Castleisland's great scholar who mingled with every stratum of society; Here, Eamon Horan, a former colleague of Con's, remembers a gentle giant who wrote spell-binding prose.

Anybody who had the privilege of knowing and befriending Con Houlihan will remember him first and foremost as a gentleman and thereafter, for a variety of different reasons. Personally, I will remember him as an abiding friend, a man of scholarship but, above all, as a man of the people. To the casual observer he might strike one as being diffident and a trifle difficult to get to know and understand. But behind that outward façade there was the innate Kerryman. The erudite man of scholarship who, despite a naturally muted tone of voice, mingled with every stratum of society and treated all and sundry with ever enduring respect.

Con was gregarious by nature and delighted in mingling with people. Even before he came to the forefront as a Dublin-based journalist back in the 1970s he had made his niche in his native Kerry. First and foremost as a school teacher and also as a man who had an insatiable appetite for all things sporting. Hound and hare were always close to his heart and I well remember a lovely piece he penned in praise of the hare. I can recall many years back seeing him playing rugby in Tralee in a long forlorn-looking togs, complete with ankle socks and shoes. But it didn't matter much whether the game was rugby or soccer or Gaelic football or hurling, Con revelled in the exploits of those who excelled in a particular branch of sport. I have often told the story of an evening when we were emerging from Wembley Stadium in the dusk of evening after a Kerry/Dublin tournament game. We had just got onto the coach when one of the organisers asked where was Con Houlihan. Then up the way came the lumbering figure of the great man himself and he duly informed us that he was 'waiting for a German girl!' The coach took off down Holloway Road and the party adjourned to a nearby hostelry. He duly called me over to join him and introduced me to a young lady student form Stuttgart. Having introduced me to the student he then turned to her and resumed his previous conversation, He proceeded to inform her that 'in Ireland, people speak differently in different parts of the country and 'tis very hard to understand some of them'. I often wondered afterwards what the young student made of it all. Con's initial introduction to journalism was as editor of The Taxpayer's News, a tabloid newspaper which the late county councillor Charlie Lenihan from Castleisland had launched. Years later, Con used to write his copy on big sheets of grease proof paper which he most of inherited form Charlie, who ran a butchering business. I remember an article he wrote for the Evening Press and he filed it from Moscow on the occasion of a soccer international.

He was gushing in his praise of Russia and its people and, in particular the Moscovites he had encountered. The only fault he found with Moscow was that the potatoes there were nothing near as good as the potatoes here at home! My good friend John Lyons, the well-known Tralee businessman, reminded me of a day years back when he was approached in the street by Con. He wondered was he a son of Tom Lyons who had been a tailor in his younger days. John said he was and back came the rejoiner 'I remember it was your father who made my first long trousers for me'. Over the years of working and living in Dublin he was a regular frequenter of well-known hostelries along Burgh Quay such as the Scotch House and The White Horse and, of course Mulligan's in Poolbeg Street. He was a regular visitor to the Palace Bar in Fleet Street, owned by his great friend Liam Ahern.

There is a beautiful bronze bust of Com adorning a shelf in the bar and it has been there for quite a few years now. Liam had originally seen it in the office of the then Tánaiste Dick Spring. He 'borrowed' it from Dick and it's been in the Palace Bar ever since. In recent years Com wrote a weekly article on Wednesdays for the Evening Herald and, as always, it made for compelling reading. He'll be greatly missed by his retinue of readers. They can all take solace from the huge legacy of writing he has left behind. He'll be especially missed by his dear friend Harriet with whom he shared so many happy years. We'll all miss this great man of letters. My abiding memory will be of a gentle giant who enriched all our lives with his spell-binding prose. Ní bheig a leithead ann aris.

(Text courtesy of The Kerryman 08/08/12) Tweet

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