Tinteán

Image of Professor Curtis reproduced courtesy of the Board of Trinity College, Dublin.

Tinteán is very grateful to the editors of Search for permission to use this essay from their archive http://searchjournal.ireland.anglican.org. It first appeared in the winter edition of Search in1996, pp.127-31.

A personal reminiscence of Edmund Curtis, sometime professor of modern history in the University of Dublin

by John Corbett

I read Modern History and Political Science in Dublin University from 1936 to 1940, talking my degree in absentia in January 1940. The most memorable lectures which I attended were those given by Curtis; he was always interesting and amusing, never the dry historian. Among the many things we learnt from him was the importance in history of dinner parties, where, he said, most of the decisions taken by British governments were framed!

Whenever a really fine day occurred during Trinity Term he always held his lectures in the Fellows’ Garden, the only time we undergraduates ever entered this professorial sanctum. When he lectured here it was his privilege, he said, to seat himself amongst the ladies, who in those days always sat in a group apart from the men. Invariably the Professor placed himself between the two most attractive girls in the year, Maureen Fitzpatrick and Rose Gwynn.

During my last two years in Trinity I was also engaged in running a farm of 125 acres, and consequently required permission for absence from some lectures. Having asked the reason for my proposed absence, and having thus discovered that we were both Donegal men, Curtis readily gave this permission: so began a friendly rapport between us.

Curtis never forgot the county of his origins and revelled in its history and legends; he once told me proudly that Sir Walter Scott had said that there was more romance in the history of County Donegal than in the whole of Scotland.

I had often thought of inviting Curtis to my home in Donegal, but thought it best to defer the invitation until after I had taken my degree, so did nothing about it until early summer in 1941, when my wife Eileen and I met Curtis by chance in the Front Square and invited him to spend some of the vacation with us in Co. Donegal. Somewhat to our surprise he readily accepted, and on the due date turned up at Buncrana via the L.L.S. Railway, complete with luggage and an antique bicycle. This had fixed pedals and Curtis always mounted it by standing behind the carrier and jumping from both feet simultaneously into the saddle with one tremendous bound!

As there was no petrol then for anyone except doctors and clergy, I met him at the station driving a smart green dogcart with high canary-coloured wheels – I don’t think he had travelled in such a turn-out since the days of his youth!

We then lived in an old house known as Linsfort Castle which had a history which Curtis found quite intriguing. On an armorial stone over the front door was an inscription which read: ‘This House was rebuilt by Captain Arthur Benson in the year of God 1720’. Beneath this was Benson’s coat of arms. This property had come into the possession of the Benson family as payment for the building of the walls of Derry. Paul Benson being the contractor who carried out this work under the direction of Thomas Riven Esq. of London. The oldest part of the house was a very large old-fashioned chimney, which Curtis said was prior to the rebuilding of 1720, and could be Elizabethan. Possibly he was right, for there was a tradition that the house had once contained a staircase which had been taken from an Armada ship, the Duquesa Santa Anna, wrecked in Glenagivney Bay. My father remembered seeing fragments of this staircase in use as partitions for cattle. He said that they had panels carved with representations of the birds, monkeys and fruits of the New World. Not a trace of this interesting relic remained in my time.

These stories Curtis found most interesting. He had a great relish for old traditions and legends, which he loved to hear and to tell as we sat at a turf fire in the evenings. Indeed, it was quite hard to get him to go to bed, for as long as a glow remained in the fire he was loth to leave it. ‘It’s not lucky to leave a fire like that!’ he would say, ‘for you never know what might come and warm itself there after you had gone’. I said that this reminded me of the part in Milton’s L’Allegro which goes:

Then lays him down the lubber fiend,
And, stretch’d out all the Chimney’s length
Basks at the fire his hairy strength.

‘Yes indeed,’ said Curtis, ‘I have the same notion!’

Among his stories was that of the headless horseman who gallops furiously on a strand near Rathmullen at midnight, and whom it is most unlucky to meet. At one of these story telling sessions I told him of a strange account of a wandering friar handed down from relatives of my grandmother. Briefly, this friar appeared at their door and said that he had heard that they were looking for a tutor for their two young sons: he wished to apply for this position, which he would fill in return for board and lodging and a small payment per annum. Knowing this family to be Protestant, he promised not to touch on religion; he had only one stipulation – that he must have a room to himself which he must be permitted to keep locked. No one was ever to enter it as long as he stayed with them. The two boys of the house found him a good teacher and, feeling the benefit of education persuaded their parents to permit the gardener’s son, who was their constant playmate, to share this instruction with them. The friar was glad to acquiesce, for the gardener’s son was a Roman Catholic; afterwards he benefited so much from the friar’s teaching that he became the celebrated Bishop McGettigan. As the boys grew into their later ‘teens they became more and more curious about the secret of the friar’s locked room. It was a downstairs room and just beneath the boys’ bedroom. At last their curiosity got the better of them and they bored a hole in their floor, thus hoping to discover the friar’s secret. This they did. To their astonishment they found that he slept in an upright position in a net bag which was suspended from a hook in the ceiling.

From their demeanour the friar guessed that they had spied on him, and tackled them about it. They admitted their fault and asked him why he tormented himself in this manner. He told them that he was the last surviving friar of the old Carmelite monastery at Rathmullen, and that he was doing penance on behalf of his former colleagues.

Now you may wonder what connection this strange story has with Edmund Curtis, but when I told it to him he looked amazed and said: ‘That friar was An Brathair Ban, indeed the last survivor of the Carmelite friary of Rathmullen. I met him on the road when I was about seven, and he asked my name and who I was. I was able to answer him in Irish, which seemed to please him. Then he blessed me and said: ‘One day you will be a learned man and a great scholar’! At this time Curtis’ father was rector in Rathmullen, and he had learnt his Irish from playing with the local children.

Curtis had said that he would come to us for a week, but this was soon extended without much pressing. We did not know then that he was suffering from leukaemia, and had only a few years left, and we wondered at his request to have meat five times a day. In those days there was not much treatment for this disease except advising the patient to eat raw liver sandwiches, which we later discovered Curtis always carried in his pocket when he went for a walk or cycle ride.

As well as his addiction to meat, the Professor liked a nightcap of hot whiskey, and this I used to bring him after he had gone to bed. Not only did he have the whiskey nightcap, he also wore one in bed! He was the only person I have ever seen who slept in a nightgown and nightcap. The nightgown was a very fine one, with ruffed sleeves such as a bishop might have been proud to own, and loosely under its collar he wore a black silk cravat!

At that time our housekeeper was a Miss Tandy, a great grandniece of the famous Napper Tandy. This placed her on a good footing with Curtis, and she did her best to keep him happy. After he had been with us for a few days she presented him with a choice of eggs for breakfast, all arranged on a tray thus: a goose egg; a turkey egg; a duck egg; a hen egg, and a guineafowl egg (uncooked of course). Curtis decided to go through them all, starting with the goose egg, and having one of each except the guineafowl egg, of which he demanded two!

During Curtis’ visit we had heard that a certain historian from Maynooth was staying with the local C.C., Father Willie Dolan, who was a good friend of ours. Now I knew that Curtis and this academic had had a serious falling out, and were not on speaking terms, so I suggested to my wife that it would not be diplomatic to bring about an encounter between them.

Wiser than I, she ignored this advice, and one day, when I was busy away from home and Curtis was at a loose end, she suggested to him: ‘Why don’t you take your bike and call on Father Dolan? He knows a lot about the district, and you could have a good chat with him’. Now this was rather wicked of her, for she knew that Father Willie was not at home, and that Curtis would certainly have a surprise. Off went Curtis with a leap and a bound on his bike, and when he knocked on the curate’s door who should answer but his antagonist from Maynooth! I am glad to relate that the quarrel was made up and the feud buried, but we did have a laugh.

Among the stories Curtis told us were several illustrating the simplicity of manners still prevailing in Donegal during the earlier years of this century. One of these has remained clearly in my memory. It was the month of June and Curtis accompanied by two ladies was on a motor tour in west Donegal. He had not been there for years and they lost their way. Pulling up opposite a cottage, Curtis got out of the car and approached the door. Just as he reached it a man appeared in the doorway stark naked! Then, before anything could be said, his wife called from within, ‘Is mná uaisle ins an gluaisteán! Thóg pláta ón driosúir!‘ (There are ladies in the car! Take a plate off the dresser!) This the naked fellow did, and holding it in a strategic position approached Curtis and the ladies and courteously informed them as to their route!

Other stories told by Curtis were those of historical interest, some of the most interesting being those connected with the history and traditions of Doe Castle, once the stronghold of McSweeney Doe. The Castle is said to be haunted by the ghost of Judith McSweeney, killed accidentally by her father, McSweeney Doe, when he was attempting to slay her lover, an Elizabethan English officer.

In the course of his visits to Doe Castle, Curtis became acquainted with one McSweeney who lived in the nearest cottage to the ruined castle. In his first conversation with this man Curtis noticed that he spoke very pure and stately Irish, as different from the Irish of the peasantry as Oxford English is from the dialects of Manchester or Newcastle. When he questioned the man about this late McSweeney said, ‘I speak the Irish of the duine usual, not the Irish of the bacagh!’ He told Curtis that he was the last lineal descendant of the last Mc Sweeney chieftain of Doe, whose pedigree he could relate back to the earliest of their ancestors. Curtis asked him had he not any sons. Yes, he said he had two, but they had gone to work in Glasgow and cared for none of these things, which would soon be forgotten.

Curtis had a strong dislike of the extreme northern accent which is sometimes found among the ‘planter’ population in Donegal. He had, he told me, a young cousin who called himself ‘Wully’, but despite this handicap was quite clever. Curtis told him that if he could eradicate his frightful accent, then he, Curtis, would pay his fees for a degree course in Trinity. This indeed happened. ‘Wully’ became Willy, and Curtis financed his college career.

Excellent company, friendly, eccentric and lovable was Edmund Curtis.

DEPUTY’S PASS, CO. WICKLOW R. JOHN H.CORBETT