LIKE Michael Hills (Letters, Monday), I first met my old friend "The Crack", as he was then known, in Ulster. It was the late 1970s, or thereabouts. And not only was The Crack still using the original spelling of his name, he still spoke with an accent - from the north of England or possibly Scotland - that betrayed his etymological origins, writes Frank McNally
I gathered that "Crack" meant "gossip" or "conversation" - which was apt, because he was a great story-teller who could hold the attention of an entire pub. Not that he frequented bars much back then. In fact, if I remember correctly, he didn't drink at all. You could have The Crack anywhere those days, even in a Free Presbyterian bible school.
It must have been a decade later that I met The Crack again, this time in Connemara. He had relocated to the area some years before and was by now a fluent Irish speaker, wearing a fáinne on his Aran sweater and contributing regularly on Seán Bán Breathnach's radio show.
He had recently bought a house near Spiddal, where he lived with a Dutch-born new age traveller who had also gone native. She was a very good fiddle player, I remember, and local wags had taken to calling them "Ceol agus Craic". But, as I learned, "Craic" was now the way my old friend preferred to spell his name.
He was even better company than before, up to a point. Along with his conversational skills, he had developed the all-round sense of fun with which "Craic" has since become synonymous. But when I made the mistake of referring to him by his old spelling, he gave me a lecture about how he no longer used his "slave name". I formed the impression he had drink on him.
By the mid-1990s, The Craic had moved to Dublin. I often met him in southside bars, where he communicated exclusively in English. And somehow, now that it was shorn of a Gaeltacht context, his Hibernicised name looked like an affectation. Indeed, the spelling "Craic" began to set my teeth on edge, rather like that sound that AA Roadwatch announcers make (twice) during the word "roundabout".
At such moments, however, I would think of Micheál Mac Liammóir, another Irish phenomenon who was born in England, but who moved here and liked it so much he changed his name and accent and gradually reinvented himself.
Maybe it was only in southern Ireland, I reasoned, that The Crack's personality had found full expression - ranging, as it now does, from a capacity for story-telling, through a fondness for practical jokes, to a full-blown anarchic tendency that can be highly infectious. English people might still "have the crack". But only Irish people can be prevailed upon to do things "for the craic": often at great risk to themselves and others.
In this sense, the Hibernicisation of the spelling seemed justifiable. Besides, was it not also a small revenge for the British Ordnance Survey of 1833, which anglicised the spelling of Irish placenames, turning every Baile Beag in Ireland into Ballybeg in an act of linguistic cleansing? Considered in that light, the "Craic" was a reprisal with no casualties. How could anyone object?
By now, in any case, my old friend was internationally famous. Everywhere you went in the world, taxi drivers - once they learned where you were from - would mention three names: "Bono", "Roy Keane", and "The Craic". They had probably never met Bono or Roy Keane, but they had always met The Craic: invariably in a pub.
I would be proud to hear this, and sad too. I just wished my friend didn't waste so much of his time drinking. Even The Craic needs down-time, I thought. But he seemed to have become a victim of his own publicity.
After that, I got married and had kids, and another decade would pass before I met The Crack again. Then, one day recently, I bumped into him at the airport, and it was immediately clear he had cleaned up his act. He was wearing a sharp suit, carried a briefcase, and confided in me that he hadn't touched a drink in five years.
In between taking multiple calls on his mobile, he explained that he was now a self-employed consultant, specialising in the tourist sector; and that although teetotal himself, he also had shares in a chain of Irish-themed pubs in Germany. In fact he was about to board a flight to Munich, to open another one.
I inquired tentatively if he still spelled his name the Irish way (hoping, like Michael Hills, to hear otherwise). And he said he did, but that he no longer thought if it as a name, so much as a "brand". Ever since attending an "inspirational" lecture on interpersonal skills, given by Celia Larkin, he added, he now thought of himself as the CEO "of a business called me".
But it wasn't all about him, he insisted. "The Craic" was an important part of the image of "Ireland Inc". Together, they had huge potential in the global marketplace and it was his duty to help tap it. He would love to tell me more, he added, but he had a plane to catch, "going forward".
With that he dashed for the gate. As I watched him leave, I was glad to see that my old friend had turned his life around. Even so, I had to admit he was more fun when he was drinking.