Henry Boylan can point to a family history which includes dramatic stories of seafaring ancestors sailing their schooners to the Black Sea, returning laden with oriental silks and spices as well as Mediterranean wines. He can also remember his grandmother - then a very old woman - telling his 10-year-old self in 1921 about seeing as a small girl starving people arrive at the family home in Drogheda "where they stuffed the bits of bread into their mouths."
Boylan's remarkable career in public service has seen him broadcast, write plays and script a radio series about sea shanties. He also encouraged the State purchase of the Wexford Slobs and pursual of a policy of wild life conservation. He chaired the Slobs, was director of the Gaeltacht Services Division, promoted Donegal tweed throughout Europe and the US, and was recruited by the Whitaker programme for economic development. Of his many achievements however, the finest must be his remarkable reference book, A Dictionary Of Irish Biography.
First published in 1978, the second edition followed 10 years later and now with the third edition, surely the book widely known as "Boylan's Dictionary of Irish Biography" should be entitled exactly that. Through the lives of the people recorded within it and the vivid, informative and beautifully written portraits of them, Boylan tells the story of Ireland.
As a unique social history it is without equal. This most readable of books also does a great service for the reference work genre. The dictionary- which ranges from St Patrick, who is believed to have died about AD 490, to new entry Frank Mitchell, the natural scientist and writer whose death last November at the age of 85 seemed far too soon - also includes pictures for the first time.
Boylan (86), one of nine children born to a master mariner father, was an altar boy "with responsibility for showing people Blessed Oliver's head". His schooldays were spent at the local Christian Brothers in Drogheda, and much of his boyhood in boating on the Boyne and fishing. In 1932, he won a gold medal for rowing at the Tailteann Games.
On leaving school he spent "some boring years" working for the Land Commission and then was appointed staff administration officer in Radio Eireann. While working there he met his wife, the actress Patricia Clancy. As he was based in Henry Street, it seemed relatively uncomplicated to enroll at Trinity College - which he did, taking a first-class honours Moderatorship in English and Irish. "I always enjoyed fiction," he says. "I read a lot of Thackery, Dickens and Scott, but from working on the dictionary I have become very interested in biographies and have read many."
In 1981 his biography of Wolfe Tone was published. Before that he had written The Valley Of The Kings, a book about the Boyne Valley which focused mainly on the people connected with the area. By then the dictionary had become part of his life. "The first one was the hardest, I was about six years working on it. It all came about when the people in Gill and Macmillan approached me. It came at a good time, as I had taken early retirement."
Dressed in a Donegal tweed suit and carrying a copy of The Oldie, Boylan is an impressive character. Lively, very funny, an inspired storyteller - particularly on the subject of his daring eldest brother - he is lightning quick and is both an old-world gentleman and informed observer. With successive editions of his dictionary he has found himself writing about many of his friends who are now dead. Included in this new edition is the Celtic scholar and lexicographer Tomas de Bhaldraithe, who died suddenly at a book launch in Dublin in 1996. Boylan says of the experience of writing about his old friend: "I wanted to do him proud". There have been others as well, such as the poet Valentin Iremonger, who died in 1991. "He was great fun, I miss him."
The first edition listed about 1,100 people; 200 more were added in 1988 and this new edition now brings the entries to 1,500. New entries include: Cyril Cusack, born in Natal, South Africa in 1910, whom he he describes as "the son of a sergeant in the mounted police and an actress"; the legendary sports commentator Michael O'Hehir, whom he remembers arriving at Radio Eireann as a confident boy to audition for a broadcasting job; Prof Gus Martin, choreographer Joan Denise Moriarty, Welsh-born geographer Estyn Evans, writer Mary Lavin, the murdered journalist Veronica Guerin and the politician Jim Kemmy "who was almost too late to be included, but not as late as Frank Mitchell. We were right to delay the book to include them". Also featured in the new additions are Samuel Beckett who died in 1990 and an entry on Nora Barnacle, which follows the existing one on James Joyce. "I am very pleased about adding her, I'm quite proud of that one."
Whether writing about a friend, acquaintance or figure from Ireland's past, Boylan sustains an utterly professional, balanced tone. Part of the genius of this meticulous, engaging book lies in his ability to make these entries controlled yet moving even at their most concise. "Sometimes there is a phrase which can be added in, a quote or remark which captures the essence of the individual's character" - such as with academic and critic Vivian Mercier whose remark about Waiting For Godot, "a play in which nothing happens twice", reveals as much about Mercier as it does about that play.
The longest entry remains the one on Eamon de Valera, "well, he had a long life". Also lengthy are those of Parnell, Shaw and Sean McBride. When describing his methodology, he says: "The first time, I really did have a job, compiling the entire book. Since then I have gone about keeping notes, paying attention to who has died, that sort of thing. There is also the question of whom one includes, whom one leaves out. There is no point listing a whole number of administrators who have all done the same sort of thing. There is a limit on how long the book can be. With the second edition I obviously added those who had died since the first edition - but I also put in those who had been left out the first time."
A father of four whose children range in age from Hugo (55), to Anna, Catherine and Peter (47) (former master of Holles Street Hospital), Boylan has six grandchildren. His next project is likely to be a family history.
Of his own long life he says: "I have become more aware of friends dying, but my family seem to be a long-lived lot. Except for William, who died young [at 62] we've all got into our 80s."
A Dictionary Of Irish Biography, edited by Henry Boylan, is published by Gill & Macmillan. Price £20.
