IRISH MY ERSE!

Asked to write a few words on Desmond, I had the following published in the Irish Democrat in October 1988. Desmond had edited the paper since 1948.

RISKING HELL IN GRAYS INN ROAD

It was a privilege to know Desmond as a friend.

I first met him ten years ago. I had sent an angry but poorly constructed piece to the Democrat, attacking an article by Cruise O'Brien in The Observer. Some Editors would have consigned it to the bin, and at best extended the consideration of a rejection slip.Crueller ones would have published it, and left me with the delusion that I was a writer.

Desmond sent me a kindly,even courtly letter, praising the raw material, suggesting how it might be refined, and inviting me to drop in for a chat sometime.

I knew Desmond by bad reputation some twenty years earlier. The Dublin Standard then warned emigrants off the Connolly Association and predicted frying in Hell for those who read The Irish Democrat. I had more recently read Liam Mellows And The Irish Revolution and decided that if Desmond Greaves was merely the nom de plume of Old Nick, Hell was a stimulating place for the brain.

Aware that Old Nick was Prince of This World, I dressed myself up before dropping in to Grays Inn Road. In stature and wit Desmond was impish. Sartorially, he had the style of a Printer's Devil or a Dickensian chimney-sweep's assistant. I was in some awe of his learning, and not encouraged by his advice to construct an article like a Symphony. Mathematical formulae and musical theory are not really my metier and I wielded a pen like a faction-fighter's shillelagh. But I was charmed by Desmond's courtesy, impressed with his fastidious approach to ideas and language and warmed by his wit. These characteristics were  also in his writings and platform performances. He had a fund of personal reminiscences and anecdotes which threw light on some corners of history and brought light relief to the serious work to which he devoted his entire life.

The cause of Ireland, the cause of Labour, has lost a champion  who could not be intimidated, bought nor deprived of the power of laughter. His message now must be that of Joe Hill - "Don't weep - Organise." Personally, I cannot think of Desmond with sadness. His merry spirit infuses all my thoughts of him.

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