Few broadcasters seem more at home on television than Brian Farrell, former associate professor of politics at UCD. In fact his owlish, no nonsense demeanour could as easily qualify him a seat on a judge's bench. As an interviewer he often brings a skillfully controlled sense of righteous indignation to the proceedings. Peering over his glasses, he is capable of making experienced politicians appear as if they were wayward students about to be found out in a tutorial. Like Gradgrind, he is interested in facts, not idle speculation.
Still, he insists he not only likes politicians, he admires them. "They work very hard, many of them are dedicated. Look at the number of relatively young men who drop dead from pressure. We don't appreciate the work they do." He also refuses to take any easy side swipes at the apathetic Irish electorate, stressing it is no less interested in politics than voters in other countries, "when you look at the US for instance" the observation is despatched with a "I rest my case" certainty.
He gives the impression of one born in control. Panic is probably a sensation he has only read about. Newly appointed as chairman of the Arts Council, Farrell has worn many hats in his professional career and is probably something of a decathlete. In common with John Bowman he has become synonymous with election results, and possesses one of the most famous faces in Ireland, as well as one of the best-known voices.
There is an aura of privilege about Brian Farrell which goes far beyond the precise, emphatic delivery and collection of bow ties. It might have something to do with his having successfully juggled several careers.
Confident to the point of appearing pompously self-contained, Farrell's early years enabled him to see far more of the real world than might be assumed of most career academics. Though passionate about politics he is untainted by party affiliation. Asked to name his all-time political hero, he says Sean Lemass, about whom he wrote a short biography in 1983. "He was a great man, a decision maker and a loner" and Farrell remembers Lemass concluding a conversation with him . "He said `I have to go into the Mater but we'll talk again'. He never came out."
"Dublin has become my home" says Farrell, "but I wasn't born here. I'm only passing as a Dubliner." His mother's family came from Mayo. "Her father was a plasterer: he plastered the churches in Westport. My father's family came from Wicklow, Rathnew and Rathdrum. But they had emigrated to Scotland so he was born in Glasgow."
By the time Farrell was born in Manchester, the family was well settled there. "There were four of us, and I was the fourth of four boys and then my sister came along later." His four elder brothers served in the British army during the second World War. "They were all called up, not my father though, he was too old." All of them survived. He attributes the early deaths of two of them however, to those war-time experiences. Personally he has no war memories, "it was something I blocked out and just wasn't interested". Describing his father, who was a labourer, he says he was very committed to an "Irish Ireland". As a grown man Farrell recalls researching the role of the IRB. "My father was an extremely quiet man. I can remember him coughing and saying, `I was in the IRB'. I'd never known." He still seems surprised at the memory.
Sitting in the book-lined study end of his Dundrum living-room in Dublin, Farrell, father of seven with three grandchildren to his name, looks about 55 and enjoys pointing out that he will be 70 next year. Having "a gra" is a favourite expression of his and he proves to be a competent mimic when performing a recognisable Paddy Kavanagh which is quickly surpassed by an inspired performance of Eleanor Roosevelt, eyes closed, happily at song.
A compact, tidy, energetic man with a genius for timing, he steers the story of his early life along through a wealth of detail. It's a lively narrative; Farrell is a fluent talker, well used to audiences.
A beautiful green-eyed, smoky-grey cat slinks tentatively into the room. Compliments as to the animal's appearance are accepted without much enthusiasm. "Yes, well . . . There isn't much personality there though," he announces with some regret. The cat glances up, seems to shrug and abandons the scene. It is a brief diversion.
Brian Farrell first came to Ireland as an eight-year-old on holiday. But with the outbreak of war in 1939 it was decided to send him to Dublin to live with his aunt, Agnes Stokes, who ran a small dairy in Little Mary Street. "I think it was felt that I was a bit delicate and would be better off in Ireland. So off I went."
It meant a complete change of life for him, as well as a change of name. There he became known as Brian Stokes. "Aside from going to live in a new place, there was also the fact of leaving my close-knit, comfortable family and effectively becoming, at 10, an only child." Life at Strand Street Christian Brothers was another culture shock. "It was hard, I used to mooch around after school getting over the events of the day." Admitting to experiencing social distancing, Farrell points out that at that time he was still very much a small boy from Manchester. The three years he spent at Strand Street were "marking time" he says. By then he knew Dublin "extremely well."
One of the Brothers asked him if he knew where Parnell Square was and he did. "He gave me a message to bring over to a school there, Colaiste Mhuire. He did as he was asked. Soon after this he began attending that school. Now Irish was not confined to one period. "Everything was taught through Irish. I was 13 then. Even Latin was taught through Irish.
"What was I like when I was young?" Farrell pauses to think. "I was an ordinary kind of little boy - I was an altar boy. I then got it into my head," he says matter of factly, "that I had a vocation." He continues on this theme by mentioning: "I was a great follower of a radio programme called Saints You May Not Know. It always had a catch like `the Saint Who Walked Tight Ropes', that sort of thing."
On completing his Leaving Cert - "not very well, I only got one honour, it was in English" - Farrell went to the Salesians and repeated his secondary education, but this time following a British Higher Education certificate syllabus which included Irish. "It was far better, it was the equivalent of A Levels." The idea of going back to school at that time seemed an unlikely decision for Farrell. "I couldn't wait to leave school. I was very typical of a boy who wanted to be free and wanted to be earning my own money."
However, he was soon studying in the Midlands at the college in Ballinakill. He was 18 and beginning to realise that learning was more interesting than he imagined; he also discovered history. "We had a great teacher. I don't think I was a good teacher because I don't think I had sufficient eccentricity," he says thoughtfully. Having said that, it is obvious that he took teaching very seriously and is a natural debater.
According to him, many of the finest history teachers tend to be remembered as great eccentrics. From Ballinakill, he moved on to the novitiate at Beckford in Gloucestershire. "It was rural England at its most beautiful and the house was a wonderful Elizabethan building." He was by then playing Gaelic football and hurling. "I wasn't any good."
Within months of arriving there he realised he did not have a vocation. "I fitted in, but then I realised it was not for me after all. That was hard."
He left Beckford and headed to Manchester, to visit his family. It was the first time since 1939. "I remember pulling into Manchester train station and wondering would I recognise my father. I hadn't seen him for six years." Some time later he realised his real worry was whether or not his father would know him.
Now Dublin was home. He returned and began working for the wholesale company which supplied his aunt's shop. Initially it was temporary but when the man he was standing in for died suddenly, Farrell had a job. "It consisted of dealing in minute quantities of goods: eggs, flour, sugar, tiny tins of peas and so on." He also began keeping the accounts. Soon he realised there was something missing. "I needed to study and set about doing a night degree." By then the night degree was in the second year of a three-year cycle.
There was an alternative for anyone in need of a quick fix of education - an extra mural course. Farrell was fortunate enough to meet up with Father Kent, a Jesuit, in charge of the extra mural courses. "Have you thought about signing up as a day student?" he asked, adding that it cost £30 a year. Interested in a degree but having seriously limited money, the increasingly ambitious and restless Farrell seemed destined to continue working for the wholesale company. But money became less important and the notion of debt as an acceptable state became a reality.
"UCD was an absolute ball," he says. "I knew nobody" and at 22 he was about five years older than most of his fellow freshmen. "In those days we did five subjects. You had to do Latin or Greek; I did maths and logic, Irish and English - English is what I wanted to do - and to make up my fifth subject, I choose history." One of the stars of the English department in the mid-1950s was the late Roger McHugh. "He was very lively and fair. He had had a set to with Paddy Kavanagh. Or rather Kavanagh had had a go at him." The poet had apparently heckled McHugh from the floor. "The next day or whatever McHugh came in to give a lecture and it was an introduction to Kavanagh. I'll always remember him saying `the poet must be judged by the thing made'. I thought that was wonderful." History lectures proved even more exciting for Farrell. "The history department was absolute dynamite. Dudley Edwards was at his best. And so was Desmond Williams."
A member of the prosecuting team during the Nuremburg Trials, Williams was the complete historian capable of switching at ease from Napoleon, to the development of Pan Slavism, to church/State relations or the development of liberalism in Catholic Ireland, the diplomatic origins of the first World War or to any number of variations of the theme of justice in international affairs. As he had signed on late, Farrell was able to find himself a tutor - Desmond Williams. "I had little time and less money" says Farrell who was managing to be a student while continuing to work. He had also become involved in Dram Soc where he met his wife, Marie Therese Dillon.
"I was doing well in history," he says and remembers getting an essay back marked with an Alpha. "I didn't know what it was and asked someone `what's that?' I was delighted." The picture which emerges is of a vaguely eccentric character living in a hurry, the definitive late starter, still learning the ropes but apparently impressing the college administration. By the end of the first year his academic future seemed to be decided: he would pursue a degree in pure history.
By Easter of his final year, he was also engaged. Having spent a post-graduate year at Harvard in 1954, he soon developed a liking for the pleasures of post-graduate research - especially when it included the use of the Harvard Library. "They were very good to me there. And gave me a seat right beside the Dail Debates. It was the first time I had seen a full bound set of them." On returning to Ireland he was interested in emigrating to the US but accepted a secretarial job at the UCD summer school. When the appointments office became vacant, he quickly filled the job. It was the beginning of 10 years working as a college administrator. His involvement with the extra mural courses eventually led him into teaching. However, during these years Farrell was already working as a broadcaster and journalist. In 1965 UCD established a new department, politics.
It was all very new. Farrell laughs. "There were no texts." He set about correcting this. One of his early books, Chairman or Chief - the role of Taoiseach in Irish Government (1971) was the first title in a "Studies in Irish Political Culture" series published by Gill and MacMillan. In it he examined the office and the role as well as the respective careers of W.T. Cosgrave, de Valera, J.A. Costello, Lemass and Jack Lynch. The book has had a long life. Years of writing to deadlines: "I know all about journalism, and the editor who says `I don't want it good, I want it Tuesday' ", has left Farrell with an ability to work fast. But he also retains the academic's respect for research and the skill to do it efficiently.
An additional essay he has written about Cosgrave, his "leader by accident", who died in 1965, begins in a personal tone and is a good example of Farrell the historian with an intuitive sense of history at work: "We buried William T. Cosgrave on a wet day in Dublin. There was not even a tricolour on the plain, wooden coffin. The unpretentious ceremony might have marked the passing of any simple, gentle old man, laid to rest after a dutiful life of service to his family and community."
According to Farrell, "Cosgrave has remained the most elusive of Irish political figures. Ten years in office through the critical foundation years of the State assure him a place in the history books. Yet his reputation has somehow remained scaled down, his personality shadowy, and his performance in office under-rated. Cosgrave in conventional accounts has seemed almost smaller than life."
About the same time he was part of the team establishing the UCD politics department, Farrell was also anchoring a pioneering current events programme called 7 Days. Now some 30 years later he is a member of the Prime Time team. As any journalist is aware, current affairs programmes, in common with newspapers, are largely at the mercy of the news of the day.
"If there's a big story, well you have a good programme," he says. But Farrell, unlike many professional pundits, does not make easy general theatrical statements. For all his confidence and historical range of reference, he is unusually responsible. The historian in him remarks that the history of post 1920 Ireland is that of an extremely stable democratic state. "It's also the biggest political story of late 20th century Ireland." Nothing is casually dismissed for effect. Proportional Representation may be complex but, as he points out, "as a system of voting it has worked very well. It made the people interested. The Irish people are very interested in domestic politics and that can only be a good thing."
Education is a privilege as well as a right and no one knows better than Brian Farrell the need to keep it as wide as possible. "I believe in the old idea of a university as a place of learning. I don't think over-specialisation is a good thing. Education should be as wide ranging as possible."
