Comments on The Pensive Quill: Cormac Mac Airt

noaxetogrind, as you say you can't help but think....

2009-01-09T19:02:00.000Z

noaxetogrind, as you say you can't help but think. And I suppose you can't help what you think. And if you think obituaries are written through a prism of Richard O'Rawe then thinking is something you ought to work at. Unless of course we can't help but think that O'Rawe is ubiquitous to all those I have written obituaries on. Danny D - hopefully any obituary about him is decades off.

while i agree with what most off what you wrote ab...

2009-01-09T11:55:00.000Z

while i agree with what most off what you wrote about mcairt i can't help but think that if there was no personal relationship with ricky orawe you would have guttied the life or death out off him. i wonder what you will write about danny d when he leaves this mortal coil?

Fionnchú, that is certainly revealing - Denis Wint...

2009-01-04T11:39:00.000Z

Fionnchú, that is certainly revealing - Denis Winter's "Death's Men: Soldiers during the Great War". The experience is more widespread than we might have imagined. If anybody was going to discover a parallel then it was you with all the reading you manage to get through!

Araaricaiwdjts, as you suggest people can be respe...

2009-01-04T11:35:00.000Z

Araaricaiwdjts, as you suggest people can be respectful of another's character without agreeing with their politics. Although Richard O'Rawe used the Spartan imagery in his book to good effect I suppose most of us there at the time including Richard never looked at it in those terms. Ordinary people in the midst of extraordinary times

Thanks for another moving entry about another depa...

2009-01-03T20:32:00.000Z

Thanks for another moving entry about another departed comrade. It's unfortunate how privation brings out often the best in people, and how endurance sparks heightened memory within bodies worn down prematurely. I never thought of the 20s catching up in one's 50s in the prison context before! An unexpected side-effect?

Your note about how one could live in lockup down the corridor from others and build up a whole picture of them without ever having seen them reminds me, in a far different context of enforcement, of a passage I read from Denis Winter's "Death's Men: Soldiers during the Great War" last month. Winter describes how the Tommies had an amazingly detailed idea of how the Germans lived without, for months, ever glimpsing one of them close up. Their smells, their noises, their voices, their routines all permeated the imaginations of those who listened, and waited, for them a few hundred yards away.

Its very sad to hear about Cormac's death..but wha...

2009-01-03T20:18:00.000Z

Its very sad to hear about Cormac's death..but what I got from your blog Anthony was a remarkable tribute to a former comrade of yours that ended up taking a different path to you.There is no bitterness or anger in this tribute and it says volumes about you Anthony as it does about Cormac.
I totally agree with the pain management issue having seen family members self medicate with alcohol and cannibas in order to conteract the pain of Cancer...totally wrong.
Spartans heart and courage...you have that in abundance Mr McIntyre.

God bless him, another tragic loss.

2009-01-03T15:52:00.000Z

God bless him, another tragic loss.

Mick, by all means carry it. Thank you. Cormac was...

2009-01-03T12:38:00.000Z

Mick, by all means carry it. Thank you. Cormac was in his mid 50s. I am not sure if ex-prisoners are dying prematurely as a result of having been imprisoned. It is often said that they are. But it has been said to me by a health professional that the 50s is the big killer age for men. Largely a result of what they did in their 20s catching up on them. Prisoners escaped that to some degree because they spent their 20s in jail. There is work by former prisoners like Jim McCann who try to show that there is a link between premature death and the use of CR gas. I think there is something in that; less sweeping and measurable.

AnthonyI am not sure how old Cormac was, but it do...

2009-01-03T12:01:00.000Z

Anthony
I am not sure how old Cormac was, but it does seem, possibly due to their imprisonment, far to many former H block prisoners are dying before their time.

If you do not mind, I thought I would repost this on Organized Rage, with a link of course, whilst I have already published an obit of Cormac I think yours gives an alternative view and is well worth a read.