Fatal Shooting - An Irishman’s Diary about the perils of interviewing Ireland’s oldest citizens

Shame is a luxury that John McEntee cannot afford. He was born in Cavan, after all, and has spent several decades in London as one of the best-known gossip columnists on Fleet Street. So his newly published memoir, I'm Not One to Gossip, But . . . is as shameless as you would hope from the genre, except for one tragicomic story, which has the air of a confession.

It dates from the winter of 1974, when McEntee was in Dublin, working for the Sunday Press, which dispatched him to Kilkenny with photographer Ray Cullen to interview the then oldest man in Ireland: Jeremiah McCarthy, aged 105.

Naturally they arrived at his home unannounced – the concept of making an appointment would not reach Ireland until the 1980s. Once there, they were given a hint of Jeremiah’s frailty when an elderly lady they assumed to be his wife, but who turned out to be his daughter, answered the door.

Another clue was when she told them the old man had been in bed for two years. But when it was nevertheless suggested that Jeremiah present himself for interview, neither he nor his minder thought fit to demur. The Sunday Press was Ireland's best-selling paper. This was like a royal command performance.

So the daughter disappeared into the patriarch’s bedroom, and after only half an hour of preparations, brought out Jeremiah who was shrunken by age and supported by two sticks, but dressed in a starched suit, “with creases on the trousers sharp enough to shave”, and a felt trilby.

The interview was hard work, consisting of shouted questions (“TO WHAT DO YOU ATTRIBUTE YOUR GREAT AGE?”) and barely audible answers (“Good livin’, sleep and whiskey”). But McEntee got what he needed, eventually and so did Cullen, although that took longer.

The house had an old-fashioned half-door, always a good visual prop. And despite the epic journey involved, the post-interview Jeremiah was prevailed upon to walk there, very slowly, while Cullen took up position outside in the freezing temperatures.

Thus when the story appeared, it was accompanied “by a sweet picture of Jeremiah peering out his front door”, although this had required numerous takes, during which the exposure was more than photographic.

Yes, reader, that sound you just heard was an ominous note. The day after publication, walking along O'Connell Street, McEntee saw another photograph of Jeremiah, this time on the front of the Evening Press. He had died suddenly, from a chill. "To this day," writes McEntee, "I am pointed out by former colleagues as the Man Who Killed the Oldest Man in Ireland".

No doubt the passage of 42 years has eased the guilt he must once have felt. But luckily, he was also able to rely on a coping mechanism well known to journalists. As he puts it himself: “I blame the photographer.”

Conscience

For some reason, reading his confession this week pricked my own conscience, reminding me of unanswered emails in my inbox. As I now recalled, one was received six weeks ago from the County Museum in Monaghan – my tribal homeland, hence the gratuitous insult to Cavan in the opening paragraph, for which I apologise insincerely.

I gave a talk there in May, a fact advertised in the museum’s annual brochure. And the reason Jeremiah McCarthy reminded me was that the same brochure features an event due to have happened this Christmas: an evening with Sir Jack Leslie, “living legend, war hero, and truly incredible human being”, who would have been 100 in December.

Alas, poor Jack was not to reach the milestone as he died in April. But aside from having tempted fate, the museum shouldn’t feel too guilty. Brochures must be printed well in advance. It’s not as if they invited him to do a photoshoot over his half-door in winter.

My guilt relates to something else: the portrait (left) of an unknown army officer from the first World War. It hangs in the museum’s fine 1916 exhibition, “From a Whisper to a Roar”. But other than his rank (2nd Lieutenant) and regiment (Royal Irish Fusiliers), plus the fact that the picture turned up in a local shop, nobody is sure who he is.

I was supposed to mention it before the portrait became “object of the month” for July, coinciding with the Somme commemorations. Instead, that title has been given to a German Iron Cross. The hope now is to have a name on the painting by November 11th. Anyone with information should contact the museum’s Theresa Loftus at 047-82928.