As recently reported here, there has been far more sexual activity in Irish politics than is generally acknowledged. We now know, for example, that Archbishop John Charles McQuaid and General Eoin O'Duffy were (as we might say today) a long-term item. Of course, there's no documentary evidence for this, but merely that they were about the same age and came from neighbouring Ulster counties is about as much proof as An Irishman's Diary normally requires to prove sexual scandal, writes Kevin Myers.
However, being somewhat advanced thinkers for their time, they certainly thought there was nothing in the least scandalous about a relationship that began in their early adulthood, as they lustily frolicked through the Cavan bogs. After an afternoon of passion, the two would often saunter along the boreen, hand in hand, John Charles spitting out lumps of sphagnum moss, while the handsome young O'Duffy beguiled the hedgerows with his renditions of "Love Thee Dearest" and "Let Erin Remember" in his light but pleasing tenor voice.
Winsome youth
"Turtle-dove," Eoin might flute. "You called, oh luscious one?" John Charles would carol in reply, glancing at the winsome youth beside him (for this was before O'Duffy had begun to cultivate bellies and chins, and when his lissom limbs were the toast of the Cavan equivalent of the New York bathhouses of more recent times, namely, the sheep-dips).
"I did, you captor of a dauphin's heart," murmured Eoin.
John Charles looked down at the ground shyly. "Are you my dauphin? Because if you are, I will be your caliph."
They looked one another in the eye, and sighed heavily, before falling into a deep embrace, which concluded with them toppling into a stream, where John Charles found himself frenziedly chewing the watercress.
"You are such a manly fellow," he whispered as they resumed their journey homeward. "Will you love me for ever?"
"Oh John Charles, my sweetest tadpole, my trout, my very nightingale, what a question!"
In later years, as each rose to national eminence, though their physical affections and their sexual ardour for each other remained undiminished, it was necessary to conceal their passion. By 1930, McQuaid was the leading intellectual churchman in the country, and O'Duffy was head of the Garda. Their liaisons, though numerous, were conducted with labyrinthine and duplicitous cunning - which, as it happens, came naturally to the profession each had chosen.
They used to rent a small cottage overlooking a byre not far from Cootehill, where John Charles was born. The natural respect inspired by their eminence ensured that tongues did not wag, even when they popped into the Mooney's Bar and Select Lounge, John Charles in his full canonicals, and Eoin in his Garda Commissioner's uniform, which was festooned with campaign medals: The Cattle-Drive at Ballinamuck, The Peeler Shot On His Bike, The Rate Collecter Warned Off, A Big House Burnt & Bar, and other stirring mementoes of glorious days.
Hand in hand
They would sit in the snug, hand in hand, saying little. Sometimes, Eoin would stroke John Charles's hair, or kiss his ear. "Don't," the latter would urge with mock-fury, adjusting his cassock to conceal the biretta emerging from within. "Someone might see us."
"Like who? A priest, or even a policeman, perhaps?" Gales of giggles would arise from the snug, while outside the barman would studiously polish glasses. Silence would then fall, and John Charles might murmur: "Oh if only we had money, we could flee, to freedom in the new world. I am sick - sick, do you hear me? - of this deception."
"And so am I, my sumptuous marshmallow."
"If I am your marshmallow, will you be my Turkish delight?"
One morning, Eoin was gazing through the cottage window at the byre, where the farmer had put out mineral-concentrates for his bullocks and heifers from which to extract the goodness with their tongues. Suddenly, he saw a flash of amber-coloured metal, an intoxicating glow amid the mud.
His policeman's investigative instincts aroused, he tiptoed over to the byre, and reaching downwards, he found large quantities of what looked like gold in its unprocessed form. Could this be their passport to paradise?
Glutinous ore
Cupping a handful of the strange, glutinous ore, he rushed back to the cottage, calling John Charles from his vigorous ablutions at the bidet. "Look," he cried excitedly. "I believe I've found our passport to freedom.
Gold!"
John Charles padded out, naked, his lean athletic gait causing the policeman's heart to skip a beat, and his truncheon to stir in its holster.
The clergyman examined the lode carefully. "I have bad news for you, my manly Monaghasque. I know this stuff well. Indeed, we priests have been trained to encourage its existence wherever possible. It is a thing utterly without substance, but which causes widespread delusions. So in its own worthless way it is extraordinarily useful."
"What! Is it not gold?"
"No, alas," said the young cleric, languorously towelling himself. "Just another example of Irish cattle-lick gilt."