Donal O'Donovan, journalist, author, public relations manager, political activist, has been part of Dublin life for the best part of five decades. In a long and chequered career, he has worked for the Sunday Independent, The Irish Times and the Bank of Ireland, and has written four well-researched books. Deeply interested in politics, he has been director of elections for Fianna Fail in Co Wicklow.
Now 70 years of age - at a time when most people would be taking it easy - Donal is still full of energy and enthusiasm for whatever project, or projects, he invariably has on hand. Even those of us who know him only vaguely look on him as a remarkable man, quite a character, and damn good company. But none of us could have suspected in our wildest dreams that he was a spy for the German Democratic Republic's Stasi secret service during the Cold War. While accepting that he threw himself into life with more reckless abandon than the ordinary Joe Soap, it is hard to picture him as a real, live spook.
Heavy drinking
He now reveals all in his autobiography Little Old Man Cut Short, published this week by KB Kestrel Books. It is a fascinating book, written in a friendly, chatty style. It is a topsy-turvy life, with many ups and quite a few downs, often brought on by heavy drinking. He is a self-confessed alcoholic and throughout the book he blames booze for some of his less successful enterprises.
He was approached by two Stasi members in 1961 while on a journalistic assignment in Berlin. The two, posing as journalists, wanted him to act as their eyes and ears in Ireland, to go to meetings abroad and to report his findings to them. What made him join up? "I was flattered, intrigued and curious about the prospect of entering the world of John Le Carre. And I was most of the time fairly drunk. They would pay my expenses and a fee which would be commensurate with the value of my reports. I was also, I suppose, eager to help the socialist/communist underdogs in a world which reviled them."
He describes his report to his masters as "short and harmless". He took a few diplomats to lunch in Dublin to obtain their view of issues of the day in Europe. He gleaned nuggets from the Economist and other serious newspapers, and also from the American Embassy, but adds that all such facts were in the public domain.
He got a fright on one occasion when he was stopped coming back through Checkpoint Charlie with cash concealed in his shoes. He was asked to wait for a few hours in a cold shed. The Western authorities had no record of how he had got into the East. However, things worked out and he managed to get through.
Getting out
Not enamoured of the life of a spy and all the anxieties it provided, he terminated his career after 18 months. How did he manage to extricate himself from the clutches of that dark clandestine world?
Easy. He pretended he was being watched by the CIA. The Stasi believed him and that was that.
Looking back on his experience, which he now regards as one of the low episodes of his life, he writes ruefully: "Since I drank alcoholically for 30 years, I could not say that my essay into espionage was more drunken than any other part of my life. I can only imagine that I would not have accepted the invitation if I had been sober."
Donal O'Donovan's book is an interesting commentary on Irish and international affairs told by a good observer in an easy style.
He worked as a senior political activist for Fianna Fail in Co Wicklow, where he lives. He revelled in the cut-and-thrust and intrigue. But the fascination waned over the years and he became disillusioned with the constant bickering and infighting that is a constant ingredient of political life. He resigned in 1981 to concentrate on writing books and freelance journalism.
Blood on the floor
"The higher I rose up the ranks of the Spear-Carriers, the less happy I was about the knives that were stuck in my back. Jenny [his wife] would have to wait until 2 a.m. to hear the latest story of blood on the floor of Lawless's Hotel in Aughrim, where our Comhairle Dail Ceanntair meetings were held."
I like the anecdote about the time he asked Charlie Haughey what it was like to be Taoiseach. Haughey replied: "The job doesn't carry the power I thought it did."
He tells a hilarious story about his early years in the Sunday Independent. In the spring of 1954, the paper was invited by Aer Lingus to send a representative to Lourdes on the airline's inaugural flight to that popular place of pilgrimage. Nobody else had a passport, so Donal got the job. "Of the hundreds of junkets I have been on since then, that trip to Lourdes was the booziest," he confesses.
His expenses claims for the Lourdes trip set a new standard in this genre of creative writing. "I had been given £5 expenses and had such a task composing the items on my sheet that I had to resort to: `To one processional candle: five shillings.' I hadn't even seen the procession, never mind buy a candle."