Wednesday, 1 December 2010
The Dead Letter
What would you say if you were dead? Imagine your life is over and you have one more chance to say something to the world.
Monday, 15 November 2010
San Francisco
No idea how many times I've been to San Francisco. But I leave a part of me there every time I go. What a great city
First time was in 2000. Of course Jim Sherry facilitated the visit.
There was some kind if fuel protest in the UK. We all drove to Warwickshire. Cath and L were running a pub in the back of beyond. It had an old steam train out front and a suspended toy train running sound the ceiling of the drinking area. Cath had gamely agreed to look after Con and Ky for the week (they were just 6 mths and 3yrs) - saintly of her. So we dropped em off and headed to Heathrow: we had the idea that we'd stay in their flat in Twickenham which Ed and his girlfriend had been using. When we saw it we changed our mind and went to an airport hotel. Stand-on-their-own towels, dog hair carpets and the 'sex dice' decide for us (never seen a sex dice since - six faces: oral, anal, toys etc - can't remember the rest'.
We'd been in touch with Jim in SF - first time in a few years. Told him we were headed to Vegas. He insisted we come early and head to him in SF. We flew to LAX then hopped on a shuttle to SFO. Jim met us and we had two brilliant nights somewhere near the city. Come to think of it didn't actually see the city - felt it though. Really reconnected with Jim and his wine collection. - thanks Jim. He dropped us of for our south western flight to Vegas. First thing I noticed was the tables for groups of four seats. Real party atmosphere: funny hats, lots of booze. Second thing I noticed was the pilots announcement "thank you for joining us today for this flight to mexico city - we'll shortly be crossing the border and if you look down you will see...". At first I didn't clock it then Mo said 'I thought we were headed to Vegas?". Then the whole plane burst out laughing - a great intro to Vegas !
Then it was a taxi (technically a Limo)
I was invited to a GE SMallworld trade show - visited a load of fire departments - Pleasanton, San Ramon. But the highlight was meeting the California State Fire Marshall for the first time. y.
First time was in 2000. Of course Jim Sherry facilitated the visit.
There was some kind if fuel protest in the UK. We all drove to Warwickshire. Cath and L were running a pub in the back of beyond. It had an old steam train out front and a suspended toy train running sound the ceiling of the drinking area. Cath had gamely agreed to look after Con and Ky for the week (they were just 6 mths and 3yrs) - saintly of her. So we dropped em off and headed to Heathrow: we had the idea that we'd stay in their flat in Twickenham which Ed and his girlfriend had been using. When we saw it we changed our mind and went to an airport hotel. Stand-on-their-own towels, dog hair carpets and the 'sex dice' decide for us (never seen a sex dice since - six faces: oral, anal, toys etc - can't remember the rest'.
We'd been in touch with Jim in SF - first time in a few years. Told him we were headed to Vegas. He insisted we come early and head to him in SF. We flew to LAX then hopped on a shuttle to SFO. Jim met us and we had two brilliant nights somewhere near the city. Come to think of it didn't actually see the city - felt it though. Really reconnected with Jim and his wine collection. - thanks Jim. He dropped us of for our south western flight to Vegas. First thing I noticed was the tables for groups of four seats. Real party atmosphere: funny hats, lots of booze. Second thing I noticed was the pilots announcement "thank you for joining us today for this flight to mexico city - we'll shortly be crossing the border and if you look down you will see...". At first I didn't clock it then Mo said 'I thought we were headed to Vegas?". Then the whole plane burst out laughing - a great intro to Vegas !
Then it was a taxi (technically a Limo)
I was invited to a GE SMallworld trade show - visited a load of fire departments - Pleasanton, San Ramon. But the highlight was meeting the California State Fire Marshall for the first time. y.
San Francisco - Microsoft
No ideal how many times I've been to San Francisco - but I leave a part of me there every time. Most recent visit was courtesy of Microsoft. They launched Office365 on 19th October and flew me out to help them do that. Here's a few notes from that visit...
Just off the plane having spent the week in San Francisco. Microsoft invited The Wise Group along with three other customers to help them launch their new cloud computing initative - www.office365.com. Here's some notes I kept during the week:
Monday afternoon and evening here in SF was when we I got to socialise with Microsoft’s senior people as well as 6 partners and 3 customers.
Tuesday was the actual launch event for what’ they’re calling ‘Office 365’ or as they call it ‘Office three-hundred sixty five’ (more details at: www.office365.com)
Monday – Meet and Greet Microsoft Senior Executives
Spent some great time with Kurt DelBene (President of Microsoft Office Division and second to CEO Steve Ballmer); Chris Capossela (formerly Bill Gates Speech Advisor and now Senior Vice President of Information Worker Group in Microsoft Corporate) and Betsy Frost Webb (General Manager – Unified Communications).
They had asked 3 customers to the event – including the Wise Group
1. Susan Erickson and James D Smith - both Senior Directors of Intranet Services of Starwood Hotel’s and Resorts (Starwood own Meridien, Westin, Sheraton, St Regis etc etc) with around 20,000 users of Microsoft Cloud Services
2. Robert Franch (Global Product Manager Messaging and Collaboration at AON with around 40,000 users of Microsoft’s cloud ( a totally mad Italian American from New Jersey with the best New Jersey accent I’ve ever heard)
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| Kurt DelBene - President Microsfot Office Division |
We spent a long time at the table and later at various bars talking about Microsoft’s cloud offering.
It turns out it was very difficult to get on to the beta test programme but now that we are we get to test out ‘office 365’ - its got e-mail as before but also SharePoint which we currently have installed locally in the server room. This new cloud version of SharePoint though looks like it has functionality that we can deploy our full Intranet site on – something that wasn’t clear before the launch. I will make sure we do that during our pilot.
There’s also the MS Office product set. Basically we can use office products from the cloud without having them locally installed. Interestingly the lessons from Starwood and AON seem to be that they plan to use this in a tiered way. In other words some staff will still have full Office product installs while some will have access just to the on-line version. Typical way of cutting it seems to be ‘executives’ with full installs ‘back-office’ staff with on-line access only. We need to look at that however Starwood and AON use it that way.
Something I hadn’t been aware of is for users with full Office installs – instead of ICT doing the install Microsoft will do it automatically – its called ‘Office as a service’ and works a bit like when Windows does it own updates automatically. Again, this could remove a large update burden from ICT. Starwood and AON haven’t rolled this out yet since it hasn’t been available, however I’ll keep in touch with them on it and we can test this out in our pilot.
Microsoft have now re-named their ‘Office Communicator’ product ‘Link’ . We have it but don’t use it much. I had long conversations with Starwood and AON and Kurt DelBene about how to get it adopted and the benefits. I think we need a small campaign to get it going properly because both Starwood and AON talked about how much the users liked it for quick communications. (Basically it’s a company instant messenger with ‘presence’ notifications).
We also discussed using what they call Exchange 2010 – among other things this gives us ‘soft telephony’ – I am currently liasing with Betsy Frost Webb on this because I would like to plan to have it tested and maybe installed by the end of 2011 for the Wise Group potentially replacing our aging telephony systems.
Though not part of this event I had tangentially found out about a test programme Microsoft are doing here in the USA to put Dynamics CRM in the cloud. When I got here I knobbled Kurt DelBene and as a result of that just last night we got an invitation to participate in the programme (he works fast does Kurt!). This is exciting because as you know I recently put a cloud outsourcing proposal to SMT (as was) which we accepted. However depending on the results of the CRM test I may have to revise that proposal (hopefully downwards) to take account of the fact that CRM could be outsourced. Its too early to be definitive about this however it’s a good start.
Later on Monday things degenerated slightly as we wandered around downtown San Francisco going from bar to bar. I remember the mad New Jersey Robert Franch and I wandering along some seedy back-street carrying between us a very senior Microsoft executive because he had temporarily lost the ability to walk. We were heading for an upmarket bar called the ‘Sir Francis Drake’ however someone had Googled it incorrectly and we found ourselves at the front door of a hotel called the ‘Drake’ which seemed to rent rooms by the hour. We beat a hasty retreat and finally found the Sir Francis.
Tuesday – the Launch Event of ‘Office 365’
Tuesday at 8am was the global launch of the until-then top secret brand for the new version of BPOS – Its when the press turned up (including the BBC) and its when they announced ‘Office three-hundred sixty five’)
Although due to the effects of alcohol the night before the name hadn’t been embargoed quite as well as they’d hoped
Betsy Frost Webb introduced the new product then Kurt DelBene went through Microsoft’s cloud philosophy. Then Chris Capossela went into the detail.
There was TV there and this event seemed to be broadcast globally.
What was good about it was the had the Wise Group logo up there as one of the early adopters and much of the speeches were done with that logo in the background.
Note: I videoed all speeches and there’s some excellent nuggets in there. I’ve also sourced the video from the Steve Ballmer Cloud event in London where he mentioned us and where I presented and Diane and I were interviewed. I’ve asked Ian Maclean if he could cut a 5 minute video pod-cast for us to capture the essence of these recent activities.
After the launch they did ‘talking head’ interviews with myself, AON and Starwood (as they did in London with Diane and I) which Microsoft will use as case studies for these senior executives as they take the story round the world.
Overall Impressions
Ultimately a very worth-while event and great to see the Wise Group punching above our weight with some pretty hefty global players and being used as an example of best practice 6000 miles from home.
Also great to be able to keep in touch with AON and Starwood and learn best practice from them which we can use at the Wise Group.
Also great to be able to contact people like Kurt, Besty and Chris (first name terms now) directly.
I’ve got some more thoughts but will sign off now as being kicked out of my hotel room shortly.
Have attached a couple of SF pictures – great city
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| Powell & California |
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| Telegraph Hill and TransAmerica from Pier 19 |
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Words...
And when we die he says he'll catch some blackbird's wing
And we will fly away to heaven
Come some sweet blue bonnet spring
And we will fly away to heaven
Come some sweet blue bonnet spring
She walked through springtime when I was home
The days were sweet, our nights were warm
The days were sweet, our nights were warm
Emmylou Harris - Gulf Coast Highway
I slept a summer by her side
She filled my dreams with endless wonder .. She took my childhood in her stride
I dreamed a dream - Les Miserables
In the vastness of space and the immensity of time, it is my joy to share a planet and an epoch with Mo
Carl Sagan - Cosmos
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...all these memories.. Washed away...like tears in the rain ... Time to die..
Saturday, 13 November 2010
GPSed Track "Annbank stair r ayr"
View my new track 
"Annbank stair r ayr" started in United Kingdom, Scotland, Ayr. Powered by GPSed.com - Free Mobile GPS Tracking ServiceCycling - love it
(Nov 2010): 18 years ago I visited Edinburgh Cycles on Bruntsfield Links and paid £275 for a 'Contour 200' mountain Bike. Being a mountain bike first thing I did was take it up a mountain - Cairnsmore of Carspahirn. http://www.munromagic.com/MountainInfo.cfm/452. 2614 feet.
Which was great until I passed 'Green well of Scotland' and got onto the trackless hillside. From there I pushed / carried the bike all 2614 ft to the summit. It was then I figured mountain bikes aren't for mountains as such. I was living on my own in Linlithgow and would cycle the canal towpath (almost to Edinburgh airport ) also to Blackness in my canoeing jacket to make me sweat. Biggest run was on the old drovers road from Tyndrum to kingshouse hotel and back. Also did many a run in the lakes with Edward Malc and Stephen - a lot out of Grizedale forest.
Fast forward 18 years ..
In '09 did a lot of walking - all on the coast. Started out to Dunure with bus home. Then bus to Maidens and walk home. Big one was train to Girvan and walk home around 20 miles. Brilliant but lengthy - Girvan took me 8 hours.
So this year dusted off the old 'Contour 200' and started a regular training run - home to masts on Brown Carrick then to Greenan then pier - River walk and home. Around 18 miles with 900 feet climb. Got the home to masts ascent down to 60 mins with total run around 100 mins.
By May the old contour was creaking a bit and the brakes were shot. Mo got me a new bike. Specialized Rockhopper - very light, disc brakes, front suspension. So as well as the training run started doing bits of the Carrick way across the southern end of the Carricks. Also found the R Ayr way. Perfect for the MTB. Did the Failford Bridge to pier run a lot. Biggest one (so far ) is the Sorn to Sea (34 miles mostly offroad).
Meanwhile bought David Robertson's wifes nearly new MTB for Mo. Really light. Mo uses it for work when she can. Also did the failford run though the tyres are a bit thin - next time need to put the knobblies on.
Also discovered the '7 Stanes' . Has never been to a pre designed MTB place before. Went to Maibe in April for Stephen's 50th. Absolutely brilliant and designed to be so - berms, jumps just superb. Went back at end of July with Stephen, Malc and Edward. Cut short tho - Stephen twatted his coupon and loosened a front tooth so we spent the afternoon in A and E in Dumfries . The perils if cycling!
While I still have the brochure the new bike is:
Specialized Rockhopper SL - hardtail
Fully butted M4 alloy frame
80mm travel RockShox Dart 3 SL fork
Tektro Auriga Pro Hydraulic disc brakes
Shimano Shadow rear dérailleur
Specialized Fast Trak LK sport tyres
http://www.mountainbikereviews.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/specialized-rockhopper-sl-hardtail-bike.jpg
Fast forward to 2012 and through the cycle to work scheme I get a Ridley x-Bow Cyclo cross - my first drop handlebar bike for years and years. A revalation - much lighter, not quite a road bike but great. Put an 11-34 cassette on it and get my Masts run down to 47 mins (a record). Also extend the runs between then and 2013 - favourite is the five ferries (55) which I've done twice, Nick of the Balloch (extended) 71 miles with 5700ft of ascent and most recently Sanquhar, Mennock Valley to Lowther Hill (2500ft in 8 miles). Also did the Craggy Island Tri but that's all off road on the Rockhopper - Also loved doing Wrynose and Hardknott passes in the Lakes in the summer of 2013 with Con - he's a beast when cycling all muscle and no fat - strength to weight ratio of infinite.
.
An what's next - well its a full road bike - but one of the first with disc brakes. A Whyte Sufflok - hopefully will help with the forthcoming Triathlons (London and Craggy Island).
http://cycletechreview.com/2013/reviews/whyte-road-bikes/3/
Which was great until I passed 'Green well of Scotland' and got onto the trackless hillside. From there I pushed / carried the bike all 2614 ft to the summit. It was then I figured mountain bikes aren't for mountains as such. I was living on my own in Linlithgow and would cycle the canal towpath (almost to Edinburgh airport ) also to Blackness in my canoeing jacket to make me sweat. Biggest run was on the old drovers road from Tyndrum to kingshouse hotel and back. Also did many a run in the lakes with Edward Malc and Stephen - a lot out of Grizedale forest.
Fast forward 18 years ..
In '09 did a lot of walking - all on the coast. Started out to Dunure with bus home. Then bus to Maidens and walk home. Big one was train to Girvan and walk home around 20 miles. Brilliant but lengthy - Girvan took me 8 hours.
So this year dusted off the old 'Contour 200' and started a regular training run - home to masts on Brown Carrick then to Greenan then pier - River walk and home. Around 18 miles with 900 feet climb. Got the home to masts ascent down to 60 mins with total run around 100 mins.
By May the old contour was creaking a bit and the brakes were shot. Mo got me a new bike. Specialized Rockhopper - very light, disc brakes, front suspension. So as well as the training run started doing bits of the Carrick way across the southern end of the Carricks. Also found the R Ayr way. Perfect for the MTB. Did the Failford Bridge to pier run a lot. Biggest one (so far ) is the Sorn to Sea (34 miles mostly offroad).
Meanwhile bought David Robertson's wifes nearly new MTB for Mo. Really light. Mo uses it for work when she can. Also did the failford run though the tyres are a bit thin - next time need to put the knobblies on.
Also discovered the '7 Stanes' . Has never been to a pre designed MTB place before. Went to Maibe in April for Stephen's 50th. Absolutely brilliant and designed to be so - berms, jumps just superb. Went back at end of July with Stephen, Malc and Edward. Cut short tho - Stephen twatted his coupon and loosened a front tooth so we spent the afternoon in A and E in Dumfries . The perils if cycling!
While I still have the brochure the new bike is:
Specialized Rockhopper SL - hardtail
Fully butted M4 alloy frame80mm travel RockShox Dart 3 SL fork
Tektro Auriga Pro Hydraulic disc brakes
Shimano Shadow rear dérailleur
Specialized Fast Trak LK sport tyres
http://www.mountainbikereviews.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/specialized-rockhopper-sl-hardtail-bike.jpg
Fast forward to 2012 and through the cycle to work scheme I get a Ridley x-Bow Cyclo cross - my first drop handlebar bike for years and years. A revalation - much lighter, not quite a road bike but great. Put an 11-34 cassette on it and get my Masts run down to 47 mins (a record). Also extend the runs between then and 2013 - favourite is the five ferries (55) which I've done twice, Nick of the Balloch (extended) 71 miles with 5700ft of ascent and most recently Sanquhar, Mennock Valley to Lowther Hill (2500ft in 8 miles). Also did the Craggy Island Tri but that's all off road on the Rockhopper - Also loved doing Wrynose and Hardknott passes in the Lakes in the summer of 2013 with Con - he's a beast when cycling all muscle and no fat - strength to weight ratio of infinite.
An what's next - well its a full road bike - but one of the first with disc brakes. A Whyte Sufflok - hopefully will help with the forthcoming Triathlons (London and Craggy Island).
http://cycletechreview.com/2013/reviews/whyte-road-bikes/3/
Friday, 12 November 2010
Where everybody know's your name
I know I know - cheers did it first. But that's what its like at Geordies - the best pub in the world (probably). When sprogs started at Davie Coulter's Karate around 3 years ago I would drop them off then head to an Irish pub in Burns Statue Sq for a pint. A bit of an out-of-the box Irish pub put good enough. Then I remember a pub much nearer - Geordie's Byre. Years ago an old pal, Dahl (Paul Dahlstrom) had taken me there once. At the time I thought it was an old man's pub. So I decided to try it out. Its got such a small frontage that I wandered past it a couple of times before I finally found it. Its between a bookies and a funeral parlour. Very unassuming front. Great beer. I took to going in on Karate nights. I'd take a book and sit in the corner seat and read. The job I was doing at the time was pretty stressful so my visits were a welcome break. I'd sit quietly for an hour, go pick up the sprogs, buy they an ice-cream and Mancini's (of course) then head home.
There's a fruit machine (sound turned off) of course and two TV's high up on the wall. One TV is on most of the time (sound turned down - of course: occasionally turned up for an item of interest for 5 mins or so then turned down again). The other TV has text showing horse-racing results - again no sound.
Its a small place - maybe you could have 20 sitting - around 18 months after I started going I discovered there's a larger back area which is open sometimes for functions.
Red-leatherette seats and lots of pictures and memoriabilia on the walls - and a vast Whisky range on the optics.
After around a year sitting reading I'd occasionally say hi to one or two of the early evening regulars - 6 months after that I'd pass the odd word or two - six months after that I'd made a pal - Jim. I stopped taking my book and I'd sit at the bar with Jim and pass the time of day for an hour. Great guy - Gas engineer - always just off duty. Parks up and home, gets the bus in to the pub for maybe 90 mins. Likes the dark beer with a Lambs rum chaser. Another six months after that and we'd started buying alternate rounds for each other. Once or twice I'd pick him up at the bus stop after getting the sprogs and run him home to Belmont.
A couple of times I'd mentioned this place to Cal. One day I took him over and he fell in love with the place. Pretty soon (maybe around early 2009) Cal and I took to heading down on a Thursday night: this was on top of my hour on a Wednesday. Cal invited some of his other pals - a lot of teachers from Greenwood - they became my buddies. I enjoyed their initial chat. They'd be allowed 30 minutes to gripe about school. They'd tell some horror stories about the weeks events - mostly I figured I was glad I wasn't a teacher. After the 30 minutes conversation had to turn to something else.
Characters
Characters
Martin-quifftastic
Cal C - The panda
Brendan-boy
John McQ - tall boy
Johnny- army
John McQ - tall boy
Johnny- army
Graeme E - te cricket
ALB - the CIO
Richard - the art
Jools P - the song
ALB - the CIO
Richard - the art
Jools P - the song
Some 'official' Geordie's portraits (with the horns)
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| Graeme 'Cricket-boy' E |
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| Mr Brendan |
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| The Bar |
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| Cal 'Panda-boy' |
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| ALB |
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| Jools P |
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| Johnny 'Green Machine' boy |
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| Richard McD |
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| The Bar |
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| John McQ |
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| Ian's Dug |
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| Martinos O |
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| Pint of Dark Island in Geordie's - perfection |
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Great Places
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| Arran - June 2010 |
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| Loch Lomond |
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| San Francisco - Oct 2010 (Powell and California) |
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| San Francisco - Oct 2010 (Telegraph Hill & TransAmerica building From Pier 19) |
Saturday, 6 November 2010
The Day I met Steve Ballmer
Date - 5 Oct 2010, Place: London Event: CIO Cloud Briefing with Steve Ballmer (Microsoft's CEO) I shared a platform with Microsoft's Steve Ballmer at this event (scary but fun) afterwards they took a picture... Me and Steve B..
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| Me and Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO) 5 October 2010 - London |
Me and my colleague Diane also did a number of intereviews - here's an edited version.
Pink Concert 6Oct06
Yesterday Mo and colleagues put on a Pink Concert in aid of Breast Cancer charities.
Here's one of Mo's songs.... Awesome
Here's one of Mo's songs.... Awesome
QMA Class of '75 25 year Reunion
Family Holiday - Canada 1977
In 1977 we visited my dad's brother Gerry and family (Margaret, Deirdre and Maureen) in Mississauga Canada...
Conor 1st, 9th, 13th and 16th
20 Oct - Up to hospital, false alarm
26 Oct 23:00 - Mo reports soreness (is it a contraction) off to bed anyway.
27 Oct 01:50 - Mo wakes up, a contraction? - not sure, back to bed
02:30 - Waters gone? Mo phones Midwife - advised to head for hospital
02:35 - We have cup of tea and Al does a bunch of e-mail to allow his business partners to do later meetings
03:30 - Set off for hospital
03:45 - Starry night - we see a fox and a rabbit - thinking about the old Indian tradition of naming babies after things you see around the birth - summarily reject the idea of "Fox" as a first name04:00 - Arrive at hospital - towel on car seat!
04:30 - Mo put onto monitor to check for contractions and FHB - contractions v mild05:00 - Decide to check Mo in to monitor her
05:20 - Al gets home and does some more e-mail, then off to bed
10:00 - Mo finds out waters have definitely broken
11:00 - Al out of bed, Mo phones says she's being kept in and induced tomorrow if nothing happens before
28 Oct 09:30 - Mo taken to Labour suite, we set up in the room - its got a TV so we watch 'Can't cook Won't Cook', 'Style Challenge etc etc etc.
10:20 - Mo inducded
13:30 - Mo examined, dilation 3cm - slow going. Mo gets a Diamorphine injection. Mo using TENS machine then gas and air - breathing perfect, so disciplined! Contractions strong and sore. Gas and air and Morphine makes Mo mellow and she sees things!
16:30 - Mo examined, dilation 6cm - Doc reckons at least another 3 hours
19:15 - Mo requests epidural, given by Dr Frank White - the coolest Doc in the world. Within 10 mins Mo up and watching 'Delia's Cookery' show on TV again.
22:05 - Mo examined, Conor's head just visible, Mo still watching 'News at Ten' - Trevor McDonald
22:40 - TV off, Music on and Mo starts to push23:13 - Conor Born!!!
23:14 - Al cuts the cord!!!
23:26 - Conor's 1st pee23:45 - We wheel the phone in and Mo begins phoning.
29 Oct 00:10 - Conor's 1st meal!!!!
00:45 - Conor's 1st sneeze!!!
01:00 - Mo checks into her room on the ward, Al off home!!
Day 1 Report: Mum and Baby excellent still in the maternity unit - Conor feeding well; slept for 9 hours yesterday! Black hair, and enormous feet, toes and hands that grip! Still trying to suss out what all his bits are for - tried to scratch himself so we wrap him up - I'm off to get some anti scratch mitts. Mo fine too, not too sore considering. Lots of visitors yesterday so he's thinking what're all these huge heads peering at me doing. He's also been registered - scary, he gets a number when he's a day old!
Day 3 Report (coming home day), 31 October 97: Mum and Conor still doing well - Conor feeding OK too, though sometimes he forgets how to extract his food properly - then he remembers again. I arrive at the hospital in our current hire car - its got two doors. We pack up Mo's stuff - there were so many flowers I had to take them all away the day before and promptly filled the car with pollen. Then we spend about 10 minutes trying to suss out how the car seat works and we're just about to go (having distributed biscuit boxes to the nurses and midwives). We're about to leave the premises when a nurse comes around and says he needs to be escorted from the premises and have his tags checked to make sure we've got the correct baby - he's distinctive anyway not least because his ears are exactly like Mo's. We finally get out and take a few pictures then struggle for what seems like half an hour to get the seat belt around the rock-a-tot car seat thinggy. Note: Conor (Irish - 'high desire')
Day 90 Report , 26 January 98: Conor over the last 3 weeks has begun to recognise us and smile in a very cute fashion (as if he's bashful). He also occasionally reaches out and by mistake grabs his "feelie octopus" toy - from Boots - the best toy in the world - and plays with it a bit. He also occasionally tries to stuff both hands into his mouth at once and proceeds to slever all over them - soooo cute. Since Christmas he has also developed the habit of not messing his nappy for 2/3 days at a time - that means that when it does come its 'explosive' but we're told that he's absorbing 100% of his mothers milk. He's now 63cm long (52cm at birth) and weighs 14lbs (7lbs at birth) and he's got really long fingers and toes - he's a cutie.
Day 116, 20 Feb 98: We get our first family photo at a photographers - also cute ones of Conor on his own - sitting in a feather chair - with a Boa covering his nappy up - good photos!
Day 149 Report, 26 March 98: What a boy he's now 16lbs and around 66cm long, but most significantly he's now reaching and trying to roll over and speaks (goos and gaas) to himself and to us - he's become aware!. He examines his own hands for ages and pulls his dummy in and out himself! He kicks his legs and tries to grab for the spoon as we feed him pureed veggies (yes we started that a 4 weeks ago). Over the past 3 weeks he's begun to sleep right through the night!!!!! He would wake up at 4am for a feed - now he's stopped doing that - his routine is that he goes to sleep at 8pm and wakes at around 6.30am - sometimes he goes back to sleep (seems to sing himself to sleep) sometimes he comes to our bed and has a snooze there.But the most significant event was last night when the cot finally arrived - we assembled it and so he officially became a big boy - his crib was ceremonially dismantled and he now sleeps in the cot - at the bottom of course. He's gone from looking huge in his crib to looking small in his cot. What a cutie!!!I've reproduced a pix of the three of us from the Daily Record - they did a profile on us recently and its one of the only pix of the three of us:
Day 169 Report, 15 April 98: Conor's now sitting up a lot - he forgets then falls over (we catch him though!). Last night we had a meal and he sat and sang and laughed and was generally the centre of attention. Still sleeping right through but that involves getting up at 6am though this morning he woke at 5am and sang to himself for an hour - what a guy. It won't be long now until he can cut the grass and do his chores! He met Dave and Jill's new baby, Vairi at the weekend - she's 9 weeks and has the biggest eyes! Ailsa her big sis and Conor got on well too.
Day 177 Report, 23 April 98: Conor's been constipated since we put him on solids (musihds would be a better term), and we've had to use lovely suppositories - poor lad - Doc said it's ok though, just persevere. Just last week Mo fed him some Kiwi friut (she'd heard it does wonders) and lo' he's been producing satisfactory nappies HIMSELF ever since - KIWI the wonder fruit!!!! This peaked yesterday when he produce 3-full nappies HIMSELF. Sorry to go on about bottom matters but these things are important when you're a first time parent!!!!!! (other first timers will know). The other highlight of this week was that he now says Da, Da, Da, Da (started yesterday) and the "New Mum's group" members reckoned he was speaking - I reckon he's just making an easy noise - but good stuff anyway. He also now loves his bath again. About 5 weeks ago he slipped in the bath and his head went underwater for a second or so, and since then he's cried bitterly whenever we put him in the bath - result was we sponge bathed him for most of the time. Last Monday I tried him in the bath again and he loves it again - thankfully!!!! He's also a seasoned traveller - last weekend we went off to see Debbie, Barry and Tori in Liverpool and filled the car with his kit - portacot; pram etc etc. He loved it though. We're now getting sorted for the Smallworld barcelona conference in May - he's coming there too so we're getting all the sun-block stuff.
Day 248, 3 July 1998 (current stats: 21lb 5oz): Barcelona went well with a number of firsts for Conor: o First saw a King (Juan Carlos) o First trip in a cable car o First trip in a boat o First trip in an aeroplane o First trip on the underground o First swim in a pool o First time in the hard rock café o First "word" o First time abroadHe really enjoyed the two weeks – first week was the Smallworld conference that I was chairing in Barcelona – everyone adopted him and at the end they put a picture up of him in his pram. We smeared him with factor 50 sun-block when we went out and he was pure white – everyone in Barcelona looked at him and he really enjoyed looking at them. During the trip he said his first official "words" "toot toot" which he said while playing with his rubber trumpet. He can now stand and pulls himself up on your hands on anything available – his balance isn’t so good yet but a hand will balance him. He shows no inclination to crawl and we don’t think he will. When we balance him in the standing position he moves his legs and attempts to walk. He’s got no teeth yet but his gums are suspiciously white so they probably won’t be long now. I really need some new photos on this site so when I get my scanner working I promise I’ll update it.
Day 254, 9 July 1998: What a boy – yesterday he pulled himself up and stood for a few seconds ON HIS OWN then fell over. Still doesn’t crawl though but bums around and gets surprising distances on his bot.
Day 3255, 26 Sep 2006: What a boy – now 4ft 7in and doing grade 3 RAD exams as well as boys brigade. Really enjoying school and fit as a flea.
Day 4748 (678 weeks and 2 days) Conor turns into a teenager. 13 years old!. Grade 6 Ballet, 2nd Year High School - 5 feet 3 inches. RSAMD attendee, Scottish Ballet Alumni - wants to go to Julliard in New York and/or RSAMD for MA in Classical Ballet. Room a total heap of junk (of course). Gets x77 bus to Glasgow every week after school to meet his old dad for RSAMD.
Day 5922 (846 weeks). (Jan'14) Con in 16 and a quarter. Last year did really well in his Standard Grades and now on the cusp of five big auditions for UK ballet schools for a full time career. Three in London, one in Manchester and one in Glasgow. He's worked hard, the body is newly minted, just out of the mould and ready for it. Good luck Con. Looking at this blog - how time flies... 846 weeks from being born to being ready for the world... amazing....
Sean Bourke 1934-1981
Sean Aloyisious Bourke was my uncle. He was born in Limerick in 1934 just minutes after his twin brother Kevin, sixth of seven boys to Agnes, into an extended family of poets, drunks, misers, bare knuckle fighters and wild rovers and second cousin to actor Richard Harris and poet Desmond O’Grady.
Times were hard in 1930’s Limerick – you only have to read Frank McCourt’s book ‘Angela’s Ashes’ to see that. Some of Sean’s brothers were in the same Confraternity of Mary as Frank so they were all it in together. Sean’s father died just after the war and the young boys had to fend for themselves. All were born and lived their early lives in and around an ancient grain store in Little Gerald Griffin St just off Limerick’s main thoroughfare. From there they regularly attended the local Roman Catholic cathedral St John’s, and were taught / indoctrinated, like so many Irishmen have been, by the order of the Christian Brothers.
In May 1961 a Foreign Office man named George Blake was tried at the Old Bailey on five counts of spying for the Soviet Union. He was found guilty and sentenced to the longest term of imprisonment ever imposed under English Law – 42 years. On 22 October 1966 Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs Prison in London. There was an immediate international furore. Every port, airport and landing strip throughout the British Isles was put under strict round-the-clock surveillance. Watch was kept on every Eastern European embassy and consulate in London. The authorities believed that high-level KGB agents had engineered the daring coup. But, while the hue and cry mounted, Blake was living quietly in a flat in Highlever Road, a few minutes’ walk from Wormwood Scrubs Prison.
In fact, the springing of George Blake was the work not of foreign agents but of a single Irishman named Sean Bourke, who had been a fellow prisoner of Blake’s at Wormwood Scrubs. Nor was this astonishing coup carried out for monetary reward: it was actually achieved on a borrowed £700. Sean then assisted with spiriting Blake out of England then to Moscow, a few weeks later he followed him to Moscow by way of Paris. He then spent an extraordinary two years in Russia until his return to Ireland on 22 October 1968, the second anniversary of the jail break.
These are my recollections of Sean based on interview transcripts and personal recommendations.
Interview Transcript…
“…and so of course, I’m terribly relieved, but at the same time I’d say this, that I’m not at all surprised by the verdict…if they had decided otherwise and sent me back to England, the in my view the extradition treaty that exists between Ireland and England would be meaningless because it expressly provides protection for a person accused of a political offence…and if rescuing a spy from prison is not political then I don’t know what is”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Well I’ve…the story of the escape has been written in book form and my agent is coming over from London in two weeks time and I understand that he is taking the manuscript to New York to have it published in America first. On the strength of reading this manuscript he has urged me to continue writing and in fact I have finished a second book and I have plans for a third one…I hope to make a career in writing”
Sean Bourke in Dublin in February 1969 after the high court hearing which disallowed the application by the British authorities to have him extradited to Britain to face charges in connection with the escape of George Blake. Bourke had arrived back from Moscow to Ireland to Shannon airport on the twenty-second of October 1968, the second anniversary of the escape of George Blake.
“When I arrived a Shannon airport yesterday I had in my wallet precisely forty American dollars, given to me in Moscow by the KGB to cover my traveling expenses to Shannon, apart from that absolutely nothing…and if any suggestion had been made to me that some secret account in a Swiss bank might be arranged for me, and this has been hinted earlier on, I would have turned it down flat, because I have no desire to put myself on the road of a paid Soviet agent”
So what do you do, you come back to Ireland with no obvious prospects.
“I desire to be in the one country where I know I shall be happy, and certainly safe. If an Irishman is not safe and secure in Ireland, the for heavens sake, where is he safe?”
Where indeed, but from himself and his own. This is the story of a boy who grew up in a tough part of a city. The boy became an adolescent with quick wits; the adolescent became a man who turns the borstal behind him; and the man, while a prisoner in Wormwood Scurbs, and editor of the prison magazine, organised the escape of George Blake, then a senior officer in the British intelligence services - Blake was jailed for forty-two years for treason, having in his time betrayed crucial western security information to the Russian KGB. The boy who became the man was never a Communist as such, or part of any system which cushioned his own welfare. The boy who became the ‘great escaper, afterwards went to Russia and found it more oppressive than an English jail, returned home, but could never quite shake off that early wound - not with drink, or money or notoriety or being a hero in his own place, could shake off the would of whatever happened growing up.
His later life, after his return to this country was one of despair and disintegration - he squandered one hundred thousand pounds, in his own words 'I drank every penny' - a curving back to that murky, twilight world he cast away which had been his earliest excitement. He died on a lonely country road under the open sky with less than two pounds in his pocket. What ever else may be said about him, his life and his death were his own.
“This is fox michael calling Baker Charlie, fox michael calling Baker Charlie, come in please - over”
“Baker Charlie calling Fox Michael, Baker Charlie calling Fox Michael, can you hear me - come in please”
These recordings were made by Sean Bourke in the course of communicating with George Blake, over the twenty foot high wall of Wormwood Scrubs in October 1966, by walkie talkie radio. The recording reveals the arrangements being made to effect the escape while Bourke was outside the prison, having been released from there some months previously. Bourke does not refer to that recording in his book ‘The Springing of George Blake” - he kept it as evidence of his own part in the escape and to refute critics after his death who may have claimed that he did not do what he claimed that he did. The tool referred to is a small car jack Bourke had caused to be smuggled in to Blake, to break the struts of the window on the prison landing - in the event Blake broke the struts with a kick, scaled the wall and was spirited away by Bourke. You will read Blake’s references to ‘Stone walls, do not a prison make’ are from an English poet which both of them were studying while in prison…..:
“This is fox michael calling Baker Charlie, fox michael calling Baker Charlie, come in please - over”“Baker Charlie calling Fox Michael, Baker Charlie calling Fox Michael, can you hear me - come in please”“Stone walls, do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage - over”“I am innocent and required to take these for a Hermitage - over”“We could love less than a pool.. - over”“I may be just a dreamer - over”“Well now my friend, obviously the first question I must ask you is this - did you receive the tools, and if so are they suitable? - over”“I did not receive it - only the hand iron and the croppers, but not the jack itself it wasn’t there - a difficult position at the moment - over”“Well..this is very regrettable, I’m meeting him again tomorrow night at seven o’clock - that’s the earliest I can discover why you haven’t had them - over”“Do you know where he put the jack - because it wasn’t with the other stuff”
Sean tried to settle in Dublin but found the pull of his own notoriety and the push of his own inner demons too much to cope with. After several incidents, involving on one occasion the possession of a gun - which he said he needed for protection from some un-named people, and after many forays of drunken excess, he returned to Limerick - to the city where he had grown up, to that formative place where his deviant energies had first flowered.
Joe Malone knew him:“We were about twelve years of age in John the Baptist - I would be a little bit older than Sean but that didn’t make any great difference because in the school each schoolteacher (our teacher then was of course John Swift - George Swift was his correct name, he taught two classes, fourth and fifth - Sean was in the lower class than me). Because Sean you see came from the Christian Brothers in Sexton Street, he didn’t go to school there - he was a problem child like myself. I went to Cray Lane and I didn’t go to school in Cray Lane…actually John the Baptist was a school for bad boys, for troublesome street urchins”.
“Were Sean and yourself both convicted of offences at that age?”
“No. Sean was convicted of a very minor offence…I think it was a couple of bananas or so. I was actually never actually seriously convicted. I was brought to court for the stealing of eleven apples - I remember the exact amount, because there were four of us there and we could not share the eleven apples equally. But we were caught outside the Borma Road, of course I know we have two Borma Roads in Limerick, but there was one uptown and one in the Ennis Road. We were actually caught in the Borma Road with the eleven apples. We were brought to court and brought in front of District Justice Mary Flood - we’ll not forget his name - and only for the people we stole the apples from who were actually a Protestant Minister ( a Church of Ireland Minister) - he spoke for us - we would have been sent away. My other three pals with me were eventually sent away.”
“So you knew Sean Bourke then in John the Baptist. What kind of young fella’ was he?”
“He was a big, soft young man then. Of course the school was full of characters, and it was very difficult to stick out. Everybody was a character. You came in late and you went home and you didn’t go. Sometimes we may only go to school once a week. And they didn’t pay much attention to us y’see. But Sean didn’t really stick out, except for his big head of curly hair, his broad smile - he was a very soft young man then. He never showed any sign of aggression or arrogance, and stayed very much by himself…he was just about twelve years of age then. We had a little band in the school and we would march in and out of the school at lunch breaks and single file and we had pladulettes, a little drum and the symbols and a clapper. Sean would lead the band in playing the clappers. He was a big hefty young man and he led the class in every day. That’s when I first met Sean Bourke. I didn’t meet Sean Bourke then until I had read about him.”
“What number of years passed?”
“Oh…I suppose, nigh on thirty-six years I would say near enough to it. This I remember well because Sean Bourke had difficulty getting a flat you know in Limerick. I know estate agent he went into, and when Sean Bourke’s name was mentioned, as the occupier, Sean Bourke didn’t get a flat, they would not give him a flat…well his name of course y’see, he had appeared on television and radio and the newspapers, and this famous man who sprang George Blake, so ‘twas at that time that he went to live in the country, in the Irish cottages. I had a pub in Limerick as you know and Sean was one of my best customers and he was always very entertaining - a lovely singer and he had a marvellous sense of humour. He drank a lot, gave away a lot of money of course and unfortunately he befriended (I would imagine) the wrong type of person for his own good. But he was always very colourful, very gregarious except of course in his more depressing moments when the drink would be too much. By and large he had a great sense of humour and he was quite colourful. He was a bit depressed for a while in Limerick city until the great news came in one Monday morning that Alfred Hitchcock took an interest in his book - the book he had written - and Alfred Hitchcock, or his agent, placed ten thousand pounds in a northern bank - I know this because came in and presented me with a cheque for a hundred pounds, now he didn’t quite owe me a hundred pounds but he was very generous with money of course - but he swore that day (this is my connection with Sean) that he would never again handle a cheque book - that he would draw the money as he wanted it. Because he had gone through, roughly I think, between forty and fifty thousand pounds then - in a very short time.”
Jim Kemmy: “One story amuses me and I often think about it - it shows you Sean’s fixation with some happening. His spiritual home in Limerick, his local pub, was the Munster Fair Tavern - its still there mind you - just across the road from St Laurences graveyard where the roads fork from Waterford and Tipperary…Toddy Long, a childhood friend of the Bourkes, was banned from this pub for some minor infraction - now this was tantamount to excommunication and Sean made it the be all and end all of Sean Bourke’s life to get Toddy allowed back in to that pub. He tried as best he could, every kind of blandishment to Pat Carle to soften the line to let Toddy back, but no. But eventually Sean’s perseverance won the day and after some months Pat Carle allowed Toddy back to the pub. But that wasn’t good enough for Sean at all. He wanted to celebrate the occasion in fitting style and he hired a pipe band and a photographer. He got Toddy and the band to assemble in the centre of Limerick (it only had one set of traffic lights), it was by the traffic lights at Todds and Rocher stores corner. And Mulgrove Street is a continuation of Williams Street (that’s the longest street in Limerick - it was a mile long walk) and they set off. The band playing with Toddy at the head of the band - Sean and friends marching behind the band and the played away, along Williams Street up to the top of Mulgrove Street into the pub and the photographer taking pictures the whole way - they came into the pub then and it was drinks on the house all night long. It was the very same with Sean and in one sweep he won the world title.”
Joe Malone: “And then he would go off the booze and he would take long walks along [meelik…] he would walk for ten or fifteen miles a day but then he’d go back on the booze again. I think as a result, except for a few very colourful articles he had written for Jim Kemmys magazines, he didn’t write a whole lot anyway. He did keep in contact at first with people in England because I often went to his flat in Gerald-Griffin Street - his old warehouse - and one evening we were having great fun, we actually tried him in a mock trial for murder. When it was over - we all got very drunk - Sean rang Scotland Yard and the people in Scotland Yard - whoever we got onto - apparently knew him quite well - they were on first name terms anyway and the asked Sean would he like to call over and collect his old Rover - it was still in the yard. So he had the great sense of humour also.”
“Of course if he had put his foot inside the jurisdiction he would have been charged, tried and probably jailed for aiding and abetting the release of ….”
Joe Malone: “Well he checked that out he told me, and certainly he would have got seven years - he wasn’t always hazy from the booze, he always kept a very fine active brain…”
Jim Kemmy: “He could be mischevious, he could be very boyish in his pranks, but he could also be a deep complex man. He was a many-sided figure, Sean. Anti-establishment, difficult, morose, perverse, truculant. He was menacing without being violent - he was never physically violent, he was never a fighting man at all in that sense. He was driven on by demons, he had demons inside him that he couldn’t control, and sometimes those demons got the better of him.”
“What was the nature of those demons?”
Jim Kemmy: “I often tried to work that out myself because I was friend of his, very proud to have known Sean Bourke - sometimes our relationship was stormy as well and Sean Bourke, he made friends slowly but fell out very quickly, very easily. So our relationship was often touchy, often delecate, and fragile but still it persisted till the very end. I’m glad of that too because I remember Sean with affection and often try to analyse him. I suppose it was his childhood really, his poverty in his childhood - the fact he was locked up for eleven years, behind bars of one kind or another. He was in Dangean first of all, then borstal, and then in Wormwood Scrubs - about eleven years in all. That had an effect on his personality and it was deeper than that too - perhaps he had some kind of mental disorders as well within him. And as a result of that, he couldn’t live in peace with himself. A very talented man - he was a good writer, a masterly writer at times - the best typist I ever saw! He was a bricklayer (trained by Her Majesty), electrician as well he was and learned other skills in prison - a highly intelligent man, good editor as well of the prison magazine, but unfortunately unhappy, tortured, tormented figure. Couldn’t come to terms with himself.”
Sean (with a drink in him): “I was born in Limerick by accident. Because when my father and mother were going together and got married there was no television in Limerick (thanks be to Christ!). As a result of which I was born. If Limerick City tomorrow, capsized under the weight of its own dirty, filthy hypocracy into the River Shannon and was never heard of again I wouldn’t shed a tear Mr Chariman….and the WORLD would have lost nothing!!!!”
Joe Malone: “This big front that he put up, basically he was a very kind person and he wouldn’t put a word wrong when he was sober. But he was very frustrated and very very confused towards the end. He could write, and write quite well and he had a mind, a gift of course, gift of the gab of course. I feel that he knew deep down….remember that Sean Bourke used to, after a bout of drink, would stick his head into a toilet bowl, very often for an hour in the morning-time. You know he would get a dry retching, every morning and he did tell me at one stage that he would rather cut his right hand off than ever drink again. Eventually of course he broke out. But to my mind this was laying heavily on him - he realised that he had a lot to offer, but he could not shake off the old booze.”
“What was the torment that was deep in his nature…what was the source of that torment, did you ever ponder..?”
Joe Malone: “Well….I would imagine, you know, knowing some people a bit like Sean, that it was certainly being sent away to reform school for a couple of banannas I think is was… and he swears that he did not send a bomb in the post to the policeman in England. But I would imagine, even before that …. He came from a large family, his father was fond of the jar as well, and they lived in this old warehouse in Gerald Griffin Street and I would imagine it all began there.”
“It was in the middle of October 1947 when I arrived at Dangean, and I was twelve and a half years of age. Absolute silence had to be maintained at all times. There was no heating in the washouse and the ice was about a quarter of an inch thick in the basins. I copied the other boys and broke the ice with a quick jab of the elbow, before having a wash in the freezing water. Brother Ahearn was supervising the wash-house, he did this by standing on a wooden box - he was nicknamed ‘The Killer’. I found out why on that very first morning in Dangean. Some boy was heard to whisper to another at the end of the wash-house, Brother Ahearn went red in the face. ‘If I catch the fella that’s talkin’ he won’t be able to talk for a long time’. Then he seemed to notice something, he jumped down off the box and ran to where the whisper had come from, caught hold of a boy and proceeded to beat him methodically with his fist. He punched the boy in the face repeatedly until the boys lip was split and his nose spurted blood, in his frenzy Brother Ahearn’s crusifix worked its way loose from the belt of his Cassock and dangling from its neck cord, jumped about in a grotesque dance as he carried out his attack on the terrified boy. Brother Ahearn then resumed his position on the wooden box and glared up and down the wash-houses ‘Ye scum of the earth, ye dirty, fildy good for nothing, scum of de eart’, ye pack of rotters. Ye will be no loss to anyone when ye go back to the filthy, dirty hovels and the ignorant, illeterate fathers and mothers that ye come from.”
From the wash-house we were marched once more through the snow and the darkness, to the Chapel for Mass.”
Jim Kemmy: “He didn’t like somebody who was perhaps his match in intelligence and wouldn’t perhaps take some of his assertions and some if his statements - which were forthright always, but sometimes would be wrong and perverse. He didn’t like that, you could fall out with him easily in drink - he would drink an awful lot. Sometimes he would drink two and three bottles of whisky a day and my abiding memory of Sean is of the markets area of Limerick. Sean would be up early in the morning. You would see him perhaps at times going to work, and you might meet him again later on that day and sometimes he would be the worse for wear after a bout of drinking all day - and that’s where he got into trouble - with himself, with the law and with other people. Because the drink had a bad effect on him - when he was sober he was a different person.”
Q: “When you were a fledgling politician in Limerick and hardly known nationally, Sean Bourke threw in his lot, so to speak, with you?”
Jim Kemmy: “He did. Way back in 1977 when I stood for the Dail for the first time Sean Bourke gave me the biggest financial contribution I ever got to my campaign fund. He gave me two hundred pounds. I gave it back a month afterwards. I would certainly say one thing, Sean Bourke was a very proud man. Sean Bourke gave away a fortune - he spent the best part of one hundred thousand pounds in Limerick. He paid light bills, he paid rent, he paid all sorts of other accounts for people, but he didn’t ever borrow money from anybody. He was very careful about who he would ask for money, I can assure you of that. And he gave me two hundred pounds then, and he also put his typing skills at my disposal in a number of elections, and was very helpful to me and very generous. Well, he was not a socialist by any means - he was anti-establishment, he was a radical, he was a wayward maverick in society, but nevertheless he had a tender feeling of spirit with me”.
Q: “How did he feel when you went into the Dail?”
Jim Kemmy: “Well he was proud of that mind you, he was very proud of the fact that I got to the Dail - he didn’t think I’d ever do it mind you, he didn’t think I’d ever do it, he thought I was wasting my time and said so as well in some of his blacker moments, he thought I was wasting my time; perhaps the people of Limerick didn’t deserve all his great hard work.”
Q: “What would he say to you?”
Jim Kemmy: “Ah he’d say, ‘you’ll never get to the Dail, the people will not respond to what you’re talking about - you’re right of course, I agree with you, but I don’t think you’ll succeed in what you’re doing; you’re better off not to get too involved, you’re wasting you’re time, you’d be better off picking up some other pursuits.’ He would discourage me gently and very half heartadly as well - he knew he was wasting his time. He was a bit cynical perhaps sometimes about people even though he spent his time amongst the down-and-outs, the down-trodden, nevertheless, he had a kind of love hate relationship for them, for the people of Limerick. He hated journalists of course, he hated journalists very much, and he didn’t like the police either. Mind you one of the saddest things I ever saw: Sean was in hospital for a while, St Josephs hospital, he had some sort of breakdown, he was trying to get off the drink and he broke out one day. Instead of going back to the hospital he went up outside the prison directing traffic in the middle of the street - he often did this. He was naturally arrested by the police because it was a high security prison in Limerick and there are squad cars going around all the time, so Sean was bundled unceremoniously into the squad car. He was taken up to Edwards Street Police Station. It was a lovely Saturday evening, and I got word of this at about seven o’clock, that Sean was inside in the Police Station. So I was very unhappy about this - I was going off to have a few drinks that night after the weeks work, and I thought of Sean lying down in a dirty, filthy cell - it was more than I could stand. So I up I went to the station and I went in and the Sergeant on duty wasn’t very cordial towards me - he was reluctant to let Sean out and into my care, he said could I guarantee that Sean wouldn’t get into trouble again which was rather a tall order for me. I told him that I couldn’t guarantee that I would be alive in the morning but I would guarantee him that if he left Sean go into my care I would see he was taken back to hospital again and I we would escort him back personally. So after some argy-bargy he agreed to let him into my care, rather reluctantly. So I went down to the cell to get him out and I was very sad to see him thrown down like that, and also it struck me that Sean had become institutionalised, because he was thrown down in a filthy cell, terrible surroundings, and it really wounded me terribly, pained me terribly. I couldn’t tell you how deeply I felt, and how shocked I was to see poor Sean thrown down on the ground, in vomit, filth of all indescribable sort. So ‘come on Sean’, I said ‘cheer up, we’re going out of here’. So he perked up immediately and came with me and cheerful to the Police leaving as well. Passed a few wise-cracks. I managed him down again, into St Joe’s hospital and he went in in a very docile way - he didn’t make any protest at all - he went straight into the hospital, into an observation unit ward. And then I felt terribly sorry about that to see poor Sean. I went off for the night and there he was locked away from one institution to another. That was the kind of fellow Sean was - he had been burned like that and he didn’t really care too much, he was irresponsible, he had been steeled in the fires of life”.
Kevin O’Conner a local Limerick Journalist suggest the following: “From the fire to the sea, his options narrowing yet again, with no sign of the promised second book being delivered, with five years of dissipation in Limerick and in the grip of something that none of his friends could really understand, Bourke went to Kilkee out on the Atlantic coast. Limerick’s watering hole, but a place he had never had a holiday in, unlike most Limerick people. Why? To attempt a childhood he never had? To try and write? because he was too proud to stay on in Limerick moneyless?, because the weight of his own contradictions were bowing him down. The socialist who was unable to live in Russia, the Anglophile who had dealt a blow to the British establishment, the man of action who has now sunk into sloth … Who can tell what the contradictions were, who knows. In the run of his life the water was rising to close the eyes of the bridge”.
Larry Collins: “My name is Larry Collins, I’m a native of Kilkee although I spent many years overseas. I first came home from the States I had a bar and then I opened a caravan park and I sold the bar. So in the afternoons I used to go for a walk around the beach in Kilkee, stop off at the Royal Marine hotel for a drink on my way home. Nearly every evening when I went to the Marine Sean Bourke was always sitting at the counter. So after a few evenings we got to say hello, or hi, and that’s how I got to know Sean Bourke. To me he was always very polite, very pleasant, he never was rough - just never interfered with anybody. If you spoke to Sean, he spoke to you, otherwise he did not speak to you. Very very civilised, very well mannered. Sean lived in a mobile home at the old Railway station in Kilkee. I’d say when Sean had not money he went walking every day. He walked to Kilrush about eight miles to Kilrush and eight miles back. And sometimes he’d go to Querm. So I often ask him who he used to meet on the road and he used to tell me that he was writing a book at the time. He used to say the passages out loud and he used to have a great laugh, because he thought the people, local people would think he was crazy. But he was reciting the passages to the new book, about his prison in England. I often passed Sean, many many times on the road - he always had a walking stick and he borrowed a neighbour’s brown dog for company. The only time Sean went for a walk was when he was short of money, otherwise he would be in the pub. But he was a very expensive man in a pub. I never had a drink with Sean because his drinks were too expensive for me. Sean never had anything less than a ‘large one’. Well of course when Sean was leaving the pub to go home at night he’d always bring his quart with him. Sean would say he’d wake up at about three in the morning and he’d have to have a drop, not the horrors at three in the morning, probably lonliness”.
“It was about ten past five in the evening. I was going for a walk. And I saw my friend Paddy Stapleton, he’s a mechanic in Kilkee at a local garage - called me. He was leaning over a body on the side of the road. I just went over to have a look and then I discovered it was Sean Bourke. And then a few more neighbours gathered around and somebody asked was there a Doctor called. So I went into my own house and I called the Doctor. Which I think somebody else had already phoned. A short time afterwards, Doctor Manghan arrived and he worked on him at the corner for around five or six minutes and then he decided he’d be better to remove him to a house. So I decided to leave him into my house. So they got some kind of a board and put him on it and took him into the house. And a short time afterwards Doctor Nolan arrived and the two Doctors, well until Sean died at around ten past seven that evening the two of them worked non-stop on him. They pumped his chest, shoved needles here on him but to me Sean never opened his eyes. Oh Sean was breathing very, very heavy and fighting very very heavy, fighting very very heavy. But I don’t think he knew what was happening. He was just muttering, just muttering, just fighting very very hard. And about ten minutes before he died the local ambulance arrived and they just went in, the nurse came in, the attendant came in. So Sean died, so they just…that was the end”.
Q: “When you went to the Caravan, the mobile home, what did you see?”
Larry Collins: “Well the local Garda were also present when Sean died, or during the two hours, in the house with me. So they said, they just wanted to see, was there any valuables on him. So I was a witness, being a civillian. So we just searched Sean and all we got on him was the keys of the mobile home and just a few pence. Then they asked me would I go to his mobile home with them to see was there any valuables in the mobile. So we proceeded to the mobile, and in the mobile we just could find nothing. There was a canvas cover to keep out the rain in half of it. His own little cubical was tidy, very small and nothing in it, just clean clothes, clean underwear, couple of clean shirts. A few papers thrown around, a few books in different languages, his own book in different languages, but to me there was nothing else.”
Q: “Did you ever know him to have a manuscript, or to be working on a manuscript?”
Larry Collins: “Well Sean always said that he was writing one, because he used to spend a lot of his time in one of the beach shelters with his typewriter, typing. So I believe he did have one. But there was no sign of it in the mobile home, definitely not!”
Q: “Could anybody else have gotten into the mobile home that morning?”
Larry Collins: “No, nobody. I doubt it very much because why would anybody want to break into a mobile with just a padlock that was on the door of the mobile. With the Garda, they opened it and I went in to be a witness that they did not take anything from it - and there was nothing in the mobile, there was nothing to take.”
Joe Malone: “Well I was at the inquest you know and I was expecting some very dramatic things from the Coroner you see. When all the evidence was held, there was a jury of five men I think and four women, the evidence was very simple. He collapsed in Kilkee and he died on his way to Ennis Hospital. The coroner definitely said that there were no great traces of alcohol in his blood, certainly no trace of drugs. He spoke to the body of the court and directed his remarks to the journalists to take note of that, in view of all the rumour on the paper on the death of Sean Bourke, and the possibility that he was seen to by the CIA or the KGB. Certainly they found nothing in him except that his lungs gave him trouble. He had bronchitis, his lungs were in a bad state - he didn’t smoke of course. He didn’t drink for days before he died because I know this for a fact, he didn’t have any money. Sean Bourke didn’t drink for four or five days before he died. The drink may have contributed a certain amount, and there was a mention of a lack of food, you know that he hadn’t eaten. I do know this for a fact because when some people went to visit the caravan in Kilkee there was nothing there, except a half loaf of dried bread and a few tea bags. Sean of course didn’t have hot water in the Caravan and he was just living a sleeping bag and one blanket. It was winter, and very cold in Kilkee. So I would imagine that contributed to Sean’s….”
Q: “Why was there this question mark over his death, why did people say or assume that he may have been ‘exterminated with extreme prejudice’ by either the KGB or….”
Joe Malone: “Well, there was always the hint that Sean knew a little more than he pretended to know and some think that he was knocked off because…he had some correspondence with somebody in England anyway, and it was suspect. Sean knew a lot of course, but he didn’t talk a lot. He must have mentioned in some pubs, occasionally he would…he never said a lot about the springing of Blake or some of the people in England but occasionally he did mention some high-ranking people in England he had known. So maybe that’s where the suspicion came from”.
Q: “High-ranking people who where involved in the backup group….was it said locally, at all, in his later years, and in the depths of the dispair he plummeted that he was writing to England asking for money and threatening that if he didn’t get paid a certain amount to keep him going, he would reveal the names of people in the British establishment who were involved in the springing of Blake?”
Joe Malone: “That was a rumour that I heard anyway, I heard that rumour myself, but how valid it is I don’t know. Although I do know that he was in a bad state at the end, but he was quite discreet as well. I would imagine he would have waited for a while, you know before he would have revealed anything.”
We raise that hair only to lay it. Sean Bourke died from natural causes, that is the view of the two Doctors who attended him at his death. It is the view of another specialist at Barringtons Hospital in Limerick who performed an autopsy, which is detailed examination of the internal organs. And is also the view of the Claire Coroner Doctor Daley. For ethical reasons these doctors are unable to give their testimony on tape but that is there considered judgement. For the record, Sean Bourke’s death certificate reads, for January 26th, 1982:
‘Cause of death: acute pneumenory odema, Coronary thrombosis, certified’
Jim Kemmy: “I don’t agree with the theory that he was got at down there, I think he died of natural causes. Because, don’t forget that even though he was only forty-seven years of age, he had wrecked himself. He’d never taken any precautions with his health and he got a stroke of sorts, he died fairly soon afterwards. And he had one pound and four pennies in his pocket. And when his brother came from Scotland to see him, he had the clothes he stood up in only, that’s all he had. And also inside the caravan there was a third of a bottle of milk, and about half a loaf of bread, nothing else. And one pound, four pennies in his pocket of his trousers. When he died of course we had a drink with his friends in the Munster Fare Tavern in his memory. And I did that, I went into the Munster Fare Tavern, it was during a general election, and I would never forget it, it was the day the Government came down, in January of 1982, and I got the news that morning that Sean had died - it cast an omen over the whole proceedings that were to follow. I had never forgotten Sean’s wish that I should honour it by having a drink in the Munster Fare Tavern on that day, so I came down from Dublin, even though it was during the campaign, we took time off to bury Sean - we all went in afterwards to the Munster Fare Tavern and we drank to Sean’s health.”
In May 1961 a Foreign Office man named George Blake was tried at the Old Bailey on five counts of spying for the Soviet Union. He was found guilty and sentenced to the longest term of imprisonment ever imposed under English Law – 42 years. On 22 October 1966 Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs Prison in London. There was an immediate international furore. Every port, airport and landing strip throughout the British Isles was put under strict round-the-clock surveillance. Watch was kept on every Eastern European embassy and consulate in London. The authorities believed that high-level KGB agents had engineered the daring coup. But, while the hue and cry mounted, Blake was living quietly in a flat in Highlever Road, a few minutes’ walk from Wormwood Scrubs Prison.
In fact, the springing of George Blake was the work not of foreign agents but of a single Irishman named Sean Bourke, who had been a fellow prisoner of Blake’s at Wormwood Scrubs. Nor was this astonishing coup carried out for monetary reward: it was actually achieved on a borrowed £700. Sean then assisted with spiriting Blake out of England then to Moscow, a few weeks later he followed him to Moscow by way of Paris. He then spent an extraordinary two years in Russia until his return to Ireland on 22 October 1968, the second anniversary of the jail break.
These are my recollections of Sean based on interview transcripts and personal recommendations.
Interview Transcript…
“…and so of course, I’m terribly relieved, but at the same time I’d say this, that I’m not at all surprised by the verdict…if they had decided otherwise and sent me back to England, the in my view the extradition treaty that exists between Ireland and England would be meaningless because it expressly provides protection for a person accused of a political offence…and if rescuing a spy from prison is not political then I don’t know what is”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Well I’ve…the story of the escape has been written in book form and my agent is coming over from London in two weeks time and I understand that he is taking the manuscript to New York to have it published in America first. On the strength of reading this manuscript he has urged me to continue writing and in fact I have finished a second book and I have plans for a third one…I hope to make a career in writing”
Sean Bourke in Dublin in February 1969 after the high court hearing which disallowed the application by the British authorities to have him extradited to Britain to face charges in connection with the escape of George Blake. Bourke had arrived back from Moscow to Ireland to Shannon airport on the twenty-second of October 1968, the second anniversary of the escape of George Blake.
“When I arrived a Shannon airport yesterday I had in my wallet precisely forty American dollars, given to me in Moscow by the KGB to cover my traveling expenses to Shannon, apart from that absolutely nothing…and if any suggestion had been made to me that some secret account in a Swiss bank might be arranged for me, and this has been hinted earlier on, I would have turned it down flat, because I have no desire to put myself on the road of a paid Soviet agent”
So what do you do, you come back to Ireland with no obvious prospects.
“I desire to be in the one country where I know I shall be happy, and certainly safe. If an Irishman is not safe and secure in Ireland, the for heavens sake, where is he safe?”
Where indeed, but from himself and his own. This is the story of a boy who grew up in a tough part of a city. The boy became an adolescent with quick wits; the adolescent became a man who turns the borstal behind him; and the man, while a prisoner in Wormwood Scurbs, and editor of the prison magazine, organised the escape of George Blake, then a senior officer in the British intelligence services - Blake was jailed for forty-two years for treason, having in his time betrayed crucial western security information to the Russian KGB. The boy who became the man was never a Communist as such, or part of any system which cushioned his own welfare. The boy who became the ‘great escaper, afterwards went to Russia and found it more oppressive than an English jail, returned home, but could never quite shake off that early wound - not with drink, or money or notoriety or being a hero in his own place, could shake off the would of whatever happened growing up.
His later life, after his return to this country was one of despair and disintegration - he squandered one hundred thousand pounds, in his own words 'I drank every penny' - a curving back to that murky, twilight world he cast away which had been his earliest excitement. He died on a lonely country road under the open sky with less than two pounds in his pocket. What ever else may be said about him, his life and his death were his own.
“This is fox michael calling Baker Charlie, fox michael calling Baker Charlie, come in please - over”
“Baker Charlie calling Fox Michael, Baker Charlie calling Fox Michael, can you hear me - come in please”
These recordings were made by Sean Bourke in the course of communicating with George Blake, over the twenty foot high wall of Wormwood Scrubs in October 1966, by walkie talkie radio. The recording reveals the arrangements being made to effect the escape while Bourke was outside the prison, having been released from there some months previously. Bourke does not refer to that recording in his book ‘The Springing of George Blake” - he kept it as evidence of his own part in the escape and to refute critics after his death who may have claimed that he did not do what he claimed that he did. The tool referred to is a small car jack Bourke had caused to be smuggled in to Blake, to break the struts of the window on the prison landing - in the event Blake broke the struts with a kick, scaled the wall and was spirited away by Bourke. You will read Blake’s references to ‘Stone walls, do not a prison make’ are from an English poet which both of them were studying while in prison…..:
“This is fox michael calling Baker Charlie, fox michael calling Baker Charlie, come in please - over”“Baker Charlie calling Fox Michael, Baker Charlie calling Fox Michael, can you hear me - come in please”“Stone walls, do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage - over”“I am innocent and required to take these for a Hermitage - over”“We could love less than a pool.. - over”“I may be just a dreamer - over”“Well now my friend, obviously the first question I must ask you is this - did you receive the tools, and if so are they suitable? - over”“I did not receive it - only the hand iron and the croppers, but not the jack itself it wasn’t there - a difficult position at the moment - over”“Well..this is very regrettable, I’m meeting him again tomorrow night at seven o’clock - that’s the earliest I can discover why you haven’t had them - over”“Do you know where he put the jack - because it wasn’t with the other stuff”
Sean tried to settle in Dublin but found the pull of his own notoriety and the push of his own inner demons too much to cope with. After several incidents, involving on one occasion the possession of a gun - which he said he needed for protection from some un-named people, and after many forays of drunken excess, he returned to Limerick - to the city where he had grown up, to that formative place where his deviant energies had first flowered.
Joe Malone knew him:“We were about twelve years of age in John the Baptist - I would be a little bit older than Sean but that didn’t make any great difference because in the school each schoolteacher (our teacher then was of course John Swift - George Swift was his correct name, he taught two classes, fourth and fifth - Sean was in the lower class than me). Because Sean you see came from the Christian Brothers in Sexton Street, he didn’t go to school there - he was a problem child like myself. I went to Cray Lane and I didn’t go to school in Cray Lane…actually John the Baptist was a school for bad boys, for troublesome street urchins”.
“Were Sean and yourself both convicted of offences at that age?”
“No. Sean was convicted of a very minor offence…I think it was a couple of bananas or so. I was actually never actually seriously convicted. I was brought to court for the stealing of eleven apples - I remember the exact amount, because there were four of us there and we could not share the eleven apples equally. But we were caught outside the Borma Road, of course I know we have two Borma Roads in Limerick, but there was one uptown and one in the Ennis Road. We were actually caught in the Borma Road with the eleven apples. We were brought to court and brought in front of District Justice Mary Flood - we’ll not forget his name - and only for the people we stole the apples from who were actually a Protestant Minister ( a Church of Ireland Minister) - he spoke for us - we would have been sent away. My other three pals with me were eventually sent away.”
“So you knew Sean Bourke then in John the Baptist. What kind of young fella’ was he?”
“He was a big, soft young man then. Of course the school was full of characters, and it was very difficult to stick out. Everybody was a character. You came in late and you went home and you didn’t go. Sometimes we may only go to school once a week. And they didn’t pay much attention to us y’see. But Sean didn’t really stick out, except for his big head of curly hair, his broad smile - he was a very soft young man then. He never showed any sign of aggression or arrogance, and stayed very much by himself…he was just about twelve years of age then. We had a little band in the school and we would march in and out of the school at lunch breaks and single file and we had pladulettes, a little drum and the symbols and a clapper. Sean would lead the band in playing the clappers. He was a big hefty young man and he led the class in every day. That’s when I first met Sean Bourke. I didn’t meet Sean Bourke then until I had read about him.”
“What number of years passed?”
“Oh…I suppose, nigh on thirty-six years I would say near enough to it. This I remember well because Sean Bourke had difficulty getting a flat you know in Limerick. I know estate agent he went into, and when Sean Bourke’s name was mentioned, as the occupier, Sean Bourke didn’t get a flat, they would not give him a flat…well his name of course y’see, he had appeared on television and radio and the newspapers, and this famous man who sprang George Blake, so ‘twas at that time that he went to live in the country, in the Irish cottages. I had a pub in Limerick as you know and Sean was one of my best customers and he was always very entertaining - a lovely singer and he had a marvellous sense of humour. He drank a lot, gave away a lot of money of course and unfortunately he befriended (I would imagine) the wrong type of person for his own good. But he was always very colourful, very gregarious except of course in his more depressing moments when the drink would be too much. By and large he had a great sense of humour and he was quite colourful. He was a bit depressed for a while in Limerick city until the great news came in one Monday morning that Alfred Hitchcock took an interest in his book - the book he had written - and Alfred Hitchcock, or his agent, placed ten thousand pounds in a northern bank - I know this because came in and presented me with a cheque for a hundred pounds, now he didn’t quite owe me a hundred pounds but he was very generous with money of course - but he swore that day (this is my connection with Sean) that he would never again handle a cheque book - that he would draw the money as he wanted it. Because he had gone through, roughly I think, between forty and fifty thousand pounds then - in a very short time.”
Jim Kemmy: “One story amuses me and I often think about it - it shows you Sean’s fixation with some happening. His spiritual home in Limerick, his local pub, was the Munster Fair Tavern - its still there mind you - just across the road from St Laurences graveyard where the roads fork from Waterford and Tipperary…Toddy Long, a childhood friend of the Bourkes, was banned from this pub for some minor infraction - now this was tantamount to excommunication and Sean made it the be all and end all of Sean Bourke’s life to get Toddy allowed back in to that pub. He tried as best he could, every kind of blandishment to Pat Carle to soften the line to let Toddy back, but no. But eventually Sean’s perseverance won the day and after some months Pat Carle allowed Toddy back to the pub. But that wasn’t good enough for Sean at all. He wanted to celebrate the occasion in fitting style and he hired a pipe band and a photographer. He got Toddy and the band to assemble in the centre of Limerick (it only had one set of traffic lights), it was by the traffic lights at Todds and Rocher stores corner. And Mulgrove Street is a continuation of Williams Street (that’s the longest street in Limerick - it was a mile long walk) and they set off. The band playing with Toddy at the head of the band - Sean and friends marching behind the band and the played away, along Williams Street up to the top of Mulgrove Street into the pub and the photographer taking pictures the whole way - they came into the pub then and it was drinks on the house all night long. It was the very same with Sean and in one sweep he won the world title.”
Joe Malone: “And then he would go off the booze and he would take long walks along [meelik…] he would walk for ten or fifteen miles a day but then he’d go back on the booze again. I think as a result, except for a few very colourful articles he had written for Jim Kemmys magazines, he didn’t write a whole lot anyway. He did keep in contact at first with people in England because I often went to his flat in Gerald-Griffin Street - his old warehouse - and one evening we were having great fun, we actually tried him in a mock trial for murder. When it was over - we all got very drunk - Sean rang Scotland Yard and the people in Scotland Yard - whoever we got onto - apparently knew him quite well - they were on first name terms anyway and the asked Sean would he like to call over and collect his old Rover - it was still in the yard. So he had the great sense of humour also.”
“Of course if he had put his foot inside the jurisdiction he would have been charged, tried and probably jailed for aiding and abetting the release of ….”
Joe Malone: “Well he checked that out he told me, and certainly he would have got seven years - he wasn’t always hazy from the booze, he always kept a very fine active brain…”
Jim Kemmy: “He could be mischevious, he could be very boyish in his pranks, but he could also be a deep complex man. He was a many-sided figure, Sean. Anti-establishment, difficult, morose, perverse, truculant. He was menacing without being violent - he was never physically violent, he was never a fighting man at all in that sense. He was driven on by demons, he had demons inside him that he couldn’t control, and sometimes those demons got the better of him.”
“What was the nature of those demons?”
Jim Kemmy: “I often tried to work that out myself because I was friend of his, very proud to have known Sean Bourke - sometimes our relationship was stormy as well and Sean Bourke, he made friends slowly but fell out very quickly, very easily. So our relationship was often touchy, often delecate, and fragile but still it persisted till the very end. I’m glad of that too because I remember Sean with affection and often try to analyse him. I suppose it was his childhood really, his poverty in his childhood - the fact he was locked up for eleven years, behind bars of one kind or another. He was in Dangean first of all, then borstal, and then in Wormwood Scrubs - about eleven years in all. That had an effect on his personality and it was deeper than that too - perhaps he had some kind of mental disorders as well within him. And as a result of that, he couldn’t live in peace with himself. A very talented man - he was a good writer, a masterly writer at times - the best typist I ever saw! He was a bricklayer (trained by Her Majesty), electrician as well he was and learned other skills in prison - a highly intelligent man, good editor as well of the prison magazine, but unfortunately unhappy, tortured, tormented figure. Couldn’t come to terms with himself.”
Sean (with a drink in him): “I was born in Limerick by accident. Because when my father and mother were going together and got married there was no television in Limerick (thanks be to Christ!). As a result of which I was born. If Limerick City tomorrow, capsized under the weight of its own dirty, filthy hypocracy into the River Shannon and was never heard of again I wouldn’t shed a tear Mr Chariman….and the WORLD would have lost nothing!!!!”
Joe Malone: “This big front that he put up, basically he was a very kind person and he wouldn’t put a word wrong when he was sober. But he was very frustrated and very very confused towards the end. He could write, and write quite well and he had a mind, a gift of course, gift of the gab of course. I feel that he knew deep down….remember that Sean Bourke used to, after a bout of drink, would stick his head into a toilet bowl, very often for an hour in the morning-time. You know he would get a dry retching, every morning and he did tell me at one stage that he would rather cut his right hand off than ever drink again. Eventually of course he broke out. But to my mind this was laying heavily on him - he realised that he had a lot to offer, but he could not shake off the old booze.”
“What was the torment that was deep in his nature…what was the source of that torment, did you ever ponder..?”
Joe Malone: “Well….I would imagine, you know, knowing some people a bit like Sean, that it was certainly being sent away to reform school for a couple of banannas I think is was… and he swears that he did not send a bomb in the post to the policeman in England. But I would imagine, even before that …. He came from a large family, his father was fond of the jar as well, and they lived in this old warehouse in Gerald Griffin Street and I would imagine it all began there.”
“It was in the middle of October 1947 when I arrived at Dangean, and I was twelve and a half years of age. Absolute silence had to be maintained at all times. There was no heating in the washouse and the ice was about a quarter of an inch thick in the basins. I copied the other boys and broke the ice with a quick jab of the elbow, before having a wash in the freezing water. Brother Ahearn was supervising the wash-house, he did this by standing on a wooden box - he was nicknamed ‘The Killer’. I found out why on that very first morning in Dangean. Some boy was heard to whisper to another at the end of the wash-house, Brother Ahearn went red in the face. ‘If I catch the fella that’s talkin’ he won’t be able to talk for a long time’. Then he seemed to notice something, he jumped down off the box and ran to where the whisper had come from, caught hold of a boy and proceeded to beat him methodically with his fist. He punched the boy in the face repeatedly until the boys lip was split and his nose spurted blood, in his frenzy Brother Ahearn’s crusifix worked its way loose from the belt of his Cassock and dangling from its neck cord, jumped about in a grotesque dance as he carried out his attack on the terrified boy. Brother Ahearn then resumed his position on the wooden box and glared up and down the wash-houses ‘Ye scum of the earth, ye dirty, fildy good for nothing, scum of de eart’, ye pack of rotters. Ye will be no loss to anyone when ye go back to the filthy, dirty hovels and the ignorant, illeterate fathers and mothers that ye come from.”
From the wash-house we were marched once more through the snow and the darkness, to the Chapel for Mass.”
Jim Kemmy: “He didn’t like somebody who was perhaps his match in intelligence and wouldn’t perhaps take some of his assertions and some if his statements - which were forthright always, but sometimes would be wrong and perverse. He didn’t like that, you could fall out with him easily in drink - he would drink an awful lot. Sometimes he would drink two and three bottles of whisky a day and my abiding memory of Sean is of the markets area of Limerick. Sean would be up early in the morning. You would see him perhaps at times going to work, and you might meet him again later on that day and sometimes he would be the worse for wear after a bout of drinking all day - and that’s where he got into trouble - with himself, with the law and with other people. Because the drink had a bad effect on him - when he was sober he was a different person.”
Q: “When you were a fledgling politician in Limerick and hardly known nationally, Sean Bourke threw in his lot, so to speak, with you?”
Jim Kemmy: “He did. Way back in 1977 when I stood for the Dail for the first time Sean Bourke gave me the biggest financial contribution I ever got to my campaign fund. He gave me two hundred pounds. I gave it back a month afterwards. I would certainly say one thing, Sean Bourke was a very proud man. Sean Bourke gave away a fortune - he spent the best part of one hundred thousand pounds in Limerick. He paid light bills, he paid rent, he paid all sorts of other accounts for people, but he didn’t ever borrow money from anybody. He was very careful about who he would ask for money, I can assure you of that. And he gave me two hundred pounds then, and he also put his typing skills at my disposal in a number of elections, and was very helpful to me and very generous. Well, he was not a socialist by any means - he was anti-establishment, he was a radical, he was a wayward maverick in society, but nevertheless he had a tender feeling of spirit with me”.
Q: “How did he feel when you went into the Dail?”
Jim Kemmy: “Well he was proud of that mind you, he was very proud of the fact that I got to the Dail - he didn’t think I’d ever do it mind you, he didn’t think I’d ever do it, he thought I was wasting my time and said so as well in some of his blacker moments, he thought I was wasting my time; perhaps the people of Limerick didn’t deserve all his great hard work.”
Q: “What would he say to you?”
Jim Kemmy: “Ah he’d say, ‘you’ll never get to the Dail, the people will not respond to what you’re talking about - you’re right of course, I agree with you, but I don’t think you’ll succeed in what you’re doing; you’re better off not to get too involved, you’re wasting you’re time, you’d be better off picking up some other pursuits.’ He would discourage me gently and very half heartadly as well - he knew he was wasting his time. He was a bit cynical perhaps sometimes about people even though he spent his time amongst the down-and-outs, the down-trodden, nevertheless, he had a kind of love hate relationship for them, for the people of Limerick. He hated journalists of course, he hated journalists very much, and he didn’t like the police either. Mind you one of the saddest things I ever saw: Sean was in hospital for a while, St Josephs hospital, he had some sort of breakdown, he was trying to get off the drink and he broke out one day. Instead of going back to the hospital he went up outside the prison directing traffic in the middle of the street - he often did this. He was naturally arrested by the police because it was a high security prison in Limerick and there are squad cars going around all the time, so Sean was bundled unceremoniously into the squad car. He was taken up to Edwards Street Police Station. It was a lovely Saturday evening, and I got word of this at about seven o’clock, that Sean was inside in the Police Station. So I was very unhappy about this - I was going off to have a few drinks that night after the weeks work, and I thought of Sean lying down in a dirty, filthy cell - it was more than I could stand. So I up I went to the station and I went in and the Sergeant on duty wasn’t very cordial towards me - he was reluctant to let Sean out and into my care, he said could I guarantee that Sean wouldn’t get into trouble again which was rather a tall order for me. I told him that I couldn’t guarantee that I would be alive in the morning but I would guarantee him that if he left Sean go into my care I would see he was taken back to hospital again and I we would escort him back personally. So after some argy-bargy he agreed to let him into my care, rather reluctantly. So I went down to the cell to get him out and I was very sad to see him thrown down like that, and also it struck me that Sean had become institutionalised, because he was thrown down in a filthy cell, terrible surroundings, and it really wounded me terribly, pained me terribly. I couldn’t tell you how deeply I felt, and how shocked I was to see poor Sean thrown down on the ground, in vomit, filth of all indescribable sort. So ‘come on Sean’, I said ‘cheer up, we’re going out of here’. So he perked up immediately and came with me and cheerful to the Police leaving as well. Passed a few wise-cracks. I managed him down again, into St Joe’s hospital and he went in in a very docile way - he didn’t make any protest at all - he went straight into the hospital, into an observation unit ward. And then I felt terribly sorry about that to see poor Sean. I went off for the night and there he was locked away from one institution to another. That was the kind of fellow Sean was - he had been burned like that and he didn’t really care too much, he was irresponsible, he had been steeled in the fires of life”.
Kevin O’Conner a local Limerick Journalist suggest the following: “From the fire to the sea, his options narrowing yet again, with no sign of the promised second book being delivered, with five years of dissipation in Limerick and in the grip of something that none of his friends could really understand, Bourke went to Kilkee out on the Atlantic coast. Limerick’s watering hole, but a place he had never had a holiday in, unlike most Limerick people. Why? To attempt a childhood he never had? To try and write? because he was too proud to stay on in Limerick moneyless?, because the weight of his own contradictions were bowing him down. The socialist who was unable to live in Russia, the Anglophile who had dealt a blow to the British establishment, the man of action who has now sunk into sloth … Who can tell what the contradictions were, who knows. In the run of his life the water was rising to close the eyes of the bridge”.
Larry Collins: “My name is Larry Collins, I’m a native of Kilkee although I spent many years overseas. I first came home from the States I had a bar and then I opened a caravan park and I sold the bar. So in the afternoons I used to go for a walk around the beach in Kilkee, stop off at the Royal Marine hotel for a drink on my way home. Nearly every evening when I went to the Marine Sean Bourke was always sitting at the counter. So after a few evenings we got to say hello, or hi, and that’s how I got to know Sean Bourke. To me he was always very polite, very pleasant, he never was rough - just never interfered with anybody. If you spoke to Sean, he spoke to you, otherwise he did not speak to you. Very very civilised, very well mannered. Sean lived in a mobile home at the old Railway station in Kilkee. I’d say when Sean had not money he went walking every day. He walked to Kilrush about eight miles to Kilrush and eight miles back. And sometimes he’d go to Querm. So I often ask him who he used to meet on the road and he used to tell me that he was writing a book at the time. He used to say the passages out loud and he used to have a great laugh, because he thought the people, local people would think he was crazy. But he was reciting the passages to the new book, about his prison in England. I often passed Sean, many many times on the road - he always had a walking stick and he borrowed a neighbour’s brown dog for company. The only time Sean went for a walk was when he was short of money, otherwise he would be in the pub. But he was a very expensive man in a pub. I never had a drink with Sean because his drinks were too expensive for me. Sean never had anything less than a ‘large one’. Well of course when Sean was leaving the pub to go home at night he’d always bring his quart with him. Sean would say he’d wake up at about three in the morning and he’d have to have a drop, not the horrors at three in the morning, probably lonliness”.
“It was about ten past five in the evening. I was going for a walk. And I saw my friend Paddy Stapleton, he’s a mechanic in Kilkee at a local garage - called me. He was leaning over a body on the side of the road. I just went over to have a look and then I discovered it was Sean Bourke. And then a few more neighbours gathered around and somebody asked was there a Doctor called. So I went into my own house and I called the Doctor. Which I think somebody else had already phoned. A short time afterwards, Doctor Manghan arrived and he worked on him at the corner for around five or six minutes and then he decided he’d be better to remove him to a house. So I decided to leave him into my house. So they got some kind of a board and put him on it and took him into the house. And a short time afterwards Doctor Nolan arrived and the two Doctors, well until Sean died at around ten past seven that evening the two of them worked non-stop on him. They pumped his chest, shoved needles here on him but to me Sean never opened his eyes. Oh Sean was breathing very, very heavy and fighting very very heavy, fighting very very heavy. But I don’t think he knew what was happening. He was just muttering, just muttering, just fighting very very hard. And about ten minutes before he died the local ambulance arrived and they just went in, the nurse came in, the attendant came in. So Sean died, so they just…that was the end”.
Q: “When you went to the Caravan, the mobile home, what did you see?”
Larry Collins: “Well the local Garda were also present when Sean died, or during the two hours, in the house with me. So they said, they just wanted to see, was there any valuables on him. So I was a witness, being a civillian. So we just searched Sean and all we got on him was the keys of the mobile home and just a few pence. Then they asked me would I go to his mobile home with them to see was there any valuables in the mobile. So we proceeded to the mobile, and in the mobile we just could find nothing. There was a canvas cover to keep out the rain in half of it. His own little cubical was tidy, very small and nothing in it, just clean clothes, clean underwear, couple of clean shirts. A few papers thrown around, a few books in different languages, his own book in different languages, but to me there was nothing else.”
Q: “Did you ever know him to have a manuscript, or to be working on a manuscript?”
Larry Collins: “Well Sean always said that he was writing one, because he used to spend a lot of his time in one of the beach shelters with his typewriter, typing. So I believe he did have one. But there was no sign of it in the mobile home, definitely not!”
Q: “Could anybody else have gotten into the mobile home that morning?”
Larry Collins: “No, nobody. I doubt it very much because why would anybody want to break into a mobile with just a padlock that was on the door of the mobile. With the Garda, they opened it and I went in to be a witness that they did not take anything from it - and there was nothing in the mobile, there was nothing to take.”
Joe Malone: “Well I was at the inquest you know and I was expecting some very dramatic things from the Coroner you see. When all the evidence was held, there was a jury of five men I think and four women, the evidence was very simple. He collapsed in Kilkee and he died on his way to Ennis Hospital. The coroner definitely said that there were no great traces of alcohol in his blood, certainly no trace of drugs. He spoke to the body of the court and directed his remarks to the journalists to take note of that, in view of all the rumour on the paper on the death of Sean Bourke, and the possibility that he was seen to by the CIA or the KGB. Certainly they found nothing in him except that his lungs gave him trouble. He had bronchitis, his lungs were in a bad state - he didn’t smoke of course. He didn’t drink for days before he died because I know this for a fact, he didn’t have any money. Sean Bourke didn’t drink for four or five days before he died. The drink may have contributed a certain amount, and there was a mention of a lack of food, you know that he hadn’t eaten. I do know this for a fact because when some people went to visit the caravan in Kilkee there was nothing there, except a half loaf of dried bread and a few tea bags. Sean of course didn’t have hot water in the Caravan and he was just living a sleeping bag and one blanket. It was winter, and very cold in Kilkee. So I would imagine that contributed to Sean’s….”
Q: “Why was there this question mark over his death, why did people say or assume that he may have been ‘exterminated with extreme prejudice’ by either the KGB or….”
Joe Malone: “Well, there was always the hint that Sean knew a little more than he pretended to know and some think that he was knocked off because…he had some correspondence with somebody in England anyway, and it was suspect. Sean knew a lot of course, but he didn’t talk a lot. He must have mentioned in some pubs, occasionally he would…he never said a lot about the springing of Blake or some of the people in England but occasionally he did mention some high-ranking people in England he had known. So maybe that’s where the suspicion came from”.
Q: “High-ranking people who where involved in the backup group….was it said locally, at all, in his later years, and in the depths of the dispair he plummeted that he was writing to England asking for money and threatening that if he didn’t get paid a certain amount to keep him going, he would reveal the names of people in the British establishment who were involved in the springing of Blake?”
Joe Malone: “That was a rumour that I heard anyway, I heard that rumour myself, but how valid it is I don’t know. Although I do know that he was in a bad state at the end, but he was quite discreet as well. I would imagine he would have waited for a while, you know before he would have revealed anything.”
We raise that hair only to lay it. Sean Bourke died from natural causes, that is the view of the two Doctors who attended him at his death. It is the view of another specialist at Barringtons Hospital in Limerick who performed an autopsy, which is detailed examination of the internal organs. And is also the view of the Claire Coroner Doctor Daley. For ethical reasons these doctors are unable to give their testimony on tape but that is there considered judgement. For the record, Sean Bourke’s death certificate reads, for January 26th, 1982:
‘Cause of death: acute pneumenory odema, Coronary thrombosis, certified’
Jim Kemmy: “I don’t agree with the theory that he was got at down there, I think he died of natural causes. Because, don’t forget that even though he was only forty-seven years of age, he had wrecked himself. He’d never taken any precautions with his health and he got a stroke of sorts, he died fairly soon afterwards. And he had one pound and four pennies in his pocket. And when his brother came from Scotland to see him, he had the clothes he stood up in only, that’s all he had. And also inside the caravan there was a third of a bottle of milk, and about half a loaf of bread, nothing else. And one pound, four pennies in his pocket of his trousers. When he died of course we had a drink with his friends in the Munster Fare Tavern in his memory. And I did that, I went into the Munster Fare Tavern, it was during a general election, and I would never forget it, it was the day the Government came down, in January of 1982, and I got the news that morning that Sean had died - it cast an omen over the whole proceedings that were to follow. I had never forgotten Sean’s wish that I should honour it by having a drink in the Munster Fare Tavern on that day, so I came down from Dublin, even though it was during the campaign, we took time off to bury Sean - we all went in afterwards to the Munster Fare Tavern and we drank to Sean’s health.”
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