An Irishman's Diary

THE CASE of the "Moscow Murphys" reminds me of an interview John Le Carré gave once explaining the inspiration for his chief protagonist in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Le Carré – real name David Cornwell – was working for British intelligence at the time. But it was during a routine diplomatic job that he spotted the character who would become Alec Leamas.

“I was sitting alone in London airport, minding my own business, when a very rough-edged, kind-of Trevor Howard figure walked in and sat himself at the bar beside me. He fished in his pocket, put down a great handful of change in heaven-knows-which currencies and denominations, and then said: “A large scotch”. Between him and the barman, they just sorted out the money. He drank the scotch and left.

“I thought I picked up a very slight Irish accent. But there was a deadness in the face and he looked, as we would have said in the spy world in those days, as if he’d had the hell posted out of him. It was the embodiment of somebody, suddenly, that I’d been looking for . . . I never spoke to him, but he was my guy, Alec Leamas, and I knew he was going to die at the Berlin Wall.”

Thus this fleeting encounter set the tone for what is still considered the classic Cold War novel. In the book, Leamas is credited with having a vaguely Irish appearance, although like much else about him, details are left to our imagination.

Perhaps he also has a false Irish passport somewhere. Or maybe the vogue for such documents had not yet arisen when the book was set, circa 1962.

In any case the Hibernian sub-plot, tenuous to begin with, thickened when it came to filming the novel a few years later. As we all know, Hibernia means “land of winter”. And although it was a Welshman, Richard Burton, who was chosen to be the cinematic Leamas, the plum supporting role of playing Cold-War Berlin fell, naturally, to Dublin.

For several weeks in the late winter of 1965, the lead-grey skies of the Irish capital deputised for those of East Germany and, in the opinion of director Martin Ritt, were more convincing than the real thing. Dublin’s architecture helped too.

Scenes were shot in Cork Street, North Strand, and elsewhere. But the star performer was Smithfield: a run-down plaza north of the Liffey, where the fulcrum of Cold War-Berlin, Checkpoint Charlie, was recreated.

It was here that the film’s opening scene was shot on an obligingly wet Dublin night, as a stony-faced Leamas watched his last surviving agent cycle unsteadily across the slippery cobbles of Smithfieldplatz, with its barbed-wire and high walls, only to be caught in searchlights and shot by border guards.

Contrary to what local cynics might have thought, it cost money to make Dublin look sufficiently grim: £8,000 in the case of the Smithfield set. Even so, the city itself undoubtedly contributed to the look. As one review put it: “What finally impresses [is] the sheer seediness of so much of the film, with characters, buildings, and landscapes lent convincingly grubby life by [Oswald Morris’s] excellent monochrome camera work.”

There were some real-life dramas, and indeed tragedies, behind the movie-making. Among the visitors to Dublin was Elizabeth Taylor, then newly married (for the fifth time) to Burton. She had no part in the film, but found herself having to make a statement to gardaí after her chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce was involved in a fatal accident with an elderly pedestrian. To compound the misfortune, she and her driver had just returned from Paris where they were attending the funeral of the driver’s son, killed in a “fairground shooting accident”.

Less serious, but also involving a Garda investigation, was a sequel involving Burton’s co-star, Claire Bloom. As a result of her time filming in Ireland, she bought a holiday home in Connemara: from which, in early 1966, burglars stole jewellery and her husband’s passport.

It’s unclear whether the thieves were ever identified. But despite the involvement of a passport, intelligence agents can probably be ruled out. That’s unless they were hoping that one of their undercover operatives could escape notice while posing as Bloom’s husband, Rod Steiger, who, as a result of the burglary, had to get an emergency passport from the US Dublin embassy so he could fly home later that week to attend the Oscars.

SMITHFIELD IS NOT among the venues for the inaugural Dublin Garden Squares Day, which takes place tomorrow. It lacks the requisite shape, for one thing; although so do the five squares featured – Parnell, Merrion, Mountjoy, Fitzwilliam, and St Stephen’s Green – which are all rectangles, more or less. They are also, however, gardens: which is the main focus of the Dublin Civic Trust’s event.

The day's many attractions range from a hot-air balloon launch to a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (details at www.dublincivictrust.ie). There will also be guided tours of all venues, such as the one in Merrion Square, to be given by a conservation architect from Dublin City Council. Those interested are asked to meet "at the Oscar Wilde statue" at 11am. And if, while waiting, you are approached by a man carrying a copy of Timemagazine and saying "Excuse me, could we have met in Malta in 1999?" the advice is to just ignore him.