Conor Cruise O'Brien recalls the influence of his upbringing and family on his varied career.
Current Minister for Post and Telegraphs Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien TD discusses his early life in Bruree, his family's politics and religion and how he came to have such a varied career ranging from the literary world to politics.
A literary critic, an historian, a diplomat, an occasional journalist and a playwright, a politician, some would say, of some standing.
Growing up in Bruree in County Limerick, he was greatly influenced by his grandfather David Sheehy and his granduncle Fr Eugene Sheehy who he describes as,
Something of a hero in the family.
Eugene Sheehy was the first priest to take up the cause of the Land League and became known as The Land League Priest.
Cruise O’Brien describes his background as strongly political. All members of his family were interested in politics from different angles. While the family read a lot, the conversation was mostly about politics and he grew up hearing about politics all the time.
It was what would get the most exciting argument going.
His father died when he was 10 years old and his mother when he was 17 and as an only child his extended family played an important role in his life.
With a Catholic mother and an agnostic father, he was initially brought up as a Catholic, attending Muckross Convent. However, he later went to Sandford Park which was a mixed school and largely regarded as Protestant.
Different members of my family took different views on matters of religion ranging from an agnostic position to a strongly traditionalist Catholic position.
While the religious views within his family may have differed and created some tension, they did not serve to divide his family.
Dr Cruise O’Brien has had a varied but accomplished career but says he had no clear path in mind.
Very little in my life has been predetermined by my conscious purpose.
One lesson he has always strived for is not to take himself too seriously. Having experienced quite a varied upbringing in terms of religion, education and politics, he was very conscious that things in Ireland were not always quite what they seemed. He asserts that his upbringing influenced his trajectory through life as he sought to adjust emotionally and intellectually to the differences that he experienced. As such, he felt he could help people in one community understand better how other communities live.
This episode of 'Face To Face’ was broadcast on 22 August 1976. The presenter is Nodlaig McCarthy.
