Decades ahead of his time

BIOGRAPHY: IVANA BACIKreviews Crummey v IrelandBy Frank Crummey Londubh Books, 222pp. €14.99

WE NEED MORE Frank Crummeys; independent thinkers and courageous fighters, men and women willing to challenge the status quo. Born in 1936 and reared on Kilfenora Road in Kimmage, Dublin, Frank Crummey has always been decades ahead of his time. He may have held down a succession of diverse and unlikely occupational posts – soldier, bus driver, postman, social worker, builder and private investigator – before becoming a legal executive, but his active campaigning life has been his real career.

He has challenged the status quo on a range of issues, beginning in the 1960s with the Language Freedom Movement, which contested the orthodoxy that the Irish language should be imposed upon an unwilling people. He rose to particular prominence in the mid-1960s as a founder of the Reform movement, which campaigned against corporal punishment in schools, making a famous appearance on The Late Late Showin 1967. As the show ended, he called out to the cameras the immortal words: "As I sit here tonight, the Irish Christian Brothers are abusing our children." Spoken more than 40 years before the publication of the Ryan and Murphy reports, those words accurately portrayed the brutally abusive regimes operating in schools run by the Christian Brothers and other religious orders – long before the abuse had been acknowledged by anyone in authority.

Crummey’s appearance on the show symbolised his willingness to state the unstatable in so many ways. His bravery shines through this text, and he often plays down the personal risks he took. He bravely marched into schools in the 1960s and 1970s to confront principals and teachers who were responsible for inflicting cruel beatings upon defenceless children. Even more bravely, he later took up the cause of prostitutes who were being beaten by their pimps, as a result of which he and his family became victims of intimidation. He also provided protection to women suffering domestic violence through his work with the women’s refuge in Rathmines.

Meanwhile, through all the campaigns, he sustained a long and happy marriage with Evelyn, and raised five children. There is one point in this fascinating memoir, however, where the pressure became too much for him. He describes with raw honesty how his years as a social worker led to a nervous breakdown. Understandably, he could not detach himself emotionally from the horrific abuse of women and children that he encountered regularly during this work. But he came through that low point, and threw himself into a new career as a legal executive, enabling access to justice for many needy litigants.

Although I was familiar with Crummey’s legal career, and his pioneering work in the family planning and anti-censorship campaigns, this book reveals just how much influence he has had on changing Irish society more generally. Yet he makes light of his own achievements, using gentle humour and a talent for lively storytelling. He describes how, for his 70th birthday party, his family passed around After Eight chocolate wrappers, each containing a condom labelled “Crummey Condoms – going strong for 70 years”.

He also provides a string of amusing recollections about his Kilfenora neighbours, friends and family. They are truly privileged, as are we, to have had the benefit of his tireless campaigning energy for so long. If only there had been more like him, perhaps Irish society would not have turned a blind eye to the terrible abuse of children in institutions, or of women in violent relationships.

This is a stimulating and entertaining account of a period in Irish history during which great progressive changes have taken place, generally following pressure from a radical campaign group. And that group seems invariably to have included Frank Crummey. His activism cannot have been easy for Evelyn, but it has been very good for all the rest of us.

Ivana Bacik is a Labour Senator for Dublin University, a barrister, and Reid Professor of Criminal Law at Trinity College Dublin. She is the author of Kicking and Screaming: Dragging Ireland into the 21st Century(O'Brien Press, 2004)