An Irishman's Diary

WHEN the Irish boy-scout movement, inspired by Robert Baden-Powell's English model, held its inaugural meeting 100 years ago, a split was not the first item on the agenda. But it didn't take long to come up.

A year later, in 1909, Countess Markievicz was sufficiently impressed by scouting's popularity in the garrison towns to plan an avowedly nationalist alternative.

With her backing, Bulmer Hobson revived Fianna Éireann, a short-lived experiment in Belfast a few years earlier, with the benefactor acting as joint secretary.

The latter appointment was controversial, as Hobson wrote: "There was a certain reluctance among the boys about the election of the Countess to office, on the grounds that she was a woman, and I had on many occasions to point out privately that they could not accept her financial help and refuse her membership." But the group survived the row, going on to become a recruiting body for the IRB and later the IRA.

It was against the twin threat of Baden-Powell's organisation and the explicitly paramilitary Fianna Éireann that the Catholic Church belatedly - and with some reluctance - got involved in the scouting action.

A few ad hoc Catholic groups already existed in the mid-1920s, including the 1st Dublin in Fairview ("Archbishop's Own"). Then Father Ernie Farrell and his brother Tom persuaded the church to establish the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland, which soon dwarfed the "Protestant" version. It would be more than 60 years before that split was resolved.

Whatever its image among republicans, Baden-Powell's organisation was officially apolitical and non-denominational, in Ireland as in every other country. Its founder was certainly catholic in his influences, writing to Maria Montessori and Padraig Pearse (who apparently didn't reply), among others, while researching his educational ideas.

It is a tribute to those ideas' broad appeal that, a century later, only a handful of countries worldwide do not have scouting organisations: China, Myanmar, and the Vatican City among them. Elsewhere, membership totals 28 million.

The movement's influence has even extended beyond the planet, in that 11 of the 12 astronauts who have stood on the moon were former scouts. And the book that spawned the movement, Scouting for Boys, remains one of the greatest publishing successes, its sales exceeded only by the Bible, the Koran, a Chinese dictionary, and the writings of Mao Zedong.

But in early 20th-century Ireland, inevitably, Baden-Powell was defined by his British military past, and particularly his exploits in the Boer War. He had masterminded the defence of Mafeking during the famous siege, his chutzpah expressed in a series of telegrams - eg, "Four hours bombardment. One dog killed." - dictated with a stiff upper lip. When the siege was finally lifted, after 217 days, he was a national hero.

Respectful of other cultures - the warlike Zulus particularly impressed him - he was nevertheless an imperialist who feared that Britain might forfeit her empire through a loss of manliness - the fate that had befallen Rome. Critics accused him of preparing boys for the trenches. Of the 20 who participated in his inaugural camp at Brownsea Island in 1907, five were to die in the first World War - though this may have been close to the terrible law of averages for young men of that generation.

In any case, by the time the war was over, the empire had waned too. In the new Irish Free State, Baden-Powell's scouting association was seen as part of the old order. On the other hand, because of its explicitly religious identity, the CBSI broke the rules of world scouting and so, for decades, was excluded from the movement's international events.

Moves towards a détente began in the 1960s, when the two groups formed a federation, under whose umbrella the CBSI could attend world jamborees. After that, and around the same time as the other peace process on the island, talks began on a full-scale merger, culminating in 2004 when the Scouting Association of Ireland's 7,000 members joined the 33,000-strong CSI (it had lost its "B" by then, having members of both sexes) in Scouting Ireland.

The Catholic Church was not overjoyed at the loss of its youth wing. In a more strident mood, it might have looked harshly at the use by the new non-denominational body of so many of its premises. But, still reeling from the abuse scandals, it was in no position to pick a fight with scouting. The merger passed without incident.

For an organisation that was ostensibly vulnerable to abusers, by the way, scouting seems to have survived the past decade untarnished. There have been cases taken against serving or former scouts in Ireland, but generally concerning activities outside scouting. Indeed the movement's highest-profile victim of the paedophilia scare, arguably, has been Bob-a-Job Week.

That great annual fundraiser was a feature of Irish life for decades, as scouts went door-to-door offering their services, or shining shoes in front of the GPO. But decimalisation and rising prices eventually combined to put an end to the iconic "Bob-a-Job" name. After that, the fundraiser struggled on in reduced form until about a decade ago, when concerns about child safety finally consigned it to history.

...

The story of Irish scouting is told in a temporary exhibition now running at the National Museum in Collins Barracks, Dublin. "Scouts 100 - Living the Adventure" includes photographs, documents, films and other items relating to Irish scouting, from Baden-Powell's military career to the 2004 merger, and beyond. It continues until September.