Mary KennyIt must have been some eight years ago since Stephen Fry, accompanied by his then-young boyfriend, a hair stylist, very kindly drove me from Oxfordshire to London on a late summer afternoon.
We had been attending a barbecue party given by the late Mel Smith, the actor and comedian, and Mr Fry and his companion offered to give me a lift, rather than my calling for a taxi into the countryside to take me to a train.
It was a pleasant drive and Mr Fry and I embarked on a discussion about history, which, I think, did not interest his young friend. I suggested that it was rather a pity that King George III was so obstinately set against Catholic emancipation at the time of the Act of Union, around 1800. There were political voices who had favoured bringing in Catholic emancipation at this period – some because it might have helped to make the Irish more reconciled to the United Kingdom, for others on grounds of justice, especially having experienced the persecution of French Catholics after the 1789 revolution.
Stephen Fry vehemently disagreed and launched into a stout defence of the House of Hanover and its Protestant allegiances, suggesting that the papacy and all its works was a damnable institution and should never be favoured, even if ordinary people were sincerely Roman Catholic. George III was quite right (even if sometimes mad) to be against all papists, and the Duke of Wellington, who favoured emancipating Catholics, was quite wrong.
It was a civilised discourse, but I stuck to my point and he certainly stuck to his, and I realised, as I alighted from the vehicle at a London underground station that Mr Fry was irreconcilably set against the Catholic Church, and perhaps, against Catholics. But since his weekend interview with Gay Byrne, my impression is that this has widened to include all believers.
Stephen Fry is described as “a national treasure” in Britain, and is a friend of Prince Charles, who, incidentally, derives his monarchical legitimacy from the House of Hanover (though the Stuart dynasty might still contest that issue).
National pride in Aer Lingus was uplifting
Modern airlines must, I suppose, do business in a modern economic way and if Aer Lingus is sold off to a British carrier, then that is the way of the world. Aer Lingus only flies about nine million passengers a year, whereas Ryanair flies something in the region of 90 million.
And yet, Irish people never quite feel that sense of national pride and attachment to Michael O’Leary’s enterprise, as was once felt about Aer Lingus.
I’m of the generation that still remembers, with chest-bursting pride, the sense of true national ownership that we had towards Aer Lingus, when I was a schoolgirl back in the 1950s. ‘Nationalisation’ really did mean a sense of common ownership then, not just handing over a business to a group of anonymous accountants (no disrespect to accountants!)
Aer Lingus not only flew the flag: it flew the saints, as well, for each aircraft had (and still has) a saint’s name, and was blessed by a bishop when it was launched. By the early 1960s, some international stewardesses were beginning to acquire a reputation as good-time girls (there was a popular American book about saucy air hostesses called Coffee, Tea – or Me?) and they were nicknamed ‘trolley-dollies’.
But we fervently believed that Aer Lingus hostesses were young women of exceptional virtue and high standards. Weren’t they often doctors’ daughters? I have met veteran Aer Lingus stewardesses who were flying 50 years ago and I think they were generally young women of integrity.
You can’t go back to the old days, and the way things were, and yet a little national pride can be an uplifting thing.
Last autumn, I flew by a Scandinavian budget airline called Norwegian.com and I admired the way the tail of each aircraft bore the portrait of a famous Nordic: Kirsten Flagsted, the opera diva; Soren Kierkegaard, the Christian philosopher; Roald Amundsen, the explorer; Edvard Grieg, the composer; Hans Anderson, Greta Garbo, and the evangelist Aril Estvardsen, among others.
I thought it brought personality to normally impersonal flying and I’m glad to see this airline thrive.
Depression is now grounds for killing
Under Belgian law, feeling depressed is now grounds for killing the patient.
A 64-year-old woman, Godelieva De Troyer, was medically killed by lethal injection in a Brussels hospital in April 2012, because she was suffering from depression.
Now her son, Tom Mortier, is asking the European Court of Human Rights to rule on whether Belgian euthanasia law abrogates the rights of the family, who, he claims, are ignored in these measures.
The leading Belgian campaigner for euthanasia, Prof. Wim Distelmans, last year described Auschwitz as “an inspiring venue” for euthanasia discussions. He spoke more truly than he knew.
