Myles McCormick
“July 19th. Now why does that strike me as important?”
“I wouldn’t know Ted you big bollocks.”
“What? Have you been reading those Roddy Doyle books again, Dougal?”
“I have yeah Ted, you big gobshite.”
“Yes, well that’s all very well, but you have to remember, they’re just stories. Normal people like us don’t use that kind of language. Remember, this is the real world.”
Roddy Doyle is a man who’s often come under fire in the past for a perception of the ‘real world’ that, for some, cuts too close to the bone. Indeed, it was on such a basis that he was once told by a film producer that the ‘fuck quotient’ in one particular novel was far too high for the big screen.
Last Tuesday, he made an appearance at the Hist. He was presented with the Edmund Burke medal for his contribution to the arts before addressing the crowd.
His subject of choice – for a change – was the economic climate, but he had rather a different take on the subject than that to which we have become so nauseatingly used. ‘I don’t want to say anything profound or deep,’ he began, ‘But there seems to be a perception that there is nothing in Ireland for you.’ He condemned the ‘walking picture of hopelessness’ that he feels the country has become, insisting that great stories are often written in hard times. ‘And at the same time, we have more to offer the world than culture alone.’
‘You have to get to know things in other ways; find the emotions within yourself.’
‘The notion that Ireland has nothing to offer the world anymore is warped,’ he asserted, ‘Fight it. Fight it by laughing. Sure the country doesn’t like you (young people) anyway. You’ve no manners, no attention span, no time for anything but facebook, and as for your morals…!’
Having conveyed his Obama-esque message of hope to the room of eager onlookers, Mr Doyle proceeded to take questions on everything from the origins of his desire to write – reading – to the differences between Dublin of yesteryear and Dublin of today – not much: ‘A joke is still a joke. Grief is still grief. Joy is still joy.’ – to the process of turning his works into films. Each answer was considered, yet thoroughly unassuming.
Interestingly, he dismissed the old mantra that one should only write what one knows, describing it as ‘far too limiting’. Applying such a rule to himself, he held, would allow him write about the experiences of a 52 year old, short sighted man and nothing else. Under such a condition, ‘Snapper’ – a novel centred on the life of a pregnant girl – could never have been written because, as he simply put it, ‘I’ve never been pregnant’. ‘You have to get to know things in other ways; find the emotions within yourself.’
On that note of poignancy, auditor Huw Duffy called time. The show was over, and the ever amicable Roddy Doyle descended into the rabble for a chat.
