Blog

Published: The Dubliner, June 2010

“If it didn’t fly in the face of all known social conventions, I’d challenge him to a duel…”

A stranger paid me a compliment the other day. She called me a gentleman. Admittedly, I’d just let her muscle past me in the queue for an ice cream van. (She had two small children. I was a single man in the queue for an ice cream van. Fuck it, she had seniority.) The people behind me grumbled a bit. But I take my compliments where I get them. Later I got to thinking about the concept of the gentleman. You know, the man of honour. It’s a very old fashioned idea now. But it seems to me that – in the days before there were credit cards, penalty points or much in the way of civil law – the notion of ‘honour’ performed a very useful social function.

The gentleman occupied a position of privilege. But if he didn’t pay his debts, or if he punched your auntie or something, his honour was forfeit. Without honour, he might as well have been a common or garden gobshite. If I understand the idea correctly then – and there’s every chance that I don’t – honour operated as the equivalent of a security deposit held against you by society to guarantee good behaviour.

No wonder then that gentlemen were so sensitive to any suggestion of an affront to their honour. I can sympathise. My friend Mick has repeatedly stated his opinion of late that I am secretly in love with the girlfriend of a mutual friend of ours. He’s completely wrong. But I can’t prove a negative and he trusts his instincts. He refuses to withdraw the allegation.

Now he hasn’t libelled me. He hasn’t committed a crime. I don’t even want us to fall out because it’s not that big a deal. But my honour is offended. If it didn’t fly in the face of all known social conventions, I swear to God I’d challenge him to a duel.

Then again, maybe I take these things too seriously. Last weekend, when the photographer Johnny Savage and I were a road trip to Mayo, he shared his own tale of being accused in the wrong. In 2005, Johnny was working as a bicycle courier in Perth, Western Australia. Now there aren’t too many Irish people in Perth, Western Australia. In fact, his landlady admitted he was the first she’d ever met. She seemed wary at first, but warmed to him eventually – often stopping for a chat when she came by to pick up the rent.

One evening, when she was around, she asked Johnny if he’d heard the big news from London. Johnny was out on his bike all day. But he did remember hearing on the radio that morning that London had secured the 2012 Olympics. He told her he’d heard the news. It was fantastic. He was delighted altogether. Unbeknownst to Johnny, since he’d listened to the news that morning, al-Qada had launched a coordinated bomb attack, killing 56 people. He never lived it down.

The landlady exited sharply. From then on, the husband came for the rent. There was no chitchat. Did they ever clear up the misunderstanding, I inquired? He tried, he said. But he was rebuffed. Didn’t that bother him, I asked? Wasn’t he tempted to challenge the old bat to a duel? Not at all, Johnny smiled. Sure what can you do?

We were in Mayo, incidentally, working on a feature about the new series the Hardy Bucks are filming for RTE. It was good to catch up with Martin (a.k.a. Eddie Durkin.) The last time he was in Dublin, he sent me a Facebook message asking if I fancied meeting for a few pints. He was under the impression that he owed me a few. If he did, I’d forgotten about it. We met on Grafton Street and I asked where he fancied heading. He explained that he was skint at the moment. We’d have to go on the knack.

When I didn’t quite understand what he meant, he pointed to the bulge in his rucksack. He’d brought cans. We were going on the knack.

I tried to explain that drinking alcohol on the street wasn’t really the done thing in Dublin. But he insisted. He asked where the best local spots were. I told him there weren’t any. We ended up walking laps around St. Stephen’s Green. I tried to be inconspicuous. But every third or fourth young person that walked past recognised Martin and shouted lines from the show at him.

I told him that, if he preferred, we could go to the pub instead. I didn’t mind paying. No, he insisted he owed me. He was going to pay me back and that was that. It was touching really. What can I say? The man is a gentleman!