whilst filming for movies and the occasional TV series took place in the grounds. But it was Henry's love of music that created the castle's biggest earner. First of all he opened a nightclub but then had the idea to stage a concert at Slane, something that changed everything for the castle's fortunes and for the Irish music scene. 'I decided Slane was a natural for open air rock 'n' roll the key to it was finding someone I could work with,' he said of the castle's now-famed natural amphitheatre. That 'someone' came in the form of Belfast promoter Eamonn McCann and Dublin's Denis Desmond of MCD. Thin Lizzy became the first act to play Slane in 1981, supported by a lesser-known band called U2, but though 18,000 people turned up, the show was not without its risks. Across the border in the North, the Troubles were raging and tensions were high in Meath. Lord Henry, due to his title, became a focus for the ire of some sections of republicanism. 'It was very dark,' Henry said of the time. 'There were riots in Dublin, there was a situation in front of the British Embassy.' 'I come from a complex background – I got some very unpleasant mail and I got threatening phone calls in the middle of the night. 'But I'm a child of the Sixties, I grew up on The Kinks, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and my anthem was things like We Gotta Get Out of This Place.' Former Spice Girls singer Mel C with Lord Henry Mount Charles at Slane Castle. Pic: EamonnFarrell/ It made Henry more determined to go ahead with his plan and by the time Thin Lizzy struck their first chord, 18,000 people witnessed Slane becoming Ireland's premier rock 'n' roll venue. This cemented Henry's friendship with U2 who also recorded their hit album The Unforgettable Fire at the castle. It was a terrible irony, then, that Slane would later fall victim to a terrible fire that gutted parts of the castle. It took ten years to restore the seat to its former glory and the concerts organised by Mountcharles and various promoters paid for the refurbishment. There were turbulent concerts too – after Bob Dylan's show in the 1980s, thugs vandalised the village, causing havoc. In 1995 two concert goers died trying to swim across the River Boyne to sneak into the gig by REM and Oasis. But for the most part, the concerts put Slane – and Henry – on the map, including the Bruce Springsteen gig in 1985 – the first date on his Born in the USA tour. While his first marriage to Juliet ended in divorce in 1982, the couple had three children Alex, Henrietta and Gerald. Lord Henry Mount Charles. Pic: RTÉ He met his second wife, Iona, daughter of the 6th Earl of Verluam, on a champagne-tasting trip and they were married in 1986 and their child Tamara was born in 1991. In person, Henry was erudite and entertaining, intelligent and fun with an unassuming air about him. As an Anglo-Irish peer he was styled Viscount Slane until 1974 and then Earl of Mountcharles from 1974 until 2009 when, on the death of his father, he became The Most Hon Henry Vivien Pierpont Conyngham, 8th Marquess Conyngham. The Marquesses Conyngham held the right to sit in the British House of Lords, until 1999. He was never really a 'lord' but didn't like being called an earl, so the rock 'n' roll Lord would do. But politics and justice were also very important to him throughout his life, particularly the politics of Ireland. He unsuccessfully contested the Louth constituency for Fine Gael at the 1992 general election. He was also unsuccessful in his bid for a Seanad seat in 1997. But his interest in the subjects never waned and for many years he wrote a popular column on the subject for the Irish Daily Mirror. Lord Henry Mountcharles with Oasis band members Noel Gallagher and Gem Archer at Slane Castle. Pic: Arthur Carron/Collins Photos After a diagnosis of lung cancer in 2014, his health suffered, but Henry's entrepreneurial spirit didn't wane. He decided to open a distillery at Slane Castle with his eldest son Alex. The Slane Irish whiskey brand was sold to Brown-Forman, the company behind Jack Daniel's, which invested €50million and established a new distillery and visitor centre at the seat. He handed over the running of the castle to his eldest son Alex while he and Iona spent most of their time in Beauparc House, a smaller stately home in Navan which had been left to him by a relative. Though dogged by health problems due to his cancer in his later years, Henry very much approved of the decision to host the first series of The Traitors Ireland in Slane. It was something his son Alex said he was very pleased about as it was a return to the castle's previous life as a TV set. But sadly, one of Ireland's last aristocrats won't be around to see it screened when it airs this summer. And the country has lost a colourful character who changed the face of the entertainment business and brought some of the biggest names in the world to a tiny village in Co. Meath. 'My life has been a mixture of great good fortune and adversity,' he once said. 'I just try to see my life as a journey.'
Irish Independent
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Obituary: Lord Henry Mount Charles, aristocrat and businessman who turned Slane Castle into a music mecca
Over the decades the picturesque venue has hosted concerts by U2, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Madonna and many others, earning him the added title of 'the rock and roll peer'. Mount Charles took over the Co Meath castle from his father, Frederick – the 7th Marquess of Conyngham – in the summer of 1976, after he was given a stark choice: assume control of the 'family firm' or the estate would be sold. This ultimatum came after Frederick decided to domicile himself in the Isle of Man because of the imposition of a wealth tax by the Fine Gael finance minister, Richie Ryan. 'It was a move I made reluctantly, for in the depths of my heart I knew it was the end of my freedom to plough my own furrow, and that I was casting myself in a stereotyped role, from which I was going to have great difficulty escaping,' Henry wrote in his autobiography. 'From being my own master where I could escape from the feeling of being, at times, a stranger in my own country, I was thrown back, aged twenty-five, as Lord Mount Charles, owner of the castle. I was an Anglo-Irish anachronism tolerated in a modern Ireland...I was returning to an Ireland I loved, but still a country bedevilled by division and much hypocrisy.' In the years that followed, Mount Charles – or Mr Conyngham, as former taoiseach Charlie Haughey insisted on calling him – harboured political ambitions but failed to be elected for Fine Gael to the Dáil for the Louth constituency in 1992 or the Senate in 1997. He also flirted with the idea of joining Dessie O'Malley's Progressive Democrats, but that too came to nothing. Instead, Lord Henry (he officially he became the 8th Marquess of Conyngham on the death of his father in 2009) was best known for his rock and roll lifestyle, wearing odd socks and a seemingly laid-back approach to life which included writing blogs and a column for the Irish Mirror. His autobiography was titled Public Space – Private Life: A Decade at Slane Castle, indicating that while he maintained a public persona to publicise the castle and its various business activities, he also tried to live another life as a blue-blooded aristocrat with close connections to the titled families of Ireland and Britain. Henry Vivien Pierpont Conyngham was born on May 25, 1951. Although he grew up in Slane and always considered himself Irish, he was educated at Harrow, the upper-class English public school, and later Harvard in the United States, before spending a year working in an Anglican mission in South Africa. ADVERTISEMENT In September 1971, barely 21 years of age, he married Juliet Kitson, and was living in a London basement with her and their first child when through her mother, Penelope, he got to know the American tycoon, J Paul Getty. Then considered the richest man in the world, Getty liked 'to be surrounded by a court of shallow women who flattered him', according to Mount Charles. Through this social circle at the Getty mansion in Surrey, Mount Charles got his first real job with the publishing house, Faber. He had barely settled into the role when he got the call from his father to return to Slane. Henry insisted that if he was to come back to Ireland, he would only accept total control. Once back home, Mount Charles became the representative of auction house Sotheby's, searching out treasures for the international auction market. He also took in wealthy paying guests, opened a restaurant in the grounds and held lavish shooting parties during the 'season'. Slane was also touted as a film location and among the stars entertained in the castle were the actress Lesley-Anne Down during the filming of The First Great Train Robbery, and Lee Marvin when he came to film The Big Red One. Slane also featured in an episode of the RTÉ soap opera The Riordans, and Mount Charles played a stiff-upper-lip British officer in an episode of Remington Steele, starring Pierce Brosnan, a 'commoner' from nearby Navan. In 1981 Mount Charles teamed up with concert promoters Eamonn McCann and Denis Desmond for an outdoor concert at Slane Castle featuring Thin Lizzy, with U2 as supporting act. Although it initially divided the village, the concert drew a crowd of 18,000 and was a huge success. It marked the beginning of annual concerts that brought the biggest rock and roll acts in the world to perform with the River Boyne as a backdrop. Around the same time his marriage was in turmoil and in March, 1983, his wife Juliet and their three children moved out, going to live in the Isle of Man. After the success of the first concert, Mount Charles then went after the biggest rock band in the world, The Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger had dined in Slane Castle during the 1970s when his friend Desmond Guinness of Leixlip Castle brought him and his wife Bianca for dinner with Mount Charles' father, 'who was astonished that he seemed so civilised'. Jagger and company opted to play Slane Castle, on Saturday July 24, 1982. 'A tidal wave hit that castle' Mount Charles recalled, and it included a long 'session' drinking Guinness with Jagger and his new girlfriend Jerry Hall. The Bob Dylan concert in the summer of 1984 led to a crisis that almost closed the castle as a concert venue. Fuelled by drink and drugs, an element of the attendance smashed up the village. It wasn't until late on the night of the concert that gardaí were able to regain control. It was the recording of an album, rather than a concert, that would get Slane Castle back on track Mount Charles later called them 'gurriers, bastards, drunken louts'. He was consoled by Bono and Senator Michael D Higgins, but the following morning's Sunday papers ran with headlines such as 'Savagery at Slane', and many local people held him personally responsible for the carnage. It was the recording of an album, rather than a concert, that would get Slane Castle back on track. After discussions with manager Paul McGuinness, U2 recorded their album The Unforgettable Fire, at the castle in 1984. 'U2 had helped inaugurate Slane as a venue, and they were sympathetic to the pull and the atmosphere and the great antiquity that pervaded the Boyne Valley,' Mount Charles said. On a champagne-tasting trip in France, Mount Charles met Iona Grimston, who was doing some work for Moet at the time. Their relationship blossomed and they married in 1985. They have one daughter, Tamara. Although mainly associated with Slane Castle, Henry Mount Charles lived most of the latter part of his life at nearby Beau Parc, a smaller stately home that was left to him by a bachelor relative, Sir Oliver Lampart, in 1986. After restoring the house, he and his wife moved in, finding it 'more intimate and more private' and a respite from the frenetic activity of Slane Castle. The castle caught fire in 1992. It suffered considerable damage, with many family artefacts and paintings lost in the blaze and the building itself was left a blackened shell. Despite the enormity of the task, Mount Charles oversaw its restoration in the years that followed. In more recent years, Mount Charles handed over control of many of the business activities at the castle to his son, Alex Conyngham. But he remained active despite a long-running battle against cancer that was first diagnosed in 2014 and returned in 2016. Mount Charles greatly added to 'the gaiety of the nation' over the last 40 years. He was a committed and passionate, if sometimes sceptical, Irishman. He also managed to demystify the wealthy Anglo-Irish Protestant ascendency and, as such, lessened some of the latent resentment against his class that marked them out as unwanted symbols of British rule. Lord Henry Mount Charles, the 8th Marquess of Conyngham, died on Wednesday, June 18, at the age of 74. He is survived by his wife, Iona, and his four children.
Irish Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
'Lord Henry Mount Charles was one of the nicest people I ever met'
Lord Henry Mount Charles, who died after a long illness yesterday, was one of the nicest people I ever met in my life. He might have had a Harvard education, a posh voice, the owner of beautiful Slane Castle which he loved with a passion, but he was down to earth and as honest as they come. I met him as a cub reporter in 1981 when he was running his first ever Slane rock concert which starred Thin Lizzy and U-2. I was 19 and he was 30 and we became friends ever since. We had some great times together over the years. Parties after Slane, dinners in Beauparc which later became his home, drinks out and about in Dublin, and many intense political discussions on everything from the then Troubles in the north to the state of the Irish economy, and the political shenanigans in Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. I was a working class boy from Brookville Park, Drogheda and he ,a member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy - but as the late John Hume would say we have more in common than what divided us. When Henry inherited the Slane estate he inherited a headache. He had to reinvent Slane and make it pay, easier said than done. The devastating fire at the Castle made it even more difficult but yet he never complained. He never saw himself as the owner but as the custodian of the estate to protect it for the next generation. But Henry had the drive, passion and energy to make it work and wow what a legacy he has left. He made Slane one of the most famous rock and roll venues in the world and created Slane Whiskey and the fantastic distillery with the help of his beloved son Alex and it is now one of the top selling brands in America. When I became editor of the Irish Mirror one of the first things I did was ask Henry to write a weekly column and this he did with great pride and passion for almost three decades. No matter where Henry was in the world he still wrote his column every week and as he battled lung cancer over the last ten years, there were many weeks when he was extremely ill but he never missed his deadline. He thought it amusing and yet inspiring that he had direct access to the working class people of Ireland and he loved and respected all of his readers. I last spoke to his Lordship as I always affectionately called him a few weeks ago and although his voice was weak he was still in good spirits. Every time I asked how are you he would respond "I am alive thank God.' Such was his low immune system and the risk of catching a killer infection Henry had to stay away from people during the last few years of his life. But yet he didn't complain and enjoyed every second of his daily walks along the river Boyne around his Slane and nearby Beauparc estates. We nearly lost him a few times but he lived to tell the tale. Every time we spoke he always praised the wonderful staff at St James Hospital in Dublin where he was treated for his illness. For a fella with a posh voice Henry was as down to earth as they come and never looked down his nose at anyone. His roots were the people of Slane, the people of Meath and the people of Ireland. Nothing pleased him more than the Good Friday Agreement and to see peace finally arrive in ireland. The late former Northern Ireland Secretary of State Mo Mowlam was a great friend of his and he was devastated when she died from a brain tumour. His lordship may have gone to the great rock concert in the sky but he left nothing behind on this earth, he lived every minute of every day and left nothing behind. He adored his wonderful wife Iona and his children. They were his pride and joy. Henry was a legend and it was a privilege to know him. Ireland is a poorer place without him.
RTÉ News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Lord Henry Mount Charles has died aged 74
Lord Henry Mount Charles, best known for staging iconic rock concerts at his ancestral home of Slane Castle in Co Meath, has died at the age of 74. His family confirmed the news in a statement: "It is with profound sadness that the family of Lord Henry Mount Charles, The Marquess Conyngham announce his peaceful passing in the late hours of June 18th following a long and valiant battle with cancer. "A beloved husband, father, grandfather, and custodian of Slane Castle, Lord Henry's courage, and unwavering spirit inspired all who knew him." The 8th Marquess Conyngham had been sick for some time having first been diagnosed with lung cancer in 2014. He became a household name in the 1980s as some of the world's biggest rock 'n' roll stars took to the stage at his picturesque Meath venue for era-defining concerts. Lord Henry took over the running of the Slane estate in 1976 at the age of just 25, after returning home from London, where he worked with book publishers Faber & Faber. He had received a call from his father, Frederick, at the time to say that due to tax impositions, he was going to have to leave Slane and sell up - or else Lord Henry would have to come home. Born into an aristocratic family of partial Ulster-Scots descent, Lord Henry attended Harrow School in London before studying at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts. He became known as the Earl of Mount Charles, a courtesy title, in 1974. Despite succeeding his father as Marquess Conyngham in March 2009, he was affectionately known as Lord Henry Mount Charles, a name given to him by the press, for most of his life. His son Alex, who assumed the title Earl of Mount Charles, has lived at the castle for many years with Lord Henry and his wife, who was born Iona Grimston, opting to live upriver at the family-owned Beauparc House. Lord Henry often spoke about how he knew that the grounds of Slane Castle were a natural amphitheatre for open-air music and that they should be opened up to the public. Promoter Denis Desmond, now head of MCD, soon became a good friend of Lord Henry and the pair worked alongside promoters Eamonn McCann and the late Jim Aiken to get the venue off the ground. It was Irish rock band Thin Lizzy who first headlined Slane Castle on 16 August 1981 - supported by U2 - with some 18,000 concert-goers in attendance. The castle's debut as a venue came at a turbulent time when the hunger strikes were taking place during the Troubles and Anglo-Irish estates were being targeted. However, the concert was a success and was followed in the early years by other memorable headline acts such as The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Queen, and David Bowie. After a five-year absence, the longest since the event began in 1981, Slane returned in 1992. The five concerts of the 1990s were headlined by Guns N' Roses, Neil Young, R.E.M., The Verve, and Robbie Williams. The crowds at the best-selling gigs on 'Henry's lawn' eventually reached 80,000. However, there were also dark days. The Dylan concert in 1984 was marred by riots in Slane Village while there were two tragedies in the River Boyne on the day of the REM concert in 1995. Lord Henry's gamekeeper, Timothy Kidman, was killed by poachers on his land in 1989, something that deeply affected him. In 1984, U2 recorded their Unforgettable Fire album at Slane Castle, but in 1991, the castle was almost completely destroyed by a real fire, with valuable antiques and paintings - but thankfully no lives - lost. The crash of the Lloyd's insurance company around the same time, of which Lord Henry was an underwriter, caused further financial strain. In 1992, he ran in the general election for Fine Gael, polling fifth in the then-four-seater Louth constituency. With a €50m investment from Brown-Forman, the makers of Jack Daniels, the Mount Charles family launched Slane Irish Whiskey in 2017 and opened the distillery and visitor centre at Slane Castle. The previous year, Lord Henry had revealed that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer for a second time. He was also vocal about his relationship with alcohol in the past and how U2 bassist Adam Clayton helped him to get sober. Since the turn of the century, U2, Bryan Adams, Stereophonics, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Madonna, Oasis, Kings of Leon, Bon Jovi, Eminem, Foo Fighters, and Metallica are some of the other acts to have headlined Slane. The most recent concert in 2023 came after a four-year hiatus and saw a break from the rock 'n' roll tradition as pop star Harry Styles brought his world tour to Slane. The Mount Charles family said the concert was about welcoming a new generation of fans to the Meath venue and 80,000 of them turned up on the day to see the former One Direction member perform. In a documentary titled Henry Mount Charles: A Lord in Slane that aired on RTÉ last December, the patriarch of the Conyngham family spoke about his own mortality. In what was one of his last interviews, Lord Henry said: "Part of who I am and what I am and what I've done is keeping this estate together and now I know my son Alexander and his wife are there in the castle, the future is assured. "Slane, it has a draw, a pull, a fascination, and touches the spirit. I feel like a child of that. To me, there is no other place quite like it nor will there ever be," he said. Charismatic and enigmatic, Lord Henry was much like the rock stars he promoted. Part of his enduring legacy is the amazing memories he has given hundreds of thousands of people, particularly during the years when Ireland was not on the map for the big rock 'n' roll artists. He is survived by his wife, Lady Iona, and four adult children, Alexander, Henrietta, Wolfe, and Tamara. He and his first wife, the American Juliet Kitson, mother of his three eldest children, divorced in 1985.
The National
6 days ago
- Politics
- The National
A Scottish writer looks to James Joyce for answers on how to free
The text of Ulysses redefined Irish national identity and is the text of Ireland's national liberation, a book preoccupied with, even obsessed with, Irishness, the problems of raising national consciousness and the forging of a better Ireland. This might surprise readers unaware that Joyce was a nationalist. The theme of politics and Anglo-Irish relations has not been central to readings of the novel and this might be, as many critics claim, because the work was hijacked at an early stage by leading Modernists, who assumed that its Irishness was secondary to its Modernist aims. Later, post-Modernists redefined the novel as a 'guerilla text' attacking the discourses and regimes of colonial power. No coincidence, they said, that the gestation of the book between 1914 and 1921, parallels the gestation of the Irish Free State, and that it was launched the day after the signing of the Irish Treaty. READ MORE: 'Naked and Unashamed' cements Nan Shepherd's place in Scotland's literary canon On the same day, Joyce wrote a letter to Arthur Griffith congratulating him on the Treaty. This proves that Ulysses was always meant to have a political as well as cultural impact. Famously of course he was to spend most of his life abroad. He left Ireland but it never left him. We in Scotland urgently need to frame our national narrative in the context of our long march towards sovereignty. We need to redefine our national identity in this much more diverse 21st century and bring a new perspective of cultural change to the journey. Many are becoming aware of it, not least Believe in Scotland and a plethora of podcasters, culture groups and social media channels within the independence movement. Scotland needs to personify – to see itself in purposeful motion, as people, individuals, characters doing, achieving, empowering ourselves and our nation on its journey. And Joyce can help us, or at least, excellent examples found in his work can show the way. In Ivy Day In The Committee Rooms from his Dubliners collection, Joyce found a method of combining the personal and the political, the individual and the national. It's a telling little story and the only one in the collection overtly 'about' grassroots politics at the beginning of the 20th century. The story is set in Dublin, the committee room being of course a metaphor for Ireland itself with six characters, albeit all male, standing in to represent the nation as Joyce saw it – contentious, disunited, dissolute, over-sentimental, self-deluded and out for what they can get. It is satiric, a little jaundiced even in the wake of the death of Charles Stewart Parnell, the great leader who was surely and steadily building the foundations of an independent Ireland. Since Parnell's death, the nationalist cause had been stuck in a lethargy which has allowed the British to continue to rule and the status quo to be maintained. In my teens, I was a student friend of Alex Salmond and can't help seeing Salmond as our Parnell. There are definite parallels. In the committee room, we meet Old Jack the caretaker of the hall or hired room, subservient, self-effacing, careful not to extrude a personal view that might offend his employers, then enters the political agent, O'Connor, who we soon realise is doing nothing at all to promote his candidate, the publican Tierney who is paying him to promote his campaign to be elected to the local authority. Overtly concerned with when his money is coming – and constantly suspecting that he will not be paid – he impugns the character of Tierney, 'Tricky Dicky' and does not show much, if any support for him. READ MORE: Val McDermid to premiere new play exploring Christopher Marlowe's death His colleague Henchy seems to be worse that O'Connor in that as a paid agent, he does not support Tierney. He is a man who changes his mind at the drop of a hat, has no fixed views. The third character, Hynes, is clearly some sort of spy, possible for Tierney's rival Colgan. He is a shiftless character, desperate for money, yet it is his sentimental poem for Parnell which, read out to the company temporarily unites all. Father Leon, a priest or actor, is manifestly not religious, a poor deluded soul, who does not quite join the company or even enter the room, hovering in the doorway, apologetically, as if he is the soul of the dead killed in the various uprisings. The candidate himself, Tierney, does not appear though is referred to by all. O'Connor and Henchy suppose he is a nationalist but suspect that he will vote for the Address to King Edward on the King's visit despite that. The story mocks the heroic romantic nationalism of the past by portraying the shabby compromises and venality of activists who are anything but idealistic. There is agreement for the idea that previous times were better, '… them times. There was some life in it then', implying of course that there is no life now. This is another of Joyce's tropes of the living dead, or deadness-in-life, or political stasis, of all the stories in the collection. And Scotland is in exactly the same situation. Stuck. Unable to find a route forward to independence. Narrative is the key I have been engaged with our cause since my teens as an activist in city centre street meetings with the sound of Scotland Is Waking filling my ears from car speakers. I recall the camaraderie and my own zeal of canvassing and leafletting in early by-elections and the sense of a nation on the move, the heady thought of independence being winnable – and close. I've been an activist for more than 50 years including 10 as paid party media man, and a stint as local councillor, alongside my own literary career and its 20 book titles. I have always known that engaging in political struggle provides positive benefits for individuals. Humans need to engage with something deeper than the day-to-day details of existence, focus on something bigger than themselves to give their lives some sense of achievement. As Alasdair Gray said, we need to see ourselves in the pages of a novel to be able to live better lives. We need a story arc, from beginnings to a resolution that takes us to a better place. Narrative is the key and we need to know how to form it and refine it so that it parallels the common thinking and expressions of our people – embodies it and leads it, so that all willingly share in it. And from that early time, my thoughts as a young writer were engaged with the idea of what that narrative might look like, how to put the cause down on paper in fiction, to magnify it, personify it, explain it, make more of it, so that others would be inspired to take up our cause. READ MORE: Scots group becomes first multi-venue firm to gain prestigious B Corp certification The book that summed up for me then what I wanted to achieve was a Scottish novel, AJ Cronin's 1937 bestseller The Citadel. This highly readable and exciting character novel about a young Scotsman and his early career as a young married doctor successfully promoted a political campaigning aim – in Cronin's case creating widespread support for a national health service that led to early legislation. But writers write and publishers publish. Quite soon I began to realise how difficult the struggle had been for the writers of the 'Scottish Renaissance' in the early 1930s led by Hugh MacDiarmid and others, and how quickly the movement had been snuffed out in a variety of ways although of course, not before providing a head of steam for the early national movement, in particular the NPS and then the SNP. But the political movement in Scotland, unlike in Wales, swiftly dropped the wild-haired poets, and looked askance too at the bearded folkies of the 1960s, in favour of hard-headed politics and businessmen. Early leaders broke the essential connection between the artists and writers and the politicians. The movement became obsessed with economics, business, income, taxes and wealth. Important yes, but not as important as story. Story and narrative are the backbone of life and without it, life is mere existence. But writers need to make a living which is why so many of our writers are forced to use any political references in codified, oblique ways in their writing. Like others, I wrote novels that publishers would accept and didn't write the ones I wanted to write, because I needed to get published. The numerous organisations that support our cultural community, Creative Scotland, the Scottish Book Trust, Live Literature, etc are publicly funded bodies and keen not to rock the boat, or to vote themselves out of existence. One leading Scottish literary agent responded to my pitch of a political novel a few years back with an astonishing reply: 'No-one would want to read …' she said, 'brings back all the divisiveness of 2014 …' So, it was the biggest event in our history since 1707 and we writers are not supposed to write about it in case someone is offended? Despite this, for the last few years, I have been drafting and redrafting short and long-form fiction that combines the personal and the political, focusing especially on the diversity of our movement and the variety of issues individuals might have in daily lives that include some level of commitment to the cause. Some of the stories have been published in literary magazines. My story, We Are An Island appeared in Causeway/Cabhsair, the journal of Irish and Scottish writing. It focused on an elderly English couple and their dog moving to live on a remote island to remind us how much we have benefitted from inward migration and how it is possible for incomers to assimilate even in a Gaelic-speaking community if the will and the tolerance is there. The Galway Review published Greater Love Hath No Man in which the loss of Scots lives in British foreign wars is made apparent, when an intelligent young man, a YSI member, is seduced into the army and death at 19 in Afghanistan, like his great-grandfather before him. My story of the lost potential of Scotland's working class through addiction is the subject of Last Refuge published in Literally Stories. A series of four stories has now started to appear in the SNP's Independence magazine. In Hinterlands, published in March/April's issue, a veteran activist tries to convey to his son during a by-election the importance of remembering and recording even the tiniest details of the struggle. Everything must be remembered so that those who were not there cannot rewrite our story. In the May/June issue, TheWummin Inside, an 80-year-old woman takes a stand against moaners, regretting the missed opportunities of her generation, some of whom could have 'run a small country like Nicola'. More of the stories, some narrated by me, are set to appear on indy podcasts and websites and I hope the collection, Speaking For Ourselves/Unspeakable Things when published might prove something of an outlier that brings together a wider readership. Not every writer wants to get involved in a movement or a national group. Writers write for themselves, express individual concerns and everybody is different. But to me at least, under the influence of Joyce and others, creating and deploying characters that live and breathe within our movement can help to heal the divisiveness and discord of our attritional politics and let us look to bluer skies of opportunity and the potential to create better, fairer and more balanced lives for all in life, and on the page. Andrew Murray Scott is a writer and novelist: He writes a monthly culture column in the Scots Independent.
