Loved and cherished throughout Ireland for his insight and clarity, Con Houlihan has nevertheless retained his unpretentiousness and humility Jackie Goodall talks to the Kerry journalist, writer and gentleman.
‘A wise man’s wialom needs to be extracted” Bertolt Brecht.
A BRONZE BUST of Con Houlihan stands in the Coat Grill in Stillorgan bearing the inscription Journalist, Writer and Gentleman.
If Con were to write a curriculum Vitae, not that he’d do such a thing, but if he were, then teacher, philosophet turf-cutter, fisherman and rugby player could be added to the list.
“I don’t know who I am,” he said recently. “Pm 83 now, but I’m somebody who never grew up. I never settled. I’ve been looking for something. questing for something all my life, but if in the end I never find it... 1 don’t know."
“Am I sincere? Am 1 honest? 1 don’t know, that’s the point. Samuel Coleridge once said that he felt himself to be an involuntary charlatan. I have the same feeling too. I’m full of uncertainties; but what about it. they keep me going."
Con was born into a working-class family just outside Castle Island (his spelling), in Co. Kerry. “About two miles from the town going north toward the mountainy country."
A fluent Gaelic speaker (he wouldn’t be lost in Spain or Italy either), his best language is Gaelic. “Speaking in the company of other Gaelic speakers in West Kerry I’d feel very uninhibited. My pronunciation in English is a bit suspect, but not so in Gaelic."
His father worked in the coalmines in Wales before he returned home, married, and started work as a mechanic in the newly opened creamery in Castleisland in 1921.
Con attended a number of local schools, including three years at boarding school before doing his Leaving certificate at 17. He then took two years out and worked at “all kinds of jobs”, before going to University College, Cork, at 19.
Con said he studies at Cork where “greyhounds and horse racing!” However he emerged with a BA First Class in English, Latin and History, followed by a First Class Masters in 1949.
Con earned a living as a teacher before going to work for The Kerryman around 1965. He says “1 was dabbling in Journalism all my life - magazines and radio mostly”.
During this time he acted like a public ombudsman in CastIeisland, he also gave grinds to the local schoolchildren but, too little money and too much awkwardness.’ meant ho was seldom paid for them.
Con wrote a sports column for The Sunday World and a weekly column for the Evening Herald, where his musings on life, the universe and everything, continue to enthrall a new generation of readers.
Con had very fond memories of his time at the Evening Press, where he often held court in Mulligan’s of Poolbeg Street. “Much pub talk is about sport but often it deviates into philosophy. You begin wondering about the value of sport. especially after your team have lost.
He spent many happy years at the Evening Press and was very upset at its demise. Con covered sport and drama, and succeeded his great hero Joe Sherwood as ‘King of the Back Page.’ And it was there in his back page Tributaries’, that you were as likely to meet Lester Piggott as you would Vincent Van Gogh.