Patrick Henchy died on May 6th. It was significant that, just a few days before his death, I had heard the call of the cuckoo for the first time this year. Paddy was a great watcher of weather and the cycle of the seasons.
Recently, I mentioned this to another Dublin librarian. She replied that he had possessed this knowledge and interest as (like her own father) he was a fisherman. That he was so much else besides is demonstrated by his career.
He was the first director of the National Library to embark on a programme of modernisation, commissioning a major report on its needs, introducing in-service training for staff, and bringing the treasures of the library within reach of the people of this island through exhibitions and publications.
He went on to do so much of the same work as head of the Chester Beatty Library, where his main concern was that this unique gift to our country should be appreciated by a wider audience. After consultation with the staff, he was able to arrange for Saturday opening of the library, thus ensuring a steady flow of visitors. All these projects were undertaken in a political climate which was much less favourably disposed to heritage matters than is the case at present.
He was a faithful son of Co Clare, ever interested in its sporting endeavours and its literature and history, being one of the founders of the Cumann Merriman. He often recalled with pleasure his days at University College Galway, from which we had both graduated. His UCG of the 1930s was much closer to my college of the late 1950s than to the large in stitution which flourishes today.
At the same time, he had a great appreciation and love of Dublin, and (as he might have said) "the neighbourhood of Dublin". He had good friends in the different social circles of the capital - the Dublin of Georgian architecture, the Dublin of the Irish language movement, and, above all, the Dublin of literature, book collecting, and antiquarian bookselling. His friendship with Patrick Kavanagh is well known, and resulted in the library being able to acquire a large collection of the poet's manuscripts, long before these became of major interest to scholars and collectors on an international level.
Other friends, such as Barry Brown and Edward MacLysaght (to both of whom Paddy introduced me), were a link with an epoch at once more spacious and more heroic than our own day.
He very much enjoyed a walk in the Dublin and Wicklow hills. When he discovered that I shared his taste, we went on several walks together, during which he would fill me in on topographical and nature lore. He was able to continue taking these walks, along with his brother, until a short time before this death.
In his bibliography of Irish spas, his strong sense of place is evident.
While his public persona had a quiet dignity which might recall the era of Curran or Grattan, he was never at a loss when coining an appropriate epigram or limerick regarding some topic current in the (more or less) peaceful world of librarianship, or in the hurly-burly world of national politics.
Although he was intensely loyal to his country and his faith, he could be scathingly critical of all acts of cruelty, fanaticism and hypocrisy which were carried out in the name of either religion or politics.
Some years ago, I was present at a lecture given by his wife, Monica (a former librarian at Trinity College Library), on the history of the Irish Colleges in Spain. She quoted some advice given, towards the close of the 17th century, by the retiring rector of the Irish College in Salamanca to his Jesuit successor: "Rector omnia videat, multa dissimulet, et pauca castiget" - the import of which is that the wise rector should see everything, but should let a lot of things pass and seldom give a dressing-down.
For those of us who had the honour of serving with him in the National Library, Patrick Henchy would seem to have personified this sage advice.
I bParrthas na ngrβst go raibh sΘ.
D.╙.L.