Listen to this. It’s true. Only the surname has been changed. It has been changed to McGonagle. In all his life, and I have observed public flashes of most of it, the most decent carpenter in the province of Connacht. It may be that he is a boring man, a paragon of all the negative virtues, but decent he has always been. Until last month he could honestly look his Lord straight in the eye and say that he Did Not Smoke, that he Did Not Drink, that he Did Not Go Out With Bad Women. In fact, he is too mean to Smoke or Drink and too shy to go within the perfume range of even a Legionary of Mary.
He has been a Pillar of the Church as long as I know him. He was also, until last month, the president of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association. Stronger drink than Mayo buttermilk never crossed his lips. Yet, and this is equally true, he was observed by scores of people in Main Street last month clearly under the influence of intoxicating liquor. He was singing a bawdy song, each imperfect word perfect. He was smoking. He was stripped to the waist and there was a comma-shaped trace of dried blood below his left nostril. At the junction of Main Street and Cross Street he approached Margaret St. John, who is no saint at all, and whom no townsman approaches during the hours of daylight, and he kissed her five times and whispered something into her ear which made even Margaret blush. At the age of fifty-six years the Pillar crumbled with a crash which has shaken the entire town.
Yet, and this is the truly intriguing aftermath, McGonagle has sworn on oath to the local branch of the Pioneers that, on the day in question, no strong drink crossed his lips. He admits, however, that he was drunk, admits to being disorderly, near naked and bawdy. He has been to Confession almost every second day since his downfall. And he has sent an unusual affidavit to the Pioneer’s Headquarters in Dublin, fully explaining his situation, and begging that he be allowed to keep his Pioneer Pin under the circumstances. I have seen the affidavit and checked the circumstances for myself. They are such as to make the blood of a good man run cold with fear. The world can be an evil place.
Briefly what happened to McGonagle the Pioneer was that he was sent by his employers to repair some shelving and ceilings in Mulhern’s Bonded Warehouse in the town. He arrived there, on a Wednesday morning at the same time as the Mulherns were taking twenty-year-old whiskey “out of bond” releasing its fire and cultured fury from the sherry casks in which it had been cultured. McGonagle was working a good forty feet away but, because his system was vulnerable, the fumes from the whiskey overpowered him totally after two hours.
Part of the affidavit which has been forwarded to the Pioneer’s Headquarters in Dublin, and which, as I say, I have studied, contains a signed statement from one Jack Mulholland, foreman at Mulhern’s Warehouse.
Jack Mulholland states: “I saw Joe McGonagle, whom I know well to be a Pioneer, drinking his tea and sandwiches during his break. At that time we were taking the whiskey out of bond and there were fumes in the warehouse. After five minutes or so Joe McGonagle rose up out of his sitting, took off his shirt, and challenged me to fight.
In my opinion he was rendered drunk, not by drinking whiskey, but by breathing in the fumes of it. We restrained him for some time but he later left the warehouse, singing, and without his shirt. In my opinion this decent man just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
None of the rest of us were affected by the fumes because none of us are Pioneers and we are well used to the work in the warehouse.”
I checked with the Pioneer’s spokesman this afternoon. He said carefully that the cases of McGonagle created a precedent. “We are studying the matter closely and will make a decision in due course,” he said.
One town is agog with excitement waiting the result of the appeal. One Pioneer Pin hangs in the balance. And Joe McGonagle, by all accounts, is still suffering grievously from the most unfair hangover in the history of Irish drinking.
I will keep ye informed….
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the September 1991 issue of Irish America. ♦
Leave a Reply