I wanna testify. I have to testify. Until I read this book, the main feeling I had about Ray Kavanagh was just the teensiest bit of jealousy. He got the job I always wanted, and held on to it like grim death for nearly 14 years. And what a series of achievements he had in that time: without doubt the most successful General Secretary of the Labour Party in history. All down to grit and determination.
But if I had only known what a political titan I was dealing with, there would have been no end to my jealousy. None of us knew. We just never noticed how he had succeeded in bringing the party to unheard-of heights of popularity, while others, especially its leader and yours truly, were totally responsible for the fall. Somehow we missed how he had introduced new methods of campaigning that were wildly innovative in their time but have now become the standard.
We must have suppressed the memory of how he would fearlessly give impeccable advice, and always stand his ground against the bullies and tyrants who wanted to run his party their way (the dastardly-elected leader and his team again). Or of how, shyly, he was able to play a modest yet critical role in all the great events of the day, while always being, thank God, absolutely right in his assessments and judgments. How could it be otherwise for this friend of everything that was decent and principled in the party, this foe of anything grubby, underhand, or living in a suburban house?
I had been deluding myself, of course. But I understand it all, now that I have read Ray's touching and poignant memoirs this week. And I understand at last how awful it must have been for him, surrounded all through those years of struggle and sacrifice by odious colleagues, not one of them with his sense of commitment to Labour values. There was me thinking that even if we weren't friends, we were reasonably amiable colleagues, trying to do our best for each other and the party.
When all the time poor Ray had to hold his nose, waiting for the day when we would finally get our comeuppance. Time at last for the truth to be told.
So here it is. An intrepid party official, his massive brain and boundless energy straining at the leash, all thoughts of clockwatching and totting up his expenses put to one side (often up to a week at a time). There to the bitter end, willing to struggle on alone when everybody else had abandoned the party, their principles, and their comradeliness (a most important quality, Ray says). Willing to spend his own money on vital projects, never shy about getting involved in a good shafting job when it was for the greater good of the party, not afraid even to take credit for the work of everybody else when he has to.
How noble of him, for instance, to let us know that one of the best and most decent people (and one of the most private and reserved) who ever worked in Irish politics suffered from cancer. Her cancer, apparently, meant extra work for him (he must have taken it home in the evening, because no-one else saw him do it), but it was worth it to see her recover.
How rare it is to meet a man who can be the hero of someone else's illness! And how brave and courageous to devote so many pages to sneering at Dick Spring's secretary Sally Clarke, who committed the dreadful crime of doing her job for roughly twice the hours every day that Ray did his. One can only imagine what he would have written if she had worked any harder! One of us has gone bonkers, I'm afraid. When I read of his unremitting struggles to build an organisation, to win the presidency and endless seats in the Dβil and Europe, to modernise the party for whose organisation he was responsible, I kept exclaiming out loud: "so that was where he was!"
And I kept reminding myself how lucky we all were that he was able to do it, so speedily and efficiently that we often didn't realise how much he was packing into those precious hours he spent with us, from nine to five, and for all of five days every week. They're the sort of time management skills we could all do with!
But enough of all that. Everybody is entitled to write their own book, and everybody is entitled to tell it as they see it, even if they decide to rely exclusively on tittle-tattle and ignore any political analysis whatever. For the most part, I am content to wonder what fantasy world Ray was in as he read his no doubt copious notes. But on one or two points I must, alas, insist on being pedantic.
In a book I wrote myself about this period, I raked over the coals of the so-called Emmet Stagg affair. In the process, I subsequently discovered, I caused considerable distress to Emmet Stagg's family. I didn't mean to do it, and I take this opportunity to apologise to them, for whatever that is worth.
But at least my account was truthful. There is barely a scintilla of truth in the account in this book. In fact, the truth about that incident is turned on its head here. Every allegation made in the book about that incident, without exception, is untrue. And the references to Pat Magner, who helped Emmet in honourable and unforgettable ways, are particularly vicious.
Secondly, there is an account of the death of a great man, Jim Kemmy. He is, I believe, traduced in death by the book. It reports Jim Kemmy as refusing a reconciliation with Dick Spring, and goes on to say that when I spoke to this decent and honourable man, I received the same treatment.
Both of these assertions are lies.
Dick Spring and Jim Kemmy had never been close, but always operated on a basis of mutual respect. There was no deathbed reconciliation, because there was no need for one. There had never been a moment when they were unwilling to talk to one another.
Unlike Dick Spring, I had had a falling out with Jim Kemmy, about which I have written elsewhere. But when I rang him in hospital to express my concern for him, he could not have been more decent and friendly, even giving me some advice about the future, as if his own wasn't ebbing away.
At the end of the day, what seems clear is that Ray suffered in silence. I think he would probably have felt a lot better if he'd told us all how he felt about us to our faces.
Fergus Finlay was Dick Spring's special adviser.