Walter Macken

by Ultan Macken

  We had better mark it again in the galleys. I have just heard from Al Hart and will be sending him galleys straight away. He asks if there is any news of the next book in the trilogy, by which I presume he means your book on Daniel O’Connell. All that I know is that you are working hard on this at present, but if at some time you could spare us a note on the project as a whole, i.e. ‘Seek the Fair Land’, the O’Connell book and the next proposed volume, this would be terribly helpful to us, and no doubt to Al Hart, in dealing with any enquiries we receive when we start publicising the O’Connell book.

  After some hard thinking we have decided to delay the publication of ‘God Made Sunday’ until January. Because of printer’s holidays, we could not hope to set the publication date before mid-November now, and that would be a bad time to bring out a volume of short stories. The booksellers will have spent their Christmas allocations, and there are so many books jostling in the autumn catalogues for the reviewers’ space that we feel ‘God Made Sunday’ might be overlooked in the journals, and that it would probably be better to launch in January when people still have their book tokens to spend and when reviewers will have more space and leisure to deal with it properly. I will of course be letting Al Hart know about this when I write. Perhaps we can coincide publication with them now.

  All good wishes to you both,

  Yours ever,

  Teresa

  In the autumn of 1961, while my brother was still at university in Spain, I began my own university course in Galway, studying science, much to the astonishment of my parents. In September of 1961, a London theatre agent, Roy Fox, began to try to get my father roles in television or film; this again was probably to provide some financial security. One ATV (Associated Television) part fell through and then at the end of October, the director of the film version of Brendan Behan’s The Quare Fellow, Arthur Dreifus, asked to meet him. My father met him on 29 October at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin and was offered the leading role of Regan, the prison warden. He would be starring with Patrick McGoohan and Sylvia Syms. The money wasn’t too bad, he would be paid £900 for the six week shoot and any day over that he would be paid £75 a day.

  My father had a wardrobe fitting on Wednesday 8 November and they began shooting the film, primarily filmed at Kilmainham jail, on Thursday 9 November. They did a few studio shots in Ardmore. The original play did not have any kind of a romance in it, but of course Hollywood had to introduce the idea of the young warden, Patrick McGoohan having an affair with the young wife of the condemned man, played by Sylvia Syms. My father enjoyed the experience. Brendan Behan had been recruited by the film company to sing the title song, ‘The Auld Triangle’. Behan was keen to meet my father, but he would arrive on set drunk and my father avoided him. As far as I know, they never met. Others actors in the film included Harry Brogan, Eric Gorman, T.P. McKenna, Eddie Golden, Pat Layde, Michael Hennessy and Charlie Roberts.

  Good news about God Made Sunday came from Don Congdon on 15 November. Good Housekeeping the well-known American monthly magazine decided to publish a condensed version of the story in their March issue, they were paying $4,000 for the right to do so.

  On 28 December, Terese Sacco wrote to him with good news about the German publication of God Made Sunday by Rex Verlag, while another German firm, Herder, decided they would like to publish a German edition of Seek the Fair Land.

  My father’s work on his second historical novel, The Silent People, took almost three years. He had begun his research in 1959 and finally finished the manuscript by the end of 1961. He set out to tell the story of a descendent of Dominick MacMahon, Dualta Duane, who begins his life in the small village of Clonbur on the northern side of Lough Corrib. At the beginning of the novel Dualta is a carefree seventeen-year-old, when suddenly his life is changed by an encounter with the son of a local landlord. He strikes the landlord’s son and is forced to go on the run. He escapes across the lake to the Glann side, where he is helped by a local family and sets off for Galway with a young man from the house, Paidí.

  The two boys make their way to Kerry where they are employed as farm labourers. Dualta becomes involved with the Whiteboys through Cuan McCarthy and is chosen to infiltrate the house of the local landlord Wilcock. He gets a job in the house, but he falls in love with Wilcock’s daughter, Una, and when the night comes for the Whiteboys’ raid, his loyalties are torn. Eventually he flees over the mountains with Cuan, finally reaching County Clare. There Dualta decides to settle down, gets himself a small-holding and begins to work on the farm. Meanwhile Una arrives in the same village to take up a job as a teacher. She has converted to Catholicism and so has been disowned by her parents. The pair fall in love and marry, but then the famine strikes the village.

  Dualta decides to emigrate to America with Una and their baby, but the last moment, they change their mind and instead head back to Connemara, where they are determined to make a new life for themselves.

  The publishers in England and the America both liked the book, but agreed that it was too long. Once my father had cut it, its publication got a green light. Terese Sacco wrote: ‘I thought “The Silent People” very impressive indeed. It is a powerful book.’ The only letter I have from a publisher about the book is from some time after its publication, but gives an indication of its success:

  The Macmillan Company.

  April 18th 1963

  Dear Walter,

  It occurs to me that I’ve never told you what we did by way of advertising ‘The Silent People’. Briefly, we took ads in the ‘New York Times’ Book Review, the ‘Boston Herald’, the ‘San Francisco Chronicle’, the ‘Chicago Tribune’ and ‘The New Yorker’. To date our sales total just over 5700 copies.

  Best,

  Al Hart Jr

  The Silent People got very positive reviews all over the world and, like the other historical novels, has remained in print with Pan Books, the paperback imprint of Macmillan, up to the present day.

  For Christmas 1961, we visited Spain again, as my father explained in this letter to Rita Joyce:

  Gort na Ganiv.

  Jan. 11th 1962

  Dear Rita,

  Many thanks for your card and your letter.

  We have just returned from Spain where we were visiting my eldest son (24) who is studying in the University of Pamplona. We had a pleasant time wandering around Spain and spent a few nice days in Paris on the way back. My youngest son, Ultan is studying science – a strange animal in our family of the humanities. But he likes it. Says it avoids speculation – working on known facts, etc. I spent two months in Dublin acting in a film, made enough money to go to Spain. Did you read ‘Seek the Fair Land’? It was a Literary Guild choice in the US last year. It’s one of three. The next one is called ‘The Silent People’, it will be published at the end of this year maybe. I have a book of short stories coming out in April called ‘God Made Sunday’, thirteen tales. ‘God Made Sunday’ is a long tale, a sort of novella. I think you might like it.

  Tell your mother we were asking for her and hope she is well. I wish we could all get the chance to meet again. Life is so short. I’m afraid we will have to wait for Heaven, so it is worthwhile making sure we get there.

  Peggy sends her best wishes,

  Yours sincerely,

  Walter

  Anthony Havelock Allen, a producer from Liger Films Ltd., the company who was producing The Quare Fellow, wrote to my father at the end of February to tell him they needed to do some post-synchronisation work for the film and asked him would it be possible for him to come over to London to do the recording. At the same time, BBC Radio made a request to feature Rain on the Wind as their book of the week on Woman’s Hour. When Macmillan and Woman’s Hour discovered he was coming over to work on the film, they asked him to drop into BBC to do an audition for narrator of the book on their programme. As these negotiations went on, my father wrote a most interesting letter to my brother concerning his mother’s recent death. My brother had obviously written to h
im to say that he felt no sense of loss owing to the death of our grandmother.

  Gort na Ganiv.

  March 8th 1962

  My dear Wall,

  You were nearly spot on for your mother’s birthday. I will try and explain why you felt no deep sense of loss for your granny’s death. In the first place grandchildren only see their parents’ parents when they are old. You probably remember Granny when she looked after you in Dublin. She was nearly sixty then, not able to do as much work without getting tired, impatient and irritable. You saw her very few times after that. It would be very difficult to form an attachment for a person you saw only a few times in your life, and at other times only heard about.

  Apart from this my mother left home to work in Galway when she was about 14. Her mother was dead. Her father was a very bad-tempered old man (it seemed to me) I don’t remember any tears at all when he died. I don’t remember my mother crying for him. All her brothers and sisters emigrated to America when they were 16. She never knew the older ones, never even saw them. In these circumstances I think my mother grew up sadly lacking in love. She married my father and had only 3 or 4 years of life with him when he was killed, so she was simply deprived of the only one who really loved her, so she had to carry on bringing up three children on very little money in adverse circumstances.

  I think she was incapable of showing love or expressing it. She just didn’t know how. She had no practice. I think my father was the great love of her life. Even when I was quite big, I used to hear her crying for him in the night. I could never get close, in love, to my mother even though I always desperately wanted to. I’m sure she loved us just as much as I love you and Ultan but she was incapable of expressing it. In the odd way that I have of expressing it, to both of you. But I have the feeling that you both know I love you and that my whole life revolves around Peggy and yourselves.

  But there is no doubt that my mother loved God. If she didn’t why am I trying to this day to be a good Christian? If my mother did nothing else for me but make me a lover of daily mass (as she did) as far as I am concerned her whole life was worthwhile. The last twenty years of her life was filled with religion. You might not approve of the different rosary beads, prayer books, medals, etc., but everyone goes to heaven in their own way and this pious sentimental way was her way – all the streams of 1/– and 2/– postal orders that bloomed out from her to all the various societies and congregations. This was her way.

  Her death was remarkable. She always wanted to die with the nuns. Last year she wanted to go to a home, nobody approved. There was a two-year waiting list. She wrote herself and got a place straight away with the Little Sisters of the Poor. After two months (mainly owing to a troublesome and interfering talk of a certain visitor), she became dissatisfied and wanted to go home. However, she had a fall and couldn’t leave. While she was well she went to mass and Holy Communion in the Church of the Home every morning.

  Then a resident priest brought her communion whenever she needed it once she became bed-ridden. She got Extreme Unction on two occasions. She died most peacefully unconscious from a clot that travelled to her brain, as the Angelus bell was ringing and the nuns were gathered around her bed reciting the prayers of the dead. It seemed to me to be a blueprint for a happy death.

  Her requiem mass was most simple. A Spanish priest (oddly enough) said the mass most devoutly. Some of the other residents tottered in and the little nuns sang the responses. Somehow I felt it was impossible to feel sad at this simple and moving ceremony. Another great thing when we knelt for Holy Communion, my sister Birdie knelt beside me. Before she died, mother had made a reconciliation with Birdie and my other sister Eileen. Now I expect mother will bring Birdie back completely. She was buried in the Catholic Cemetery at Kensal Rise, filled with Irish, Poles, Italians and Spaniards.

  I tell you this but I don’t give a picture of my mother. I remember her as she was when we were young. Anything else doesn’t matter. You have to get behind the human foibles and weaknesses of all of us to get to the inner man. That’s what God sees. I don’t believe my mother really knew what a mortal sin was – not to mind indulging in them. We have a strong conviction that she is in heaven (with her Walter) and if you want to prove this – just try her out to see if she is not able to help you.

  Don’t feel puzzled about not feeling anything. Just try and pray for her and ask her for a few favours, and you will find that you will get to know her better now than you did before. If only we could see one another’s souls instead of the behaviour of the shell, how wonderful the world would be.

  Having met the little Sisters of the Poor and seen them at work and the things they do so cheerfully, professionally and lovingly, I have no words to describe the wonder of their vocation. The Church is marvellous. It really provides for everybody.

  You have all my love,

  Your father

  I remember many times when my Granny was visiting us that my father seemed unable to communicate with her. My mother told me that she found whenever Granny Macken visited us, it was always she who talked to Granny. My father seemed incapable of communicating with her. I got on very well with her myself, we would often have great conversations especially when she was taking care of us back in the 1950s.

  By spring of 1962, BBC Radio was anxious to audition my father for the reading of his novel on Woman’s Hour. He arranged to go to the BBC for the audition on Monday 9 April, the day before he was going to do the voice-over work for The Quare Fellow. He did a successful audition for BBC and was invited to come over to London to make the broadcasts. They ran the serial for two weeks, from Monday 30 April to Friday 11 May. My father did the first week’s reading live and recorded the second week’s instalment in the afternoon of the first week. He was paid about £4–4–0 per episode. But they also gave him over night subsistence and paid for his airfare. He received hundreds of letters from all over Britain and the producer wrote this very complimentary letter:

  The British Broadcasting Corporation,

  London.

  17th May 1962

  Dear Walter,

  I have a large pile of letters on my desk marked ‘Rain on the Wind’. I’ll just give you a random selection of comments:

  ‘I cried buckets …’

  ‘A hundred thousand blessings on Walter Macken for his enthralling reading. God bless his work.’

  ‘I wish he would go on reading “Rain on the Wind” forever.’

  ‘The story and voice combined uplifts the mind, appeals to the best in one, even affecting the subconscious …’

  Again and again listeners want their thanks conveyed to you for a ‘perfect, wonderful, magnificent’ serial. N.B. – they are all saving up to buy the book!

  I was so glad to know that you felt it was worthwhile; I enjoyed our sessions tremendously.

  Once more, our warmest thanks for all the pleasure you have given us.

  All best wishes,

  Yours,

  Genevieve Eckenstein (Woman’s Hour)

  As a direct result of his reading on Woman’s Hour, Macmillan were asked by many booksellers to reprint the book. It had been out of print for five years and so they decided to do a new edition of it. Something else is revealed in Lovat Dickson’s letter to my father:

  Macmillan & Co. Ltd.,

  London.

  4th June 1962

  Dear Walter,

  Thank you for your letter of June 2nd, and for counter-signing the copy of my letter of May 31st about royalties on the reprint of ‘Rain on the Wind’.

  I am so pleased to hear about Wally Óg and I know how pleased you and Peggy will be. Jonathan [Lovat’s son] is writing [taking] his finals this week, but I will write and tell him. It will really be wonderful if Wally is able to celebrate his first mass in Oughterard.

  Yours ever,

  Rache Lovat Dickson

  My brother was selected by Opus Dei to be ordained as a priest in August 1962. He had already completed his studies in philosophy
and theology, but now he had to go through a whole series of minor orders so that he could join the other members of the Opus Dei who were due to be ordained on Sunday 5 August. There was tremendous excitement in our house as we planned that Wally Óg would return to Oughterard to say his first mass on Sunday 12 August and we would have a party at home that day for all our friends.

  My father summarised what his plans for the summer were in the following letter to Sabina Walsh:

  Gort na Ganiv.

  June 26th 1962

  My dear Sabina,

  My apologies for putting the wrong stamp on Peggy’s letter, I probably sent it by sail. I didn’t tell you how pleased we would be to see Peter and yourself at the ordination. The date we have (liable to change) is August 12th in Madrid. We spend a few days with Wally Óg in Spain and then get back here in time for him to say his first Solemn Mass in Oughterard Church on August 19th, with a reception for all the guests in the house here after mass.

  He hasn’t had time to write to us. He is finishing his Arts Degree, knocking off the last theology exams and then had to get all the minor orders, tonsure, sub-deacon, deacon conferred on him inside a month. But the 12th was the last date he gave us. It’s probably right but if it isn’t we will let you know. Dearly as we would love to have you sleep in our house – we have no beds left. Will I book you in a room in a hotel here in Oughterard, or would you prefer a more comfortable one in Galway?

  My love to you all. I’m painting the house from front to back for the last month. We are getting a new roof put on next week, so we are up to our eyes, but our joy in Wally Óg’s ordination would be complete if you were both around.