April
2003 Issue 58.
JACK HARTE life member
by John F Deane
pic by tony
quinn
L to R Conor Kostick IWU chairman, Jack Harte, and John F Deane
Tribute delivered by John F Deane on 22 March 2002 on the occasion of
the conferring of life membership of the Irish Writers Union on Jack
Harte.
In
his ground-breaking collection of short stories, Murphy in the Underworld,
published in 1986, Jack created a character out of his own experiences
as a Trade Union member and chairman. Murphy is dead, and is wandering
the Underworld; he has learned one may acquire a pass on November Night
allowing a soul to visit Earth again just for that night. Murphy is
delighted; some unfinished business could be seen to. He was told, in
Hades, he had to fill in an application form. So he went along to "First
Applications", an office, with a hatch, and a queue, in one of
the long Corridors of Hades. Eventually, when he got to the hatch, he
was told "You're in the wrong office. You need to go to the Special
Applications section and ask for Form D.23". Oh yes, don't we all
recognise the situation. Eventually he finds this section and the office
and asks for Form D.23. And is told "I'm afraid D.23 is not the
correct form for you. . .
.What you must do is this: you must go to "First Applications"
and fill in two forms, one for each of the two places you wish to visit."
And so on. And so on.
The wit of the story, along with its humanity and supernatural realism,
opened up to me a whole new approach to short story writing; I learned
from Jack Harte that fiction is fiction and may move, and moves best,
in realms where reason and mere realism are a waste of time. And it
showed me, in realistic terms, that officialdom and the corridors of
power, are not the places to go when you want things done.
In the 70s Jack Harte was chairman of the County Dublin branch of the
TUI and it was there he learned the value of unions. Also in the 70s
a group of us, including myself and Jack Harte, Conleth O'Connor and
others, set up another kind of union, Profile Press, to publish new
fiction and poetry in this country. From this I developed the notion
of Poetry Ireland, a kind of poets' union, to establish poetry on a
respectable, and paid, footing in Ireland. That happened in 1979 and
Jack Harte was one of the great hearteners of the task. Around then,
too, we made an effort to revive an ailing and out-of-touch Irish PEN
club, hoping to move it into areas of action that other countries in
International PEN were involved in. For the first time in many years,
an Irish writer took part in a PEN meeting abroad; that was in Lyons.
It was there I met Uffe Harder, of the Danish Writers Union, and he
invited myself, Jack Harte and Eithne Strong, to do readings in several
places in Denmark. That tour was one of immense excitement and revelation.
I remember at Louisiana in Denmark, a crowd of Danish listeners relished
every nuance of Jack's story, "Murphy in the Underworld",
their awareness of the curlicues of torturous meanderings one has to
undertake to get things done. We were astonished and awed at the Danish
network of buildings, unions and groups devoted to the promotion of
writing. One night, Jack and I sat "on the bridge below the town,"
the town being Viborg, the year 1982, and discussed the possibility
of an Irish Writers' Union, and an Irish Writers' Centre.
Murphy continued: It was a long tedious affair getting through the queue
in the First Applications section. But Murphy made it at last. "I
would like two forms please," said he to the clerk. "Nobody
gets two forms" declared the clerk with a slow, deliberate and
absolute shake of his head. Murphy gave up in despair. When he emerged
from the Administration Wing into the Main Cavern of Hades, he threw
himself down dejectedly along the wall and sat brooding. "It will
be November Night shortly," said a soul, who was sitting near him,
more to himself than to Murphy. "What!" exclaimed Murphy.
"It couldn't be!" "It's as near as dam'it" Said
the other. "My God, the time flies down here," gasped Murphy.
In spite of his failure to get the pass, the shackles fall anyway from
Murphy's soul and he gets to return to earth. So much for Administration,
for forms, and for regulations. What is needed is imagination. And both
Murphy in the story and Jack Harte in real life, had a great abundance
of imagination.
Imagination, generosity and perseverance saw Jack Harte introducing
the first Writer in Residence in this country when, as headmaster of
Lucan Vocational School, he appointed Joe Jackson to that position,
using a Community Employment scheme that was available to schools. This
was in the year 1985/86 and part of that scheme was to include a secretary
to help with the work. This secretary helped Jack to draw up a list
of names for a possible Writers' Union. It was this kind of tenacity
and courage, as well as his imaginative approach to writing in every
area, that finally got both a union and centre launched at the end of
1986. On the first of January 1987 the Irish Writers' Union was launched.
When Murphy gets back to Hades he wishes to find his mother. A simple
enough task, you'd think, but you must remember the model administration
we have already encountered. "We do keep a record of all who are
admitted," replied the Superintendent. "But unfortunately,
due to shortage of staff, we have not yet been able to file the admission
cards in any kind of order. If you wish you can go through the cards.
However, it would probably be more advisable to search for herself.
You see, even if you came across her card it would only confirm that
she was here, it would be of no assistance in finding her." Murphy
could not contain his irritation. "What's the bloody use of this
infernal Civil Service if you can't do something as simple as check
if my mother is here? It's all bullshit as far as I can see. I spent
the best part of a year queuing up to get a pass for November Night,
and when the time came I found that I was able to go off without any
pass at all." "You went to the Upperworld without a pass!"
cried the Superintendent rising in horror off his seat. "I see
now that it's one of these anarchists I'm dealing with. . ."
Imagination, generosity in spending such energy on a system that will
be of more help to others than to himself, and tenacity, such are the
virtues required to get a Union and a Centre up and running. I will
not go into all the difficulties Jack encountered en route; suffice
it to say, without rancour, that the Arts Council did not help, and
(in parenthesis) see now how Poetry Ireland, having grown to such a
pitch as to serve poetry throughout the whole country, is again foiled
by officialdom in its attempts to acquire a full-time premises. Through
the good offices of Anthony Cronin who had a hold of a powerful ear
at the time, state buildings were examined as possible centres for the
writers' centre. In 1987 Jack worked to get lottery funding for Cullenswood
House, Pearse's House, in Ranelagh and he was allocated £100,000,
but not the building. He wandered the city, like Murphy wandering in
Hades, until he saw the old College of Art and Design that once belonged
to Dublin VEC. he discovered the building was now leased to Dublin tourism,
to form part of a Writers Museum, valuable for tourism, of course, and
to the safely dead writers, but not much use to living and working writers.
There were two houses, Jack was informed by Matt McNulty, then head
of Dublin Tourism and with the Lottery's £100,000 a deal was struck:
Ireland had its first Irish Writers' Centre. Thanks to these efforts
writing in Ireland has grown more self-assured, more public, more successful.
"The procedure of issuing passes for November Night is the basis
of our whole Administration" said the Superintendent, getting tensely
emotional, "and the Administration is the one thing which gives
order and meaning to life in Hades. You anarchists will sneer at us;
you will try to subvert our credibility..... Note that the Administration
Corridor is going to replace the Main Cavern as the focal point of the
Underworld. That's what order and progress are about. That's what you're
undermining when you go to the Upperworld without a pass." "As
far as I'm concerned you can stick your order and progress up your -
" Murphy checked himself against the use of a temporalism."
It is clear, and never more so that in these days of sorrow and anguish
over the war in Iraq, and over our own government's insistence on the
dangers of changing the rules on the use of Shannon, that administration
and rules and order serve nothing more than holding things in check,
not allowing space for imagination and therefore for growth, change
and development. It is thanks to Jack Harte that so much change growth
and development has taken place in writing in Ireland, across the board,
and it is thanks to his own imaginative courage and commitment that
writing itself, through the influence of the unique style of Jack Harte's
fiction, and the Irish Writers' Centre and Irish Writers' Union, through
the influence of his initial courage, labours and idealism, are flourishing.
John F. Deane
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