From politicians to priests, terrorists to bankers – few in public life have escaped our cartoonist's pen over the past four decades. Here, MARTYN TURNERremembers some of the ones that got away, the times he got it right – and a few personal favourites
My first Irish Times cartoon
June 12th, 1971
I can’t remember how this got commissioned, other than that the then northern editor of The Irish Times, Henry Kelly, liked the notion of an illustration for his weekly column. I was in Glencollumkille the day it was to be published and I walked into the village at cock crow to get the paper, nervous as hell, only to be told it didn’t arrive in that bit of Donegal until after lunch.
Looking in the archives, I notice no caricature appeared the next week, so I must have assumed that was the end of my career. As it turned out, I did a cartoon or caricature every Saturday after that until a subsequent Northern editor, name available on request, hired Ulster cartoonist Rowel Friers instead.
The right to travel
This appeared around the time the government thought that maybe not every woman leaving the country had to be scanned for possible pregnancy, lest they were travelling abroad to do something, er, unIrish. . . I think maybe what they meant was unCatholic. What a government. That’s men for you.
I remember at about that time, Pat Kenny interviewed someone who ran an abortion referral bureau in England.
“What sort of people do you have coming from Ireland?” he asked.
“All sorts,” replied the cheery English voice on the other end of the phone.
“Can you describe for me, for example, the last three people who came to you seeking help?” asked Pat. “Well, let me see. Yes. The last lady I saw from Ireland was a nun.”
The interview was, to coin a phrase, terminated.
Yeltsin at Shannon
This cartoon appeared the day after Boris failed to appear down the steps of his plane to meet Albert Reynolds, who stood on the tarmac at Shannon for, well, it seemed like days. It was drawn about three minutes before a deadline as an afterthought so is, er, to be polite to myself, somewhat rough.
Northern unemployment
I always had a soft spot for this cartoon, as having worked as both a journalist and as a cartoonist in Northern Ireland it summed up my attitude to the national question. It seems to me that good economic and social governance far outweighs the nationality of those who provide the governance.
If a remote tribe of Canadian Inuit could provide us with equality, economic sufficiency and a good judicial system, I would vote for that tribe. But none of the current tribes in Ireland, north or south of the Border, has offered anything except abject economic failure and useless political philosophies.
Photo montages
This cartoon is noteworthy in that it is one in which I plagiarised another artist’s work – like an Enda Kenny intro to Obama. It’s a tribute, goddamit, tribute.
So I thank the countless photographers whose iconic images make a good basis for parody.
Blazing suns
This was the first cartoon The Irish Times published after they lured me down from the North with the promise of a year’s work in 1976. After the year, I just carried on, and so far nobody has said anything.
It features one of my copyright depictions of a blazing sun – not normally associated with Irish cartoons. About 20 years ago an advertising chap in a pub told me his art department had been wracking their brains to work out how I drew these suns.
“Are you sure you want to know?” “Yes,” he begged, buying me a drink. “Well,” I said, “I take the top off an ink bottle, wet it with ink and stencil the sun. Then I take an index finger and, while the ink is still wet, make the sunbeams by pushing the ink out from the circle.” He was very disappointed, as I’m sure you all are.
I told you so . . .
If I might be allowed to indulge in the time-honoured cartoonists’ tradition of “I told you so”, here are a couple of examples of me being jaundiced before the event.
But both the low expectations I had of the banking system in 1998 and of the Catholic Church in 2002 were well surpassed by what they actually did some years later.
So it’s a very small “I told you so”. More of a “never in my wildest dreams . . .”
The ones that got away
There are two cartoons that were not well-received at the time. I was asked to draw a cartoon for Haughey's retirement supplement, which I did. It was not published. The Irish Timeslawyers said we couldn't prove that Haughey lived somewhat above his means. After the McCracken tribunal they allowed it to be published. The Bishop Casey cartoon was kept out of the paper on the question of taste. They did discuss publishing it for a long while, to give my editors their due. And they published it in Irish Times books.
Terrorism
I thought of this cartoon, right, while flying back from a political cartoonists' convention in the US. I recall saying to anyone who would listen that I find it difficult getting back to work after a hiatus. Then I got this idea on the plane, just to prove myself wrong. It achieved the united Ireland the terrorists wished for . . . as it appeared on the front pages of The Irish Timesand the Belfast Telegraphon the same day . . . thus uniting the press of Ireland against the terrorists.
Ray Burke
A few years before this appeared (which sort of summed up Ray Burke's painstaking disclosure of what he was about), I did a caricature of Burke, who had been an estate agent, standing next to a "For Sale" sign – as estate agents do. The Irish Timeslawyers deemed this inappropriate, as it implied he was for sale . . . heaven forfend.
