I am sure that my old friend and colleague, "J.A.P.," who has been settled in the West these many months now as editor of the Connacht Tribune and has "gingered" that publication very conspicuously, will not complain if I pilfer from his newspaper's evening satellite, the Connacht Sentinel.
Last Tuesday's edition contains a very interesting column on the celebrated William Joyce, or "Lord Haw-Haw" - occasioned by the recent death of his father in a London air raid. Joyce, of course, is a strong Galway name, but the father apparently had lived for some time in America with his wife, a Yorkshire woman, returning to Ireland when their son was about eight years old.
The Sentinel's article contains a letter from a Mr E. L. Kineen, who had been a schoolmate of young Joyce in Galway.
"In one sense," says Mr Kineen, "he was a boy beyond his years, but emotionally he never seemed to grow up. He was a morose and lonely little fellow at all times.
"I am bound to say, however, that, in his way, Willie was a clever sort of lad. I remember that one occasion he wrote an essay on a trip up the Corrib. It was a good essay - the talk of the school.
"Still, for all his brightness, there was something missing in Willie. I cannot precisely define it, but he was not the normal type of healthy schoolboy... He read extensively, and even in his early days at school he used to cherish an illusion of grandeur, as the psychologists say.
"One of his special bogeys in later years was the menace of Communism. Willie used to tell us all about it in his impromptu speeches in the playground. Even then he had `the gift of the gab.'
"I cannot remember that he ever played games or indulged in outdoor recreations."
The Irish Times, March 8th, 1941.