'I didn't like touching animals . . . a bit odd for a would-be zoologist'

In our continuing series – in which Irish Timeswriters consider their alternative lives – Colm Keenaremembers his early career as a zoologist, and how it was scuppered by one fatal flaw

ONE OF the phenomena you encounter when studying zoology is the dizzying array of secondary sexual characteristics – plumage, colour, body shape, body size, etc – that exist in the animal world.

Science is an edifice of peer-reviewed papers, but I don’t think one has ever been published on the influence the secondary sexual characteristics of the Homo Sapiens female have on the career paths of young male Homo Sapiens.

It would probably make for a fruitful line of study. In my case certainly, it was the secondary sexual characteristics of my school biology teacher that sent me on a trajectory that almost led to a career in the natural sciences.

Wednesday was sports day and the boys who didn’t want to play GAA football or hurling on our pitches alongside the Liffey could go running with her in the Phoenix Park. We’d tog out in our runners, football shorts and school jerseys and follow her round and round the Furry Glen for an hour or so. She’d be up ahead, dressed in a tracksuit. One day in class, she waxed lyrical about being a science student in Trinity College and jogging round the running track there in the evenings while the red sun set in the sky over Dublin.

It was the most forceful bit of career direction I ever received.

In college, I did my best, or something approaching it, to learn all the stuff my lecturers wanted me to. Basic maths, chemistry, genetics, geology, microbiology, geography, and so on. I found the maths entirely obscure but enjoyed much of the rest.

In particular, I enjoyed scientific theories and the workings of biological systems where diverse functions culminated in something that worked smoothly as a whole. A bit like the coming together of a daily newspaper, though the night editor might not agree with the smoothly bit.

I’d be lying if I said my gravitation during college towards the Department of Zoology was not influenced by a hope that it might be less daunting than more career-friendly specialisations such as microbiology or biochemistry. Not that I cared two hoots about a career.

But what a load of stuff you had to learn in zoology. The animal kingdom is broken up into phyla and genera and classes and species, all with Latin names. The mind-numbing range of species is as diverse and super-abundant as the animal world itself. I struggled. Others soaked up information about the animal kingdom the way a child does its first language.

What I remember most fondly is a wonderful series of lectures on developmental biology by Frank Jeal. The lectures on the origins of man were a treat and nothing I’ve observed since has challenged the view that we are all still working with the emotional equipment and world view of our hunter gatherer forebears.

I also remember enjoying learning about insects, the most successful phylum of them all, and about the workings of the worm, an animal that is a “tube within a tube”. I specialised in parasitology and our lectures on the subject included a course on tropical parasitology.

My thesis involved something to do with the parasites found in the guts of pigeons and as part of it, I had to cut up pigeons so as to examine their innards. A colleague was busy with the parasites to be found in frogs while another was working on fish parasites. Frogs are famously popular with biology teachers for the capacity of their hearts to keep beating after they have been killed, and I remember a scene where a number of us watched our friend as he chased a decapitated frog that was causing havoc bounding around the laboratory.

Afterwards, on our way to Bewleys, we skulked past the anti-vivisection campaigners that used to gather outside Trinity every Saturday afternoon in those days.

I’d always hoped that studying science would help me learn how to think, but if it did, it was a slow burner. When doing my thesis, I found I couldn’t bring myself to pick up a live pigeon and throttle it so I could examine its innards. It wasn’t so much my feelings of sympathy for the pigeons, I now regret to say. It was more that I simply didn’t want to touch them. Truth was, I didn’t like touching animals. It dawned on me that this was a bit odd for a would-be zoologist.

After graduation I thought for a while about trying to get into the London School of Tropical Medicine, and even went to visit it once. I fancied the idea of being off in some exotic location working on a public health programme targeting bilharzia, or malaria, or African river blindness. But I don’t think my degree was good enough. And anyway, as well as not really being much of an animal lover, I wasn’t a great fan of the outdoors.

I GRADUATED in 1982 and within months, most of my class had emigrated. Those who stayed got jobs on fish farms, or as medical reps, or went on for further studies. I recall my father, who worked for the Eastern Health Board as a community welfare officer, saying I could start in Coolock on the following Monday. I’d worked as a temporary CWO one summer during college and had liked the work.

But a job was the last thing in the world I wanted, so I headed off to New York. Finding yourself in Manhattan was like stepping through the cinema screen, into the movie. Six months later, I went to Paris to meet up with some college friends. We spent a year there, doing little other than reading and loafing around. I was gratified later to discover that there was an essay by the philosopher Bertrand Russell called In Praise of Idleness.

To make money, we sold flowers illegally in a Metro station during evening rush hour. When the police would bust us, they’d ask for our papers. The stern expressions on their faces would disappear when we handed over our passports. “Ah, Irlande! Rugby! Saumon!”

They’d confiscate our flowers and tell us to get lost. Poor old Absamad and Khalid, illegal fruit sellers from, respectively, Morocco and Syria, would often be held overnight.

But trying to sell flowers in October and November is a mug’s game and I grew heartily fed up of having no money.

I heard about post-graduate diploma courses where a type of alchemy was pursued. You could, after eight months’ attendance, have your zoology degree transmuted into an entrée into the world of law, or accountancy, or journalism. Only the journalism course replied to my expression of interest, and so my choice was made.

And in time, I ended up covering the Moriarty Tribunal for The Irish Times. It's an inquiry into the workings of the powerful in Ireland, and takes place in a laboratory-type setting. The specimens are live, but you don't have to touch them.