No Complaints: A Memoir of Life in Rural Ireland and in the Irish Public Service by Maurice O’Connell (review)

Abstract

necessitates a conceptual scope sufficient to describe this complexity. We again see the utility and relevance of Francis’ formulation of the problem in terms of ‘integral ecology’. This is the best examination of the climate crisis in Ireland yet written. It offers new arguments and angles of interpretation to those already well versed in the subject. It is an essential text for anyone who seeks to understand the crisis and our possible responses. Dr Ciara Murphy, who holds a research degree in Environmental Microbiology, is Environmental Policy Advocate at the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice in Dublin. Notes 1 David Young, ‘Ireland falling way behind on climate change action, admits Taoiseach’, Irish Independent, 30/12/2018. 2 Kate Raworth, in her book Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st -Century Economist (London: Random House, 2018), also argues that ‘the rational economic man’, the human character which lies at the heart of mainstream economic theory, is a false representative of human nature which results in economic models that are inherently false. Maurice O’Connell, No Complaints: A Memoir of Life in Rural Ireland and in the Irish Public Service (Dublin: Kingdom Books 2020), 133 pages. This is a beautifully written memoir by Maurice O’Connell, one of the leading public servants of his era, who served as secretary general of the Department of Finance and governor of the Central Bank. He throws a fascinating light on the workings of the Irish public service as well as conjuring up a way of life in rural Ireland that has gone forever. One of the great strengths of the relatively short book is that it describes life in Moyvane in North Kerry in the 1940s in a clear sighted, honest fashion. It is a far cry from the cult of victimhood that has coloured so many recent accounts of the past, but neither is it an exercise in a rose-tinted reminiscence. The title No Complaints perfectly sums up the author’s approach to life. Maurice died in 2019 but wrote the memoir in 2010 during the financial crisis on which he offers some serious reflections. His father, who was the principal of the national school in Moyvane, died when Maurice was seven, but the family was helped to cope with the tragedy by the close-knit village community. Maurice was a studious boy, but was not Studies • volume 110 • number 438 262 Summer 2021: Book Reviews above getting involved in childish pranks. He tells how one of the chores of the two gardaí stationed in the village was to give regular rainfall readings to the Met Office. ‘There was a special container in the back garden of the garda station to record rainfall and as youngsters we sometimes added liquid to the contents of the container which leads me to suspect that the rainfall statistics for Moyvane might well have been considerably overstated’, he states laconically. He went on from the local national school to secondary school in Listowel, where his intellectual abilities became obvious and he shone at Latin and Greek. He moved to St Brendan’s in Killarney to study for his Leaving Certificate: ‘There was method in this. I was being groomed for Maynooth, the national seminary’. He went to Maynooth at the age of sixteen, having obtained outstanding marks in his Leaving Cert. Ever modest, he doesn’t mention that he came first in the country in Irish and Greek. In his third year in Maynooth he decided the priesthood was not for him. ‘To this day I cannot give precise reasons or explanations. I was exhausted; I did not have the zeal for the spiritual life and it was time to labour elsewhere in the vineyard’. Returning home was not easy, but he received a surprising welcome from his formidable parish priest, Fr Dan O’Sullivan, who ‘preached without fear or favour and with a cavalier disregard for the sensitivities of his flock’. He sent for Maurice and said ‘he was impressed by my courage. He suggested that I might now be mature enough to share a drink with him’. In later years he was often asked if the Maynooth experience led to a crisis...