I was once accused, by a drunken Fianna Fáil councillor on the way out of an árdfheis, of trying to look like Dick Walsh. Now, trying to write as well as the redoubtable Dick, who was then political correspondent of The Irish Times, was something I certainly attempted.
But trying to look like him?
And yet, there were physical similarities. Dick suffered from spondylitis, which caused calcification and curvature of the spine in his later years. My youth was spent in an English hospital, receiving treatment for scoliosis, which also caused spinal curvature. So we were both, as far as Haughey hard-liners were concerned, twisted. But to suggest this was a voluntary effort on my part was a GUBU notion in keeping with the times.
Dick relished the offence his discourses on the actions and policies of successive Haughey governments caused to traditional Fianna Fáilers. They felt he should have been on their side. Hadn't his family been Fianna Fáil? Wasn't he a relation of Des O'Malley? And hadn't he admired Jack Lynch? Loyalty to the party caused them to damn Dick, rather than question their support for a corrupt leader.
Dick found the unexplained wealth of Charles Haughey as offensive as the bully-boy tactics he used to control the Fianna Fáil organisation. Gombeen politics had come to town with the catch-cry: "If you've got an inside track, run on it". And as the rot developed between business and politics, Dick railed against political hypocrisy, low standards and the growing inequality of society. A socialist, republican and trade unionist, he was an unwavering critic of the Provisional IRA and the use of violence for political purposes.
It's all there in his political columns, which became compulsive reading every Saturday in The Irish Times. Gerry Smyth has chosen a selection of the topics he addressed between 1990 and 2002 and they have been handsomely reproduced by TownHouse. They provide a clear picture of a society in transition and of a journalist determined to foster the emergence of an egalitarian culture.
Dick Walsh had a marvellous memory. Casual meetings of 40 years earlier, with details of the pub, the street and the content of conversations, could be recalled with the same ease as important political events or pivotal football or hurling matches (he had hurled with conviction in his younger years).
He was a Clare man to the marrow. Cratloe and his days on the Clare Champion always figured in his reminiscences. He had an abiding interest in, and concern for, people. When you heard him talk - and he talked incessantly in smoky, late-night pubs - you felt there wasn't a townland in the country that had escaped his attention. That interest, linked to a sharp intelligence, a wonderful facility with words and an enduring rage against the abuse of power, made him a great journalist.
In a foreword to this collection of his political columns, John McGahern remarks that they remain as fresh as the day they appeared because of the quality of the writing and the way in which they challenge sloppy habits of thought. The style is highly individual. Mixing the language of the street and field and public house with clear English, he says, makes it immediately engaging. The nonchalance is illusory, masking a deadly seriousness..
The changes that were sweeping Ireland - and they are still under way - were observed, McGahern writes, "through the eyes of a fascinating political intelligence that believed passionately in freedom and democracy, its institutions and safeguards. That he also had a social agenda of his own, a vision of what constituted a just society, gave an edge to everything he wrote." Geraldine Kennedy recalls his support for young journalists, his sense of fun, his loyalty and his commitment to editorial standards and ethical integrity within The Irish Times, which she now edits.
Dick was fierce in his criticisms. Senior journalists, as well as politicians, felt the edge of his tongue - and he had a devastating turn of phrase. Diplomatic niceties were not for him. Plain speaking, even to the point of giving offence, was something he practised with increasing vigour as he grew older. Time, he felt, was not on his side.
As an economic migrant, Dick worked in London as a young man and was radicalised by that experience. He enjoyed telling a story in which Eamon de Valera and Peadar O'Donnell argued over emigration. The former Taoiseach protested: "But a million people would still have left the country if you had been in government, Peadar.
"Ah yes," replied O'Donnell, "but they would have been a different million".
Dick's friends came from all walks of life. They were entertained with style in the open house that his wife Ruth and the family maintained in Bray. His writings are suffused with the need to create a fair and caring society. And that concern spilled over into his love of animals and of life in general. His home was bursting with rescued cats and dogs. There was even a bantam cock, and sluggish-moving carp in the garden.
There was no mention in his columns of the cats that chewed through his oxygen supply line and almost killed him, or of Hoover, the duvet-burrowing dog. But they, too, were part of Dick's life. I miss him.
Dick Walsh Remembered, Selected Columns from The Irish Times, 1990-2002, is published by TownHouse at €11.99.