J.P. Donleavy: An Author and His Image

  And as you might have guessed this revered association, with its long frontage of grey stone elevations, was started by its twelve gents in the Philosophical Society Rooms of Trinity College, Dublin, in the ancient year of 1731 with the splendid motive of improving if not the manners then the agriculture of Ireland. But let there be no prejudice here, who knows, there could have been a Catholic among them. And of course this is what Horse Show week is all about. To banish, in its glow of glory, all woes and cares. But where indeed are the VIPs.

  And so one proceeds back yet another day by friendly taxi to the dignified comforts of the Shelbourne Hotel. To arise next midmorn following the grand Horse Show week ball. And then to sense action of what seems to be of a big nature. A siren and police outriders guiding someone somewhere. And by the sound it’s got to be at least the President or the Taoiseach of this fashionable little nation. But surprise of surprises. Who should it be. But a highly thought of Englishman. And certainly celebrity enough. Your actual proprietor Rocco Forte of hotel fame and his beautiful Italian wife. On their way to play host and dispense, under a great white tent at the Phoenix Park races, the anciently splendid hospitality of the Shelbourne Hotel. And where, and meek and humble of heart, unexpectedly I suddenly find I am invited. To take with the Laurent Perrier Rosé Champagne, miniature tartelettes of Foie Gras and Quails’ Eggs with Caviar. The nags are running. Hoofs sending the emerald sods flying. My pretty lady is losing my money race after race. The champagne is pouring down. And amazing, amazing. To wake up out of one’s bog trotting life. Surreptitiously wipe the cow flop off one’s heels. And find you are having such a damn good time. And got to the Horse Show at last.

  1989

  Donleavy is Better Than McEnroe

  With wry amusement mixed with some embarrassment I read this headline following the inaugural De Alfonce Tennis match which took place in France in Paris. I had first approached Virginia Wade, whom I have long regarded as being one of the most beautiful and brilliant tennis players ever to set her marvellous legs on the lawns of Wimbledon. But alas she was required to officiate as commentator at the Roland Garland French Open.

  My publishers, Editions DeNoel, then persuaded Phillipe Sollers, the distinguished author and superlative lawn tennis player, to substitute. So in the hauntingly appropriate confines of the American Church in Paris on the banks of the Seine, an audience of Paris’s beau monde assembled, and with hors d’oeuvres aplenty and liquid refreshment kindly provided by Moët et Chandon, the match commenced.

  As voices hushed and highly curious faces turned, Phillipe Sollers, without previous experience in the game, sportingly stepped out on court and then astonishingly began to wipe the parquet with me. With sweat pouring from his brow and as if born to the game, Sollers executed every shot from the De Alfonce repertoire. La Balle Flotteus, Finasserie, Le ricochet and Riposte du tac au tac, wrong footing me again and again and leaving me lax in my tracks. His each winning shot deservedly earning explosive applause from this elegant gathering of pleasantly sophisticated folk, who quaffing their champagne on the overlooking balcony sympathetically cheered as I managed a return.

  Finally when one found oneself at match point I did what I imagined McEnroe would never do at such a crucial point. I jumped up and down in rage and slammed my De Alfonce racquet on the floor and in so doing nearly amputated my toe. But it galvanized me into implacable resistance, and bitterly fighting back from two chukkas down I finally triumphed in a close match. And it is now that I take the opportunity to extend my thanks to Mr McEnroe for his inspiration, having witnessed many of this superlative gentleman’s own battles back from the jaws of defeat. And in the face of linesmen incapable of telling whether a ball bounced in or out.

  And so in fairness to Mr McEnroe and following the appearance of the above headline, I must correct the impression that I am better than McEnroe and make it known that there is little doubt that he could abysmally trash me to a pulp on the De Alfonce court. Ah. But of course remember he is my inspiration. So I would be fighting back tooth and nail using Le ricochet, Riposte du tac au tac and my two hundred mile an hour serve. Indeed now that I think of it he might not stand a chance against me on the De Alfonce court. So now I hereby therefore challenge him to a match.

  Of course I take instant comfort that De Alfonce as a game is a great leveller, giving even an inept player a chance. Overt expressions of anger and the uttering of expletives are strictly forbidden and, according to the ninth commandment of De Alfonce Tennis, Thou shalt not be rude nor scowl at the umpire. I have never spoken to nor met Mr McEnroe but have been present on many occasions when he has blown his top and expressed that certain situations might have been the ‘absolute pits’.

  In racking my American brain I cannot recall what the word ‘pits’ really implies but I gather it does not mean anything harmonious. But of course it is to these outbursts that the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships now owe their record crowds. And at such times I’d often wondered if one of the referees would ever jump down from his judge’s stand and engage McEnroe in violent fisticuffs. And who knows, with the audience pouring out of their seats to take sides.

  Now happily nothing like a boxing match has ever happened and I suspect mostly because underneath it all, as are most talented people, Mr McEnroe is a perfect gentleman and person of compassion and sensibility and such qualities are never entirely hidden even in the most violent of verbal outbursts. In fact I am highly suspicious of Mr McEnroe not only being possessed of a brilliant intelligence which usually comes with a personality quick to irritation and anger but also of being extremely erudite. And when I do see him fleetingly going by in the flesh, I am always amazed that his arms are not full of books instead of tennis racquets.

  Once called specially to witness Mr McEnroe being interviewed I was equally a little surprised that instead of references to Sartre, Rilke, Samuel Beckett or James Joyce, never mind Kafka, he is instead discussing disguised lobs and the wristy flick used in a cross court passing shot. And then when he’s out taking umbrage on centre court I’m always expecting him to accuse line judges of being illiterate philistines instead of having bad eyesight.

  Now of course, as happens to most of us, the fact that one day Mr McEnroe may think of retiring from lawn tennis, and as the playing of De Alfonce relies so heavily on intellectual ability, one does plan to invite him to be the number one De Alfonce player in the world. In achieving this he would displace the present top five, namely Evans Farley, Ron MacDonald, Michael Bernhard, Jules Almand and my son Philip Donleavy.

  Amazingly Mr McEnroe may have already actually seen De Alfonce played as it is upon the court where it was in fact first invented, in the gymnasium of the New York Athletic Club and where Mr McEnroe was thought to be once seen playing basketball. The sight of him made the above mentioned De Alfonce players extremely nervous concerning their rankings and that McEnroe might have chosen this as an opportunity to size up their styles.

  Over the years one has recognized certain endearing qualities in Mr McEnroe and the one certain thing that I do know about him from my spies is that he deplores being recognized and accosted while pursuing his privacy. Indeed one hopes that he will not take amiss this present reference to him. But there is no doubt that De Alfonce, the superlative game of eccentric champions, would fit McEnroe like a glove. For, if I’m not mistaken McEnroe as a name is as Irish as they come. And as one knows this ethnic minority does not take shit from anyone, even the big, strong or all powerful. It has been long recognized in New York City where I grew up, that even the Mafia, no slouches at looking after themselves, were known to be frightened of the Irish, and that in an argument the Irish never waste time to go away to plot to kill you, but always did it right there on the spot.

  As the Honourable Founder of De Alfonce one hereby extends an invitation to McEnroe to challenge the winner who emerges victorious out of the world’s top six. And believe me it will be a momentously competitive match. With its serves at two hund
red miles an hour, its swerves and slices, riposte, parry and the unique nurt ball, which when struck descends to remain motionless on your opponent’s court, McEnroe is bound to take a while to get into the swing of the game before he manages to hit aces across his opponent’s bow. And surely he needs a change of ambience.

  One always, each new season, going to Wimbledon, watches from the side lines and wonders as the players’ faces get older that my God here they are once more throwing the ball up to serve and perhaps for the billionth time and surely they must, if they think of it, feel just that little bit foolish. And one now urges these great stars to throw down their cumbersome lawn tennis racquets and pick up the feather light one of De Alfonce. And we invite them all to join us soon. Including McEnroe. Tennis owes him a great deal and he would certainly be, as are all De Alfonce players, an eccentric champion.

  1989

  The Manly Art of Knocking Senseless

  If you’re wondering if any violence is going on in Dublin during the cease fire, let me tell you, there’s been just a bit more than a little. On this July balmy Sunday fists are flying at the venue called The Point, down at the mouth of the Liffey River where it begins to flow out into Dublin Bay. This once gloomiest part of Dublin. Of sad farewell to those on the night mail boat to England. And where the mooing cattle on the hoof went sadly as well.

  Along these bereft quays passing the moored ships was often a nightly walk I took from my rooms at a usually deserted Trinity College. But these days back up in the city all is en fête. Dress codes a distant thing of the past. In the refined precincts of the Shelbourne Hotel, once the hang out of the fox hunting élite, there goes across the lobby instead of your human hawthorn a traffic of tourists’ tread. In this former claret capital where all the polite formalities were once observed. And in a pair of pink shorts and blue baseball cap it’d be thought the balance of your mind was more than temporarily disturbed and you’d be gently arrested for your own mutual safety as if there were two of you.

  Ah but on this Sunday where once the church bells rang out across the streets in the quietude, culture has taken over and nearly every inch of the fence around the green foliage of St Stephen’s Green is covered in works of art. Long known as a writers’ city, there are now brush wielder artists everywhere. And none of them are half bad. Indeed there are nearly too many to be so damn good that you’d have a long walk to find someone that damn bad. With bargains galore, these practitioners sit waiting calmly for a sale. Anything is available. From pure abstraction to the Florentine academic to brush strokes of naked nudity. And, folks, that latter says it all. Carnality is here and seems sure to stay.

  But I am in town down from the country to witness the manly art of pugilistic self defence. Or should this be better called these modern days the art of knocking senseless. But blood sport though the fight game is, there is nothing quite like the social life it engenders. At which this present great newspaper, the Independent, came nearly not to be represented. Frank Maloney, the distinguished promoter, not realizing that yours truly was a friendly and not a poison pen attending, my appearance much softened in the company of rock singer composer Rachel Murray, Dublin’s Dark Angel, her sombre voice known for her dirges and melodic anthems to doom. And following in the wake of her stately tall dark beauty, one was smilingly welcomed everywhere. Able to close up pick out the flattened noses of the retired pugilists, and to shake hands with the more unidentifiable collection of these appreciative gentlemen ringside who are aficionados of the sport.

  At eight p.m., America is waiting across the seas to watch the main bout on television. But first lights flashing and booming out is the music of Shane McGowan, we are to see Kevin McBride versus Steve Garber. McBride, six foot five and seventeen stone, is the new Irish heavyweight and Frank Maloney’s prodigy. Unbeaten in his string of sixteen fights, his lungs whistle as he plunges in his punches. And unfolds a non stop battle of punishment absorbing, energy spending sweat flying from start to finish and a more bruising contest you’ve never seen, his opponent Garber nearly giving as good as he got, the brutal battering ending in the seventh round with an astonishingly intrepid Garber from Bradford finally on the canvas. If McBride or Barber had to prove they were tough enough to both endure long careers in this sport this was their imprimatur.

  Now let me put a few observations forward. The first time I was ever substantially impressed by Frank Bruno was in the first professional fight he lost, when one could see this man finally obtaining and remaining as a long unbeatable world champion. But somehow English fighters and Irish ones, too, seem to take pride in being hit. And now as Lewis’s opponent enters the ring and I can close up see his tree trunk powerful legs holding up his chunky physique, I’m wondering wow, will he whistle upwards a lucky and fatal left or right on Lewis’s jaw. By his serious mien one knows this Australian’s tough and that he can see in his own surname the prospect of being the upsetting underdog in this fight. And sure enough out he comes from his corner in fiery attack his head down like a charging bull. The strong man stares at middle area Lewis whistling punches as he attempts to adapt the poise necessary to hit such a smaller opponent.

  Ah, but here is demonstrated the best of all boxing lessons called don’t let your self get hit, while you wait to hit. And Lewis the calmest of calm expressions on his face manoeuvring out of the way of bull was like a scientist examining a variant in a molecule. Looking up from ring side where the bloody cuts, bruises and lumps from the thump and crush of punches are immediate to the ear and eye, one witnessed between Fortune’s flurries Lewis’s carefully selected punches. These aimed slicing through the air with the sleek power and purpose of a shark’s jaws.

  But there was no question that up against a tall tower of skilful strength a fearless Fortune showing little sense of defence is also his own tower of strength. And Lewis’s almost leisurely but devastating final punches uppercutting and sending your man across the ring and down, but who, leaping to his feet, was ready instantly to go on. The contest stopped by the referee to the boos of the crowd who wanted to see more of this weight lifting tough Australian fighter and of course they will, courtesy of this referee’s timely intervention in favour of safety than to respond to a cry from the crowd. And Frank Maloney, as he should have been, well pleased.

  But let us not overlook a sign of the times. I found myself becoming aware that I was seated between two attractive women both of whom seemed to be experts on every nuance of the manly art. To my left Cliona Foley, the distinguished lady reporter whose subtle fight opinions one listens to with awe as her fluent gems and acerbic observations arose from an encyclopaedic knowledge of the fight game. And on my right, Dark Angel’s matter of fact summing up, who never at a fight before accurately had already predicted the round ending the first two fights. Between bouts I then retired with the gracefully swan necked sultry star of doom and dirge, who nevertheless is never less than marvellously charming, and a stunning contrast to this night. Then as one stood with her over a beer and popcorn, didn’t one of the very nearby natives offer his two cents. Who with an amiable honesty said he was laggards drunk but that she mustn’t think of him as just a thick Irishman because he had a PhD. And this news one was glad for at least it could mean this conversation might not end up in a fight, and he had the intelligence to ask.

  ‘Now what is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen doing at a boxing match.’

  Holed up high up in the old Shelbourne Hotel, the Dublin mountains to the south appear by dawn misted purple and always reminding Dubliners that they are near enough for their own two legs to carry them there. And here in this comfort one has to be careful not to accuse the towels of not being fluffy enough or the toilet tissue sufficiently soft, as one is reminded of the now Sir Rocco Forte, who is no mean handler of his own fists and a marathon runner to boot who, for an impertinence, might pop you one on the snozzle. But by God, he’s got to know about the log jam at the check out front desk of the Shelbourne around noon next day
that would crucify you with anxiety if you had to catch a plane or train. But with my car parked nearby in the RIAC to take me home I wasn’t troubled in the least.

  But it was my last Dublin treat to witness an astute young man fielding the demands of this mob of customers and a constantly ringing phone. And not, mind you, all the hotel’s fault, for the crowd growing as it collected, there was a fluently English speaking German gentleman reciting what he had from the mini bar while he then went on to check every item after item listed on his bill and actually winning adjustments here and there. Folk looking at their watches. The young astute gentleman, a prince of patience and diplomacy, continues to field this intrepid German’s ad infinitum enquiries as he chooses items he now wants charged to someone else. Finally the prince of patience thanks me for my own, which of course to me isn’t that much of a problem as I am busy scribbling some of these very words on a counter perfectly high for writing comfort. Hoping Frank Maloney will again come back to Dublin and bring the best in world fisticuffs with him. Remember now peace reigns supreme everywhere in Ireland except in the boxing ring.