Yesterday’s NYT carried the obituary of Conor Cruise O’Brien. Although he was not particularly well-liked in his native Ireland, I always had a soft spot for him, because I loved his books. States of Ireland had a profound effect on my view of Irish nationalism, and his To Katanga and Back was, to my mind, the best book ever on the UN Congo mission, which was a really big deal in Ireland. My father was in charge of the airlift of Irish troops to and from the Congo — much to his disgust, as the only aeronautical engineer in the Air Corps at the time, he was too valuable to be sent there himself — and I remember that the whole family had to be given the smallpox vaccine when the first wave of troops was coming home. It made them all sick as dogs, except for me. I was given the vaccine one more time, to make sure mine wasn’t from a dud batch, and, when I still didn’t get sick, the Army medic told me, “If we ever have a smallpox outbreak here, I’ll want you as my nurse!” Those were interesting times, when the word Baluba became a household word in Ireland.
I had the pleasure, many decades ago, of sharing a train journey from Dublin to Galway with The Cruiser’s father-in-law, Sean MacEntee, who was in his early 80s at the time. We had a great conversation, roaming far and wide, from Irish history to gnosticism. He introduced me later to someone as “well read,” and was highly amused when I contradicted him with, “widely, not well.” That was during the height of my pretentious intellectual period, as you can tell.