Peter Costello
Archives | State Papers
Secrets of the powers that be
One of the delights of these file releases are the curious side-lights that are cast by the documents on our leaders. In the files released from the President’s office are some dealing with Douglas Hyde’s term in office as First President of Ireland under the 1937 Constitution.
The personal tastes of Douglas Hyde
During the early 1940s one of His Excellency’s most persistent correspondents was an American eccentric Cyril Clemens, a distant cousin of Mark Twain, who devoted his life to his famous relative. To hundreds of important individuals he offered life membership in the International Mark Twain Society, which he founded in 1930.
Clemens opened with a request for permission to name a street after the President. This was refused, as there were strict rules on this kind of thing. He then enrolled Hyde as an honorary member of the Mark Twain Society making him “Irish correspondent”.
They exchanged books and literary lore. Clemens asked Hyde: “Did you know that late Thomas Hardy was a warm admirer of you and your work? He once spoke to me about you for over half an hour”.
Questionnaire
In the course of their correspondence Mr Clemens sent Hyde a questionnaire on his personal tastes. This was in 1938. Though it was filled out by the President in his own hand, his office refused to forward the document to Dr Clemens. However, it makes interesting reading:
My best virtue / That I have always answered letters.
My worst fault / I don’t know they are so many
The virtue I admire most in men / good sportsmanship
My favourite actress / I don’t know
My favourite actor / I don’t know
My favourite hobby / shooting game
My favourite song / Some of Moore’s melodies
My favourite book / Goethe’s Faust
My pet vanity / Don’t know.
Usual time of rising and retiring / 9-11
My favourite food / anything I can get
My favourite drink / uisge beatha & soda
My favourite sport (indoor) / reading
Favourite sport (outdoor) / shooting
My favourite characters in history / Wolfe Tone, perhaps
My favourite characters in fiction / ?
My favourite animal / Irish setter.
My earliest memory / A horse chestnut, lying in the pram
These responses give a delightful image of the easy-going scholar and President. What, one wonders, would de Valera’s have looked like?
…And Mrs Lynch’s taste in Irish art
When a new Taoiseach comes into the office he has the chance to change the decor in his own office, especially to have a choice of what State-owned art works to hang on the walls. What other earlier and later Taoisigh had done is not clear but from these releases we know what Mrs Lynch chose for Jack in office.
They all came from the National Gallery, arranged by director James White. The four pictures were as follows: ‘Ann’ by Margaret Clarke; ‘Kilkee the Atlantic’ by Nathaniel Hone; ‘Lough Mask’ by James Arthur O’Connor; ‘W. B. Yeats’ by Sarah Purser.
While these are very fine, they are also very worthy. But the choice of Margaret Clarke’s charming portrait of her daughter strikes a truly personal note, as Margaret Clarke was not then, I think, quite as appreciated as she is today. A nice touch by Mrs Lynch.
These smaller pictures are hung discretely, for in effect they are dominated by a large portrait facing the Taoiseach’s desk: this is of De Valera when Fianna Fáil is in power; under Fine Gael a portrait of Michael Collins. These are totemic images, sadly to remind our forward looking leaders of their historical roots.
In the corridor outside hang smaller portraits of the presidents of the Executive Councils and former Taoisigh. Up to a very recent date this array did not include Mr Brian Cowan.