Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 16 - 22 November 2000 Issue No.508
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Plain Talk

By Mursi Saad El-Din

Mary Robinson's visit to Egypt last week brought back memories of my first interest in Ireland, an interest which goes back to 1943 when I became friendly with a certain Captain Gardner at the Anglo-Egyptian Union in Zamalek, an exclusive club, typically British, but open to a small number of Egyptians of whom I was one. Gardner presented me with a book, W. B. Yeats by Louis MacNeice as well as Yeats's Collected Poems. Immediately I became a Yeats fan and, through Yeats, of the Irish literary movement, the Celtic Twilight, with its poetry and drama -- by Lady Gregory, Synge, A. E. and others -- based on old Irish legends. Reading their works I came to realise that Egypt and Ireland had something in common: the struggle for independence.

So, my Irish connection began through reading. In 1946, however, it went further. At that time I was working in London as a young cultural attaché when the head of the Egyptian parliamentary delegation which had arrived in London to participate in an International Parliamentary Conference asked me to join them as press counsellor. In Dublin I had my first taste of Ireland and the Irish, their joviality, hospitality and devil-may-care attitude to life.

One event stuck in my mind during that conference which was held at the "Doel," the historical House of Parliament. I was grousing over the magnificent collection of books at a stand devoted to books by Yeats when an elderly lady in black approached me and asked me if I was interested in Yeats. When I answered in the affirmative she told me she was Mrs. Yeats and asked me to meet her at the stand the following day. When she arrived she was carrying a book which she handed to me as a present. It was a special (270 copies) edition of Yeats's Autobiographies of Childhood and the Trembling of the Veil, signed by Yeats with my name written in pencil by Mrs. Yeats. Over 50 years have passed and my name written in pencil is still clear. I treasure this book as much as I treasure my memory of my first visit to Ireland.

My second visit to Ireland was in the 1950s when I attended a P.E.N. Conference in Dublin and Belfast. A glorious conference that was. There, I met with a number of leading Irish writers, including a charming elderly gentleman who gave me two books he wrote, one about Ireland and the other, a play called Babel, Babel, using the pen name Lynne Doyle. He had chosen this pen name because he was working as a bank clerk responsible for the accounts of linseed oil!

My last visit to Ireland was in June 1990. I was representing Egypt in a conference in Shannon with the title "Peace through Tourism." It was not surprising that Ireland should choose such a subject since peace-building was at the time a matter of particular relevance to the Irish. In the words of Dr. Hellery, the president, who announced the opening of the conference by releasing two white pigeons: "Our turbulent history, and the tragic events in recent years, mean that our commitment to peace and reconciliation is profound and sincere."

In fact we came face to face with those tragic events. Two days before we flew to Belfast to have a session there a bomb exploded in a newly opened shopping centre where a party in our honour was scheduled. Two hours before we left Belfast Airport, the security officers arrested a woman with a bomb which she intended to place somewhere inside the airport.

Dr. Hellery was replaced in the 1990 elections by President Mary Robinson, who chose the rose, Yeats's symbol, as the logo of her campaign. And now Ireland has, again, a lady president. Two successive lady presidents in a country that recently presided over the European Union: now isn't that food for thought?

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