PUBLIC service broadcasting has in John Quinn a talented and dedicated practitioner, whose conversations with 39 contributors form the basis for this collection of essays. Away from the bombast, blather and instant fix of much that passes for day-time radio, Quinn produces and presents a steady stream of reflective programmes.
For this book version of interviews broadcast between 1991 and 1996, Quinn fades out his own gentle but persuasive probing and we are left with a highly provocative and readable set of narratives about the mentors and influences that shaped people as diverse as the upright Denis Donoghue and the impish Maureen Potter, the scholarly Cahal Daly and the opportunist (in the good sense) Shirley Conran.Feargal Quinn is full of bonhomie and Michael D. Higgins has his usual strong line in righteous invective but is also movingly candid. The garrulous duo of Peter Ustinov and Tony O'Reilly tell some of their usual anecdotes but also have a few surprises.
The self-portraits are provocative, not in the manner of confessional revelations, but as pebbles in the oyster-shell of our own musings about life. Of course we learn things we half-know about well-known personalities, such as the childhood origins of Dr FitzGerald's obsession with time-tables, or how Gerry Fitt's sectarian chip on the shoulder evaporated as he mixed with all nationalities in the bowels of ships being bombed during the war.
The real impact of listening in on these conversations arises, however, from the fascination of noticing a life take off on a decisive trajectory from key early experiences. An example would be the beautiful marrying of nature and nurture in sculptor John Behan's life being coloured by proximity to the stains and dyes of a french polisher and then firmly cast through a seven-year apprenticeship in an iron foundry in the hubbub of inner-city Dublin; or the late Fine Gael TD Patrick Lindsay's reprise of his mimicking of his local bishop setting him on his way to a career as a courtroom and political orator.
Nearly all the interviewees are imbued with a strong sense of vocation; they discovered, sometimes very early on, a seam of giftedness and passion which sustained them personally and professionally for the rest of their lives. Schooling, with all its riches and lacunae, certainly features in these portraits but much more prominent is the formation of character and commitments.
The fostering of the virtue of public service during the middle decades of the century is well documented in the stories of men such as Tom Barrington, Patrick Lynch, Brendan O'Regan and Ken Whitaker. Contrary to later derisive mythology, there were pockets of intellectual vitality and social concern within the civil service during those years.
Vocation, public service, character and commitment are words with an old-fashioned ring about them, but then Quinn's selection reaches back into the depths of the century. More than 20 of the contributors were born before 1930, and none later than the early 1940s. Is it a coincidence that there is also a marked lack of ego or pose-striking in these profiles compared with the normal diet of interviewees on the media?
The style of the book is relaxed and conversational, as befits adapted radio interviews, but some of the contributions have nonetheless a formal elegance, such as Seamus Heaney's account of the verbal and foot-fall stepping-stones which led him into wider and wider worlds.
Doers are not crowded out by writers, and Quinn's own interest in new forms of work and education, and in thinkers against the grain, comes though in the selection of Mike Cooley and Charles Handy. In fact, hands-on alternative technologist Cooley turns in one of the most interesting speculative pieces.
The age profile of the interviewees shows up in the fact that five of them have died prior to publication; in these cases, we are literally listening to the wisdom of the voices of the dead echoing in us - and very worthwhile listening it is, too, especially in the case of pioneering public health advocate, James Deeny.
In general, Quinn's cast is far from being the usual suspects. Ten women are featured, and figures such Marilyn French, Noam Chomsky and Jean Vanier rub shoulders with Gordon Wilson, John McGahern, Lelia Doolan and Bernadette Greevy. An entertaining, humane and thoughtful book.
Jack Hanna is a writer and freelance journalist.