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Tag Archives: Patrick Campbell (3rd Baron Glenavy)


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Birth of Beatrice Moss Elvery Campbell, Painter, Stained Glass Artist & Sculptor

Beatrice Moss Elvery Campbell, Lady Glenavy, painter, stained glass artist and sculptor, is born in Dublin on April 30, 1883.

Elvery is the second among seven children of William Elvery , merchant, and Theresa Elvery (née Moss), singer and music teacher, whose parents are English Quakers. Her father’s ancestors were silk merchants from Spain, called Alvarez. Her early childhood is spent in Carrickmines, County Dublin. In 1896 the family moves to Foxrock and she attends the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. Her mother’s family is artistic – one aunt is the artist Phoebe Anna Traquair – and she and her sisters are talented artists and singers. Her younger sister, Dorothy Kay, becomes a noted portrait painter in South Africa. At the age of sixteen, she wins a three-week scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art in South Kensington, London. Back in Dublin, she models for William Orpen, then teaching in the school. They become friends, and she regrets never studying painting under him. She concentrates on sculpture under John Hughes and has great success, winning the Taylor scholarship three years in a row (1901–03). The first year she wins, the judges, seeking evidence that she had worked unaided, asks her to model a head from life in their presence.

Elvery’s first exhibit in the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) is a bronze statuette of a boy in 1902. Thereafter she is a lifelong exhibitor with the RHA, showing almost annually until her death. Friendship with the older Sarah Purser introduces her to Dublin’s artistic milieu and to the arts and crafts movement. In the movement’s 1904 exhibition she shows ten items, including terracotta statuettes, a holy water stoup, and a plaster cast of a lectern, which is cast in bronze in Paris that year and placed in her former parish church in Carrickmines. The movement’s historian, Paul Larmour, calls this lectern “a remarkable piece of organic Art Nouveau . . . There is nothing else like it in Ireland.”

In 1904, after a brief period studying in Paris with her sister and fellow students Estella Solomons and Frances “Cissie” Beckett, Elvery takes lessons in stained glass from Alfred E. Child, and is then persuaded by Purser to join her Tower of Glass (An Túr Gloine) studio. She remains six years, executing windows for St. Stephen’s Church, Mount Street, Dublin; St. Nicholas Church, Carrickfergus; and a war memorial at the Church of Ireland church, Carrickmines. Although her work is generally well received, she does not rate her skill in the medium highly – “I never got the right feeling for glass or the detached, austere quality necessary for ecclesiastical art” – and her window for a Gort convent leads to a critical review of Purser’s studio by W. B. Yeats. She does not, however, confine herself to glass but also designs for silversmiths and illustrated books for children. For Iosagán agus Sgealta Eile (1907), by Patrick Pearse, she provides a black-and-white frontispiece and four colour illustrations. For the Cuala Press, run by Lily and Elizabeth Yeats, she designs calendars, Christmas cards, and fifteen hand-coloured prints, which continue to be issued until after World War II.

Elvery’s social life in Dublin is busy. An active member of the United Arts Club, she is called by Lady Gregory “the beautiful Miss Elvery,” and Orpen’s portrait, showing her long-necked, graceful, and vivacious, bears out this description. Tiring of glass, and wishing to become a painter, she leaves in 1910 for the Slade School of Fine Art in London. There Henry Tonks is less complimentary than her Dublin teachers. He finds her work facile: “The speed, the slickness, the skill. It is horrible!” Orpen also comes to this view: “her only fault was that the transmission of her thoughts from her brain to paper or canvas, clay or stained glass, became so easy to her that all was said in a few hours. Nothing on earth could make her go on and try to improve on her first translation of her thought.”

Back in Dublin, Elvery takes a studio in Kildare Street and teaches for a time in the Metropolitan School of Art, before her parents arrange a marriage with Charles Henry Gordon Campbell, eldest son of the future Lord Chancellor of Ireland, James Campbell. They marry on August 1, 1912, and move to London where he is called to the English bar. It is not initially a love match but they are well-suited – he likes artistic, Bohemian circles and they become friends with D. H. and Frieda Lawrence, the painter Mark Gertler, the publisher John Middleton Murry, and his wife, the writer Katherine Mansfield, who describes Campbell as “a queer mixture for she is loving and affectionate, and yet she is malicious.”

Campbell’s husband becomes secretary of the Department of Industry and Commerce in the Irish Free State and in 1922 the family moves to Clonard, Terenure, Dublin. His government position means that within six months the house is burned down by anti-Treatyites, who are, however, almost comically accommodating – local men, they express distress at the job and allow her to save the children’s Christmas presents. In 1931 she becomes Lady Glenavy after her husband succeeds to his father’s title, an important member of Dublin’s social and artistic scene. She helps establish the Dublin Drama League and assists Shelah Richards in the production of two plays in 1936. Her friendships are wide and varied and her conversation imaginative and engaged. Dressed in beige – what her son calls “variations on a theme of porridge” – she entertains constantly. Her house has what she terms a “caravanserai” character and is constantly full of people.

Appointed an associate of the RHA in 1932, Campbell becomes a full member in 1934 and takes her turn at teaching. She also joins the more radical Society of Dublin Painters and holds in February 1935 a one-person show at their premises, 7 Stephen’s Green, but she never shows with the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, though her work is more avant-garde than that of most academicians. At its best in still lifes and figure compositions, her work has “a sense of drama and an enigmatic or near-surrealist appearance.” Brian Kennedy notes that she is the first Irish painter to go surrealist (though she never thinks of herself in this way) and although she is serious about her work – taking lessons at an advanced age from Patrick Hennessy  – she is also diffident. Her memoir does not trace her development as an artist and mentions only one work with approbation – The Intruder (exhibited at the RHA in 1932). Now in the National Gallery of Ireland, it depicts in bold, rich colours a female centaur beckoning a young man from a group of picnickers. It immediately attracts attention. Richard Orpen wants the academy to buy it, but they think it obscene.

About 1941 the Campbells move to a large Georgian house in Rathfarnham, and twenty years later they transfer to a smaller house in Sandycove. After her husband’s death in 1962, she publishes her memoirs, And Today We Will Only Gossip (1964). The title is well chosen as the book is not self-revelatory but full of characters she encountered. Monk Gibbon calls her a “unique mixture: of talent and diffidence; of gregariousness and contempt for the herd; of gentle consideration and a savage determination to wound. Only those who knew her well knew her at all; and even to them she remained something of a mystery” (The Irish Times, December 2, 1980).

Campbell dies in Dublin on May 21, 1970, and is survived by her two sons, the writer and humorist Patrick Campbell and the novelist Michael Campbell, and predeceased by her daughter, Bridget, an Irish international lacrosse player and talented scientist, who is killed by a bomb during the London blitz.

Campbell’s work is in inter alia the Ulster Museum, the National Gallery of Ireland, the Hugh Lane Gallery, and the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, County Cork.

(From: “Campbell, Beatrice Moss” by Bridget Hourican and Pauric J. Dempsey, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: “Bridgit – a picture of Miss Elvery (Beatrice Elvery),” oil on canvas by William Orpen, 1909)


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Death of R. M. “Bertie” Smyllie, Editor of “The Irish Times”

Robert Maire Smyllie, known as Bertie Smyllie, editor of The Irish Times for twenty years, dies on September 11, 1954.

Smyllie is born on March 20, 1893, at Hill Street, Shettleston, Glasgow, Scotland. He is the eldest of four sons and one daughter of Robert Smyllie, a Presbyterian printer originally from Scotland who is working in Sligo, County Sligo, at the time, and Elisabeth Follis, originally from Cork, County Cork. His father marries in Sligo on July 20, 1892, and later becomes proprietor and editor of the unionist Sligo Times. Smyllie attends Sligo Grammar School in 1906 and enrolls at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 1911.

After two years at TCD, Smyllie’s desire for adventure leads him to leave university in 1913. Working as a vacation tutor to an American boy in Germany at the start of World War I, he is detained in Ruhleben internment camp, near Berlin, during the war. As an internee, he is involved in drama productions with other internees. Following his release at the end of the war, he witnesses the German revolution of 1918–1919. During this period, he encounters revolutionary sailors from Kiel who temporarily make him a representative of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council, and he observes key events including the looting of the Kaiser’s Palace and violent clashes between rival factions in Berlin. It is also during this period that he secures a personal interview with David Lloyd George at the Paris Convention of 1919. This helps Smyllie gain a permanent position with The Irish Times in 1920, where he quickly earns the confidence of editor John Healy. Together, they take part in secret but unsuccessful attempts to resolve the Irish War of Independence.

Smyllie contributes to the Irishman’s Diary column of the paper from 1927. In 1927, he publishes an exclusive report outlining a draft government including both Labour Party and Fianna Fáil TDs, signaling the volatile politics of the early state years.

Smyllie’s knowledge of languages (particularly the German he had learned during his internment) led to numerous foreign assignments. His reports on the rise of National Socialism in 1930s Germany are notably prescient and instill in him a lasting antipathy towards the movement.

When Healy dies in 1934, Smyllie becomes editor of The Irish Times and also takes on the role of Irish correspondent for The Times (London), a position that brings significant additional income. Under Healy’s leadership, The Irish Times shifted from representing the Anglo-Irish ascendancy to becoming an organ of liberal, southern unionism, and eventually becomes a critical legitimising force in the Irish Free State. Smyllie enthusiastically supports this change. He establishes a non-partisan profile and a modern Irish character for the erstwhile ascendancy paper. For example, he drops “Kingstown Harbour” for “Dún Laoghaire.” He also introduces the paper’s first-ever Irish-language columnist. He is assisted by Alec Newman and Lionel Fleming, recruits Patrick Campbell and enlists Flann O’Brien to write his thrice-weekly column “Cruiskeen Lawn” as Myles na gCopaleen. As editor, he introduces a more Bohemian and informal style, establishing a semi-permanent salon in Fleet Street’s Palace Bar. This becomes a hub for journalists and literary figures and a source of material for his weekly column, Nichevo.

One of Smyllie’s early political challenges as editor concerns the Spanish Civil War. At a time when Irish Catholic opinion is strongly pro-Franco, he ensures The Irish Times coverage is balanced and fair, though advertiser pressure eventually forces the withdrawal of the paper’s young reporter, Lionel Fleming, from the conflict. His awareness of the looming European crisis earns him the Order of the White Lion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. However, during World War II, he clashes with Ireland’s censorship authorities, especially under Minister Frank Aiken. He challenges their views both publicly and privately, though his relationship with the editor of the Irish Independent, Frank Geary, is cold, reducing the effectiveness of their joint opposition to censorship.

During the 1943 Irish general election, Smyllie uses the paper to promote the idea of a national government that could represent Ireland with authority in the postwar world. He praises Fine Gael’s proposal for such a government and criticises Éamon de Valera for dismissing it as unrealistic. This leads to a public exchange between de Valera and Smyllie, with the latter defending The Irish Times’s role as a constructive voice for Ireland’s future rather than a partisan interest.

Following the war, Smyllie’s editorial stance shifts toward defending Ireland’s neutrality and diplomatic position. When Winston Churchill accuses de Valera of fraternising with Axis powers, Smyllie counters by revealing Ireland’s covert collaboration with the Allies, such as military and intelligence cooperation, despite official neutrality. In the same period, he continues to oppose censorship, particularly the frequent banning of Irish writers by the Censorship of Publications Board. This opposition features prominently in a controversy on The Irish Times letters page in 1950, later published as the liberal ethic. The paper also adopts a critical stance toward the Catholic Church, notably during the 1951 resignation of Minister for Health Noël Browne amid opposition from bishops and doctors to a national Mother and Child Scheme. His editorials suggest the Catholic Church is effectively the government of Ireland, though he maintains a cordial relationship with Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, who invites him annually for dinner.

Smyllie is also wary of American foreign policy, showing hostility particularly during the Korean War. American diplomats in Dublin allege that Smyllie is “pro-communist“. Despite growing readership among an educated Catholic middle class, The Irish Times’s circulation in 1950 remains under 50,000, far below the Irish Independent and the Fianna Fáil-aligned The Irish Press.

In later years, Smyllie’s health declines, prompting a quieter lifestyle. He moves from his large house in Pembroke Park, Dublin, to Delgany, County Wicklow. As he does not drive, he becomes less present in the newspaper office in D’Olier Street, contributing to a decline in the paper’s dynamism. His health deteriorates further, resulting in frequent absences from his editorial duties, though he retains his position despite management attempts to limit his authority, especially over finances. He dies of heart failure on September 11, 1954.

In 1925, Smyllie marries Kathlyn Reid, eldest daughter of a County Meath landowner. They have no children.

Smyllie is an eccentric: he hits his tee shots with a nine iron, speaks in a curious mix of Latin phrases and everyday Dublin slang, and weighs 22 stone (308 lbs.; 140 kg) yet still cycles to work wearing a green sombrero.


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Birth of Patrick Campbell, 3rd Baron Glenavy

Patrick Gordon Campbell, 3rd Baron Glenavy, Irish journalist, humorist and television personality, is born in Dublin on June 6, 1913. He writes sixteen books, including Life in Thin Slices, Rough Husbandry, and How to Become a Scratch Golfer.

Campbell is the first son of Charles Campbell, 2nd Baron Glenavy, and Beatrice, Lady Glenavy (the artist Beatrice Elvery). He is educated Crawley’s preparatory school (St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin), Castle Park preparatory school (Dalkey), Rossall School (Lancashire), and, briefly, Pembroke College, Oxford. He leaves Oxford without completing his degree. In 1935, he is taken on by The Irish Times by R. M. “Bertie” Smyllie and reports on “Courts Day by Day.” During World War II, he serves as a chief petty officer in the Irish Marine Service. After the war he re-joins The Irish Times, using the pseudonym “Quidnunc,” and is given charge of the column “Irishman’s Diary.” He has a weekly column for the Irish edition of the Sunday Dispatch before working on the paper in London from 1947 to 1949. He is assistant editor of Lilliput from 1947 to 1953. His writings also appear in The Sunday Times.

Campbell’s books, mostly collections of humorous pieces that were originally published in newspapers and magazines, include A Long Drink of Cold Water (1949), A Short Trot with a Cultured Mind (1950), An Irishman’s Diary (1950), Life in Thin Slices (1951), Patrick Campbell’s Omnibus (1954), Come Here Till I Tell You (1960), Constantly in Pursuit (1962), How to Become a Scratch Golfer (1963), Brewing Up in the Basement (1963), Rough Husbandry (1965), The P-P-Penguin Patrick Campbell (1965), All Ways on Sundays (1966), A Bunch of New Roses (1967), an autobiography My Life and Easy Times (1967), The Coarse of Events (1968), Gullible Travels (1969), The High Speed Gasworks (1970), Waving All Excuses (1971), Patrick Campbell’s Golfing Book (1972), Fat Tuesday Tails (1972), 35 Years on the Job (1973), and The Campbell Companion (1987). Many of his books are illustrated by Quentin Blake.

Campbell is married three times, first in 1941 to Sylvia Alfreda Willoughby Lee, whom he divorces in 1947. He then marries Chery Louise Munro in 1947. The two divorce in 1966, the year he marries Vivienne Orme.

Campbell speaks with a stammer, but nevertheless delights television audiences with his wit, notably as a regular team captain on the long-running show Call My Bluff, opposite his longtime friend, Frank Muir. Muir notes that “When he was locked solid by a troublesome initial letter he would show his frustration by banging his knee and muttering ‘Come along! Come along!'” Some of his funniest short stories describe incidents involving his stammer. He stands six feet five inches tall, and several of his funniest pieces deal with the problems faced by a man of his build in merely finding shoes or clothes that fit him. He also makes regular appearances in That Was The Week That Was.

Campbell lives for many years in the South of France, commuting to England for his television work and continuing to produce his weekly column in The Sunday Times, which he drops in 1978.

In 1972 a period of illness leads to the discovery that Campbell had suffered an undetected heart attack some years previously and has a permanent heart weakness. An attack of viral pneumonia in 1980 exacerbates this condition, and he dies suddenly on November 9, 1980 while talking to a nurse at University College Hospital, London. He is succeeded as the 4th and last Lord Glenavy by his novelist brother Michael.


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Launch of “The Irish Times”

the-irish-times

The Irish Times, an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper, is launched at 4 Lower Abbey Street in Dublin on March 29, 1859. The first appearance of a newspaper using the name The Irish Times occurs in 1823 but it closes in 1825. The title is revived as a thrice weekly publication by Major Lawrence E. Knox. It is originally founded as a moderate Protestant Irish nationalist newspaper, reflecting the politics of Knox, who stands unsuccessfully as a parliamentary candidate for Isaac Butt’s Home Rule League. In its early days, its main competitor is the Dublin Daily Express.

Though formed as a Protestant nationalist paper, within two decades and under new owners it becomes the voice of British unionism in Ireland. It is no longer marketed as a unionist paper, but rather presents itself politically as “liberal and progressive,” as well as promoting neoliberalism on economic issues. The editorship of the newspaper from 1859 until 1986 is controlled by the Anglo-Irish Protestant minority, only gaining its first nominal Irish Catholic editor 127 years into its existence.

The paper’s most prominent columnists include writer and arts commentator Fintan O’Toole and satirist Miriam Lord. The late Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald is once a columnist. Senior international figures, including Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, have written for its op-ed page. Its most prominent columns have included the political column Backbencher, by John Healy, Drapier, an anonymous piece produced weekly by a politician giving the ‘insider’ view of politics, Rite and Reason, a weekly religious column edited by ‘religious affairs’ editor Patsy McGarry, and the long running An Irishman’s Diary. An Irishman’s Diary is written by Patrick Campbell in the forties (under the pseudonym ‘Quidnunc’), by Seamus Kelly from 1949 to 1979 (also writing as ‘Quidnunc’) and more recently by Kevin Myers. After Myers’ move to the rival Irish Independent, An Irishman’s Diary has usually been the work of Frank McNally. On the sports pages, Philip Reid is the paper’s golf correspondent.

One of its most popular columns is the biting and humorous Cruiskeen Lawn satire column written, originally in Irish, later in English, by Myles na gCopaleen, the pen name of Brian O’Nolan who also writes books using the name Flann O’Brien. Cruiskeen Lawn is an anglicised spelling of the Irish words crúiscín lán, meaning “full little jug.” Cruiskeen Lawn makes its debut in October 1940, and appears with varying regularity until O’Nolan’s death in 1966.

The editor is Paul O’Neill who succeeds Kevin O’Sullivan on April 5, 2017. The deputy editor is Deirdre Veldon. The Irish Times is published every day except Sundays and employs 420 people.