BACK HOME in his native Armagh, circa 1977, Paddy McGarvey found himself on a job-creation taskforce seeking to replace a clothes factory destroyed in the Troubles. Some locals thought cider might be the answer: this was the orchard county, after all.
But McGarvey had spent a lot of time in England, as a senior Fleet Street journalist, and he knew enough about the subject to have doubts.
The would-be brewers were barking up the wrong tree, he thought; or to be more exact, they had the wrong apple. Armagh cider couldn’t work, he told them. So, noses slightly out of joint, the locals asked this returned know-all what he would do instead. Whereupon McGarvey, whose job had recently taken him to Germany too, suggested they should just bottle the water and sell that.
Great was the ensuing amusement. “A future chairman of Ulster Bank had to hold his sides tightly for the pain,” recalls Paddy. And when the laughter subsided, so quietly did the idea.
Even so, a year or two later, he was floating it again: this time down south, for Shannon Development and the Response from Industry Foundation. By then, Guinness was closing all its local bottling plants around Ireland. McGarvey thought putting spring water in them instead would provide sustainable industry in many towns; and on this occasion, some serious people agreed with him.
Had he pursued the idea he might be wealthy now. But he didn’t, because he was a journalist primarily, not a businessman. It was left to Geoff Read and Ballygowan to run with the ball in 1981. And 30 years on, McGarvey is content to regard himself as the “godfather” of a multi-million euro industry.
All of which serves as a preamble to mentioning his other big idea, the one that has dominated his life for two decades now. Namely that Ireland, north and south, should have a common political capital. This is not to be confused with political union – a separate issue. His proposal is for the two parliaments merely to share a campus, or at least a town, where they could co-operate, exchange ideas, and argue: without prejudice to either jurisdiction.
For obvious reasons, it could not be Dublin or Belfast. McGarvey suggests somewhere just south of the Border, in the “lost” Ulster counties with which Northern Unionists have historic affinity. There are international models for such “neutral” capitals: Berne, Ottawa, Canberra, even Washington. And, at the risk of provoking the same reaction as his bottled water plan once did, McGarvey suggests Ireland’s District of Columbia could be Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan.
The Armagh man is not as naive as this might make him sound. Along with being a thoroughly hard-nosed journalist, he served his time in politics too. A long-suffering member of the Northern Ireland Labour Party, he even ran for election in Mid-Ulster in 1964 and believes his losing 5,015 votes would have won a Dáil seat. He knows how Unionists think; and he knows that for now, economics are against his idea too.
But he has also witnessed remarkable changes in his time: not least the evolution of Dr Ian Paisley. Indeed, he suggests the DUP founder’s former penchant for haranguing the Irish Government – once on a late-night raid on Dublin, Paisley and Peter Robinson stuck “Ulster is British” posters on the GPO and the front of The Irish Times offices – would have been facilitated by a neutral capital.
Which, as McGarvey reminds us, was allowed for by the same legislation that set up separate Irish parliaments: the 1920 Act providing that the two bodies could sit anywhere, and that ministers of either could speak (but not vote) in the other.
His promotion of the idea has borne some fruit, at least, in the increased mobility of the Irish Cabinet. It met in Cork a few years ago and, more dramatically, went to Armagh in 1998: when the cavalcade of the Republic’s State cars suggested a Mafia funeral. That spectacle in McGarvey’s home town may not have helped advance his idea among Unionists, or build up the quality emphasised in the name of his charity: Irish Parliament Trust.
But another of his proposals – that the River Boyne, being part of Ireland’s problems, could be part of the solution – was adopted enthusiastically by both Paisley and his new friend Bertie Ahern when they jointly opened a heritage centre there last year. How much more improbable would it be for the two governments to share a capital where they could co-operate on the challenges they share too: symbolised dramatically by the recent collapse of a viaduct on the Dublin-Belfast rail line?
Now in his 80s and living in Cambridge, McGarvey is still full of energy and enthusiasm. He thinks he should be discussing his ideas at this weekend’s economics conference in Farmleigh. Unfortunately, when he inquired, it was booked out and he couldn’t secure a place.
Neither such discouragements nor long exile have dimmed his passion for the mother country. He named all his sons after Irish kings, including Feargus, the architect who redesigned Galway’s Eyre Square and brought Parisian-style box trees to central Dublin.
He is also the proud uncle of acclaimed cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, of World Trade Center and Atonement fame.
And even if his name has not been writ in (bottled) water, à la Keats, McGarvey still hopes to bequeath another legacy to his native land. It need not be Ballyjamesduff in particular.
But if the Cavan town is ever adopted as Ireland’s neutral capital, it will surely have to amend the lyrics of a famous Percy French song and demote Paddy Reilly, in favour of his Christian namesake, as its new favourite son.
l fmcnally@irishtimes.com