JAMES PLUNKETT: James Plunkett, who died on Wednesday aged 83, was best known for his novel, Strumpet City. He described the book, which was published in 1969, as "a picture of Dublin in the seven years, 1907 to 1914.
Against the backcloth of social agitation, it is about the attitudes of various strata of society - from Dublin Castle and people of property down to the destitute poor and the outcasts."
Strumpet City took 10 years to write. Widely translated, it was an international best-seller. The paperback rights were bought for £16,000 - then a record sum for a first novel.
The television adaptation of the book was one of RTÉ's most ambitious productions and attracted large audiences when it was shown in 1980. Overseas sales repaid many times over the £1 million it cost to make.
James Plunkett was born James Plunkett Kelly on May 21st, 1920, in Bath Street, Sandymount, Dublin, the son of Patrick Kelly, a chauffeur, and his wife, Cecilia (née Cannon). When he was four the family moved to a small flat in Upper Pembroke Street. He attended Synge Street CBS and, from 1928 to 1943, he also studied violin and viola at the Municipal School of Music. There he met his wife, Valerie Koblitz.
Plunkett was conscious of political divisions in his extended family. His father was a first World War veteran while an IRA cousin was killed in the Civil War. Plunkett recalled Remembrance Day dividing Dublin "into two camps: one the mourners with poppies in their coats; the other the protesters who wore \ lilies. Snatching the poppies was a pastime for the would-be-patriots."
On leaving school at 17 Plunkett went to work as a clerk with the Dublin Gas Company. He and a group of colleagues joined the Workers' Union of Ireland and, in 1946, he became a full-time official with an office adjoining that of Big Jim Larkin.
Plunkett was impressed, not only by Larkin's impeccable trade union credentials, but also by the realisation that he "wanted for the underprivileged not just material sufficiency, but access to culture and the graces of living as well".
Plunkett occasionally played professionally with the Radió Éireann Symphony Orchestra and considered becoming a full-time musician. But, concluding that he wasn't good enough, he decided he would play solely for pleasure.
His first published short story, The Mother, appeared in The Bell in 1942. In the early 1950s he began to contribute talks, short stories and, eventually, plays to Radió Éireann. In 1954 Peadar O'Donnell devoted an entire issue of The Bell to his short stories under the title The Eagles and the Trumpets. The following year saw the publication in the US of The Trusting and the Maimed. Frank O'Connor praised Plunkett as "a storyteller of high seriousness".
Plunkett was at the centre of a national controversy, also in 1955, when he was among a group of writers, artists, and journalists who travelled on a cultural visit to the Soviet Union. The Cold War was at its height and county councils throughout the country, spurred on by the Catholic Standard, condemned the visit. Resolutions calling for his dismissal as a WUI official were supported by some trade unionists. But he won a vote of confidence and kept his job. To one of his critics who demanded to know what could he possibly learn about the Soviet Union in four weeks, he replied: "Not much - but I learned a hell of a lot about Ireland."
Plunkett later joined Radió Éireann as Assistant Head of Drama and Variety. His radio play Big Jim formed the basis of The Risen People which was produced at the Abbey Theatre in 1958. His publishers suggested that he should write a book set in the same period and, shortly afterwards, work on Strumpet City got under way.
In 1960 James Plunkett became one of Telifís Éireann's first two producer/directors. He worked with entertainers such as Jimmy O'Dea, Joe Linnane, Jack Cruise and Paddy Crosbie. His television drama set in 1798, When Do You Die Friend? was highly acclaimed. His script for the joint BBC-RTÉ documentary, Bird's Eye View, led to the commissioning of The Gems She Wore: A Book of Irish Places (1972).
Plunkett's second novel, Farewell Companions (1977), is semi-autobiographical and spans the period from the 1920s to the 1940s. A third novel, The Circus Animals (1990), deals with the grip of the Catholic clergy on private life in the 1940s and 1950s. His Collected Stories was published in 1977 and a volume of essays, The Boy on the Back Wall, appeared in 1987.
In 1991 Plunkett presented his papers to the National Library of Ireland. In 1993 he was presented with the Butler Literary Award by the Irish-American Cultural Institute and, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, he was made an honorary life member of the Irish Writers' Union.
Although a regular Massgoer, Plunkett was dismissive of the "heaps and heaps of useless dogma" that constituted Catholic teaching. "Anybody who claims to have all the rules and all the regulations to live by," he once said, "is effectively saying that they know all of God and I don't believe them."
Other dogmas also drew his wrath. "I hate the kind of mind that could blow up Nelson's Pillar and then actually tell you that it was a blow against imperialism. It wasn't. Nelson's Pillar was part of Dublin, part of what Dublin and its people really are."
Dublin was dear to Plunkett's heart. He was dismayed by the destruction of much of the city's architectural heritage during the 1960s and took part in the Wood Quay protests in the late 1970s. But literary Dublin with its "boozing and backbiting" held no attractions for him: "I much preferred a drink with my musical friends than suffering the writers' pubs."
However, he retained a deep affection for Brendan Behan, whose friendship and encouragement meant a great deal to him.
For many years, Plunkett and his family lived in Terenure, spending weekends in a rented cottage in Wicklow. In 1970 he purchased and renovated a cottage in Coolakeagh, Co Wicklow, which became the family home. There he indulged in his passion for chamber music, "at leisure and in intimate good company, with always enough in the bottles to mellow the performances". In 1992 he moved to Bray.
Plunkett resigned from RTÉ in 1985. He was proud of the station's achievements and was incensed when the minister for communications, Mr Ray Burke, moved to cap RTÉ's advertising revenue in 1989. He put this down to "sheer political spite" on the part of Fianna Fáil, which had "never forgiven RTÉ for being objective".
Throughout his life Plunkett remained true to the spirit of Larkinism and, in 1988, expressed his concern that trade unionism had "lost its soul".
A political writer in the broadest sense, propaganda had no place in his work. As he wrote: "The duty of a good writer of fiction or drama is not to preach. It is to absorb, to observe, to distil and to reveal - gently."
James Plunkett was predeceased by his wife, Valerie, in 1986 and their daughter, also Valerie; he is survived by his sons, Ross, James and Vadim.
James Plunkett: born May 21st, 1920; died May 27th, 2003.