ALAN JOSEPH TREVOR, world traveller and UN worker, passed away in the Bichat-Claude Bernard Hospital in Paris, on September 28th, in the presence of his partner, Prof Pierrette Poncela, and old friend Godfrey Deeny. Another Irish exile, who also ended his days in Paris, has written in the Ballad of Reading Gaol that “he who lives more lives than one, more deaths than one must die”.
Alan lived more lives than anyone could count and his friends and family now must mourn more than one death; the death of a rare spirit, the hub of a very Irish social network, and the end of all hope of finally knowing all that he had seen and done.
He now lies buried in the Church of Ireland cemetery of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Trim, next to his parents, Alfie and Margaret. They are survived by Alan’s only sister, Rosemary Everitt. Alan was born on September 20th, 1954, and educated at Wesley and Trinity College, where he studied eology, Alan had gone on to roam the globe in search of adventure. One of a group of graduates in the 1970s who went on to make new lives in Brussels, Dubai, New York and other outposts of the Irish Diaspora, Alan’s restless steps regularly brought him home again. To those of us he left behind he brought audio cassette recordings of bombardments endured in Afghanistan and his business cards in many languages, representing the non-governmental organisations, such as the Aga Khan Foundation, for which he worked.
From oil prospecting in South America and catching mackerel off Banna strand, he migrated into development work on the shores of Lake Baikal, and was involved in clearing landmines in Somalia. After escaping death in a car crash in Manhattan he preserved a fatalistic view of life, combined with the irrepressible enthusiasm of a cub scout.
When he became a writer he chose to work in fiction, so it is probable that he left no record of all the things he did in fearful places “where ignorant armies clash by night”. Of course, he may have kept a secret diary, for he had a very Irish fondness for secrecy, but if so, it has yet to be found. There had been hints of involvement in the murky world of military intelligence. Hard facts are hard to find, but his friends in Tralee, Dublin, Nebraska and London are content to preserve his legend. His wanderings expressed the spirit of a generation which had been inspired by the cultural revolutions of the 1960s to seek new freedoms and broader horizons than those provided by the boat to England or the plane to Boston.
If we know much more than we once did about lives in other lands and can enjoy a sense of Irishness unbounded by parish, sect or narrow taboos, then adventurers such as Alan can claim much credit for that. But it is not as social pioneer or charity worker that we will remember
him. It is as a dear friend. When his health failed and adventures became impossible, he used eccentric e-mails, unpredictable Skypes and a whirlwind of rumour to knit together the bonds
of those who once hung round the Buttery bar in Trinity. If we have gone far in the intervening years, we must still remember who we are and what we are like, although, of course, there was never anyone quite like Alan Trevor. Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann.