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CHAPTER 8

DUBLIN DIARY 1, 1973

I always keep a pocket-diary where I occasionally enter comments about places I have been or people I have met and I have referred to these diaries throughout these Memories. When I worked in an office, I naturally had an Appointments Diary and, in writing the chapter about my time as Director of the National Gallery, I have used those diaries as aides-memoires. But I have never actually written a diary except for about six months in 1973. At the time I was working in the National Gallery of Ireland and living on Rathgar Road in Dublin. It was a period when I was enjoying making friends in the Dublin art world and, in my first formal job, embarking on my own career.

9 January 1973: Today James White was all fussed as Father Barrett¹ wrote a rude letter saying he wanted to resign from the Association of Irish Art Historians (of which I am Secretary) because the meetings were never held at a time when he could attend. Also complaining that I had not notified him of the correct date of the meeting; which was a lie.

Lunch at Ted Smyth’s.² Odd lunch of cheese and bread and stuff of which I got very little even though I was hungry. A lot of fresh young Third Secretaries from Foreign Affairs including quite a nice girl called Clare somebody.³ Charles Lysaght,⁴ of whom I had heard much also there and Brian McCarthy⁵ whom I had only met once before. He works in Trinity Library and is v. unpopular in many quarters. He was pleasant to me though.

Tonight Phil McMaster and Bibi Plunkett called for about an hour. Both very difficult to talk to. I suspect because it is more Bohemian not to talk. She called my back room Rothschild Green – as it is almost the same colour as a Rothschild flat in London. She also said that Aggie Leslie,⁶ who now lives with Maurice Craig,⁷ claims to have been the first woman to appear nude on the London stage – and move. A good story at any rate. Aunt Polly rang to ask me what issue of Country Life my article had appeared in. Uncle Hubert⁸ came to the Gallery with Godfrey and Cecil so I invited them to have tea.

10 January: Tonight Caroline and Andrew O’Connor who is a restorer in the Gallery invited me to dinner to meet his father, Patrick O’Connor,⁹ as I am to research the grandfather, Andrew O’Connor the sculptor. PO’C has something of a scandalous reputation in Dublin and his name is not popular with everyone as he reputedly smuggled, or some such, Guardi pictures out of Bantry House at the time that he was Curator of the Municipal Gallery. I knew I would be in for some treats if I handled him properly. He is very charming and jolly – looking the part with a longish beard of grey and flowing hair. He is quite a raconteur but sometimes incredibly vulgar and uses atrocious language but for all that v. good company. He overestimates the importance of everything – including himself. A picture is always a £20 picture or else a Velázquez. And, supposedly, Benedict Nicolson¹⁰ or Christopher Wright¹¹ have never published anything without PO’C seeing it first and giving his advice. He was divorced a month ago in Tunbridge Wells. I asked him if he had had to spend a night in a Brighton hotel with a chambermaid and a private detective at the keyhole, but he said he didn’t bother with any of that nonsense. I think his wife was called Anne and she apparently knew all sorts of people and was beloved by a lot of homosexual young men including John Gielgud, whom I would hardly refer to as young.

PO’C talked about his appointment to the Municipal. Patrick Kavanagh the poet needed cash and decided to go for the job. PO’C coached him – ‘there are thirty-nine Lane pictures, etc.’ – for the interview. James White was also a candidate. But due to some trickery the first interview and appointment was cancelled. For the second interview, PO’C decided to go for the job himself as he needed cash too. Bodkin¹² was on the interviewing committee and others whom I can’t remember. They asked him how many Lane Pictures there were: thirty-nine; name five of them, which PO’C did – the most obscure five. A Dublin Corporation man asked ‘what about Manet’s Concert aux Tuileries?’ PO’C explained, ‘lovely picture, but not a Lane Picture’.¹³ They asked him to read a passage in French which they suspected all good curators should be able to speak. PO’C of course was fluent having been brought up in France. Anyway, he got the job, hands down, and Patrick Kavanagh remained penniless. He spoke of Terence de Vere White. At one time PO’C had put forward a picture of some lady’s ‘ass’ nude by Orpen for the Friends of the National Collections to buy at £200. TdeVW pointed out that the Municipal Gallery already had lots of Orpens and turned the picture down. Lady Bare-ass (in fact Lady Glenavy) promptly sold the picture to America at a fantastic sum.

He brought up the subject of the Guardi paintings himself. He was approached by the Bank of Ireland (the Bantry House Trustees) to buy the pictures which he did with advice as to fair prices, etc. from both Christie’s and Sotheby’s and London dealers. He sold the pictures (save three) through the London dealer David Carritt to ‘a man called Merton’. Merton caught up with Mrs Shelswell White’s son and between them they said to PO’C ‘if you don’t give us the other three for nothing, we’ll ruin your career’ which they did by a campaign of publicity and blackmail.¹⁴

While at the Municipal, he sought a meeting with Sir Phillip Hendy, then Director of the London National Gallery, and made an agreement that England could keep all of the Lane Pictures and he would select thirty-nine pictures from the London NG as a swap. This Hendy agreed to, and the Duke of Wellington, who was Chairman of the committee for the Lane Pictures, also agreed as he, the Duke, thought the Lane Pictures much too good for Ireland and that no Irishman could make a sensible choice. PO’C picked the cream from the London NG collection and came back to Dublin and proposed the exchange to Dublin Corporation who wouldn’t agree to it saying that they wanted their Impressionist paintings. I said I felt that Dublin should never ever get even a glimpse of the Lane Pictures as their behaviour was at all times disgraceful and they didn’t deserve them. He agreed with me. Lord Moyne¹⁵ was always a great friend of his so when Desmond and Mariga Guinness, newly married, first came to Dublin pretending to be penniless, PO’C took them under his wing. DG didn’t know what he wanted to do at this time. They travelled the country together and would put up at small country hotels. PO’C would order a room and a meal and D&M would come in and cadge food from him, supposedly having no money for food for themselves. Desmond would play some musical instrument on pavements and Mariga would pass round a hat. When their first child was born they called him Patrick after PO’C. All of this sounded very spurious to me. He spoke a lot about his father –which, after all, was why I was there. Andrew O’Connor (the sculptor) was divorced at an early age and this made his career v. difficult as he could never be commissioned for anything by the Catholic Church. This has never been known before and even young Andrew had never heard it of his grandfather. I gathered neither Andrew nor Patrick were very keen on Jessie.¹⁶ She kept Andrew père isolated and never allowed him models. She is still alive and living in a nursing home in Dun Laoghaire.

11 January: Today was a meeting of the Association of Irish Art Historians of which I am Assistant Honorary Secretary. The Keeper of Art from the Ulster Museum, James Ford Smith – who is totally blind with a white cane – is Honorary Secretary. I do all the work. James F-S was there; Desmond Guinness; Anne Crookshank; Hilary Pyle; Helen Roe; and Mrs Leask, who complains all the time of not being able to hear, which is not surprising as she is talking all the time. A lot of nonsense was discussed and Michael Wynne was in the Chair. After the meeting I went to dinner with Jeanne Sheehy and Hugh Dixon. Hugh stayed the night. This morning I had a Christmas card from Speer Ogle in Rome, who hopes for 1973 to be peaceful, personally and publicly!

27 January: Burke’s Club at Lisnabrooka, County Galway. Only Charles Benson¹⁷ and David Butler¹⁸ and me. Also Nesta Fitzgerald and a girl called Veronica Heywood.¹⁹ Lisnabrooka is the most beautiful house – only built in 1912 – and standing quite isolated above Ballynahinch Lake. It rained all the weekend; but even so the views were stupendous and not another house in sight. Lisnabrooka now belongs to people called Reid who live in London and they rent it out for fishing. It is furnished in a very casual way.

5 February: This morning I had to go into Trinity to borrow some slides for a lecture I am to give tomorrow night in Coleraine. I had a chat with Anne Crookshank and gave her an offprint of my article in Country Life about Mrs Hamilton’s memorial. Anne does not care for Ted Hickey,²⁰ who is Keeper of Art at the Ulster Museum, and was not kind about him. She told me that she likes John O’Grady very much now and has taken him to lunch. This evening I went round to see Mrs Leask at her invitation. She lives in a bed-sitter in Mespil flats. She showed me some of her offprints – articles written over many years – and also the most beautiful embroidered curtains dating from about 1720, which she bought for thirty shillings some years ago. She was in better form than usual and didn’t rail at me as she normally does. Desmond Guinness once published in the Georgian Society Bulletin an article which stated that ceiling paintings which were in Mount Vernon (Cork) were by ‘Des Gray’ (sic) even though the pictures are documented in Strickland as being by Nathaniel Grogan. When Mrs Leask pulled him up on it, Mariga said, ‘Oh we only said they were by Des Gray because that was the only name we could remember.’ Mrs Leask was horrified, and that the Guinnesses couldn’t spell the Peter De Gree name correctly either but only as Mrs Leask had pronounced it. Rolf Loeber had’ phoned her and pretended that he had met her at Leixlip, which Mrs L says he had not, and he invited her to lunch. She did not go to lunch but took him to the RIA and introduced him. Carola Peck²¹ told Mrs L that she wasn’t sure about Rolf and nor did it seem, from her conversation, was Mrs L. I am sure that Rolf did meet her and that she has forgotten.