OPINION:NOEL BROWNE, that difficult, sometimes awkward left-wing TD who left his mark on 20th-century politics, wrote a marvellous autobiography in the 1980s, Against the Tide. I read it while living in England, which is perhaps partly why it left a particular impression on me. Or at least one particular impression.
Browne was born into an Ireland very different to today’s – recession or not. It was an Ireland of massive inequalities of post-colonial hang-ups, an
Ireland in which, nonetheless, men and women of high motivation and great principle were trying to fashion a better place for their fellow citizens of the new Free State.
It was a fairly grim place for many, the Browne family included. Both his parents died of TB when he was a child, and in 1929 he was sent to England to be raised by what in effect were English foster parents. He spent much of his childhood in Eastbourne, a Victorian seaside town in Sussex, and later went to secondary school in Old Windsor. Both places are, in different ways, quintessentially English.
And so Noel Browne grew up with an understanding of the English – their likes, dislikes and societal values. As a young man, he returned to Dublin where, funded by another generous benefactor who paid his medical student fees, he became a doctor, eventually specialising in psychiatry.
It was as a doctor-politician, of course, that he made his greatest contribution when, as minister for health in 1947, he began the process that all but eradicated TB from Ireland, thereby saving hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives. He crashed in flames in 1951 when he attempted to bring in universal free healthcare, particularly for mothers and their children, and fell foul of the Roman Catholic Church.
But all those years later in Against the Tide, Browne remembered to say thanks to the English. He wrote of their essential decency and generosity and, if memory serves me right (because I don’t have his memoir to hand), their tolerance. When I read the book while living in London, that point struck me as being absolutely true.
Living among English but swimming in a great London
soup of South Africans and Australians, Afro-Caribbean families trying to break through, and, of course, Scots and the Welsh, the Irish (me included) were accepted and allowed, simply, to get on with it. One’s background was not a barrier: in fact, being Irish was a plus – the affection the English have for the Irish is real and persistent.
Fast forward to sitting in one of those Dublin 4 pubs that likes to cater for the rugby crowd at the start of the season; me and my (English) wife and my motorbike pal and his (English) wife were looking forward, fingers crossed, to the French game at Croke Park. The Italian-England match was about to start.
The Italian anthem rang out on the TV and then, when the next one was about to start, the sound was turned off. Players and spectators mouthed God Save the Queen in silence. If it was a joke I didn’t get it, and the two English women didn’t either.
But both recognised the syndrome; both are familiar with similar casual slights based on their nationality. Anti-English racism (to slightly misuse the term) remains the only strain of the virus thoughtlessly acceptable in 21st-century Ireland.
It was great to see how everyone behaved well again on Saturday. The first occasion two years ago remains a truly memorable moment, a really great occasion for anyone lucky enough to have been there. This time I watched it on telly with my brother-in-law and his wife in Norfolk. He’s as English as they come – he even likes to watch the royals go to church on Christmas morning in Sandringham.
On Saturday, he sat watching his team being beaten, wearing a green Irish rugby shirt and smiling broadly.
We should be more generous, and more often, towards our nearest neighbours.