The complicated relationship between Winston Churchill and republicans didn't stop one young Irishman paying his respects at his funeral... For Sunday Miscellany on RTÉ Radio 1, listen to At Churchill's Funeral, by Charles Lysaght above.
Unlike many Irish children of my generation I was brought up to admire Winston Churchill, Britain's wartime leader. My father, although nationalist enough, always uttered his name with reverence. He felt that Churchill as our saviour as well as Britain’s. His defiant wartime orations, received at home on our crackling Telefunken, had made a deep impression.
All that might not have impinged on my childhood mind had I not had an unfortunate speech defect. This exposed me to teasing at school. 'Lysaght, you speak like a baby,’ some boys told me hurtfully. ‘Don’t mind them’, my father reassured me, ‘Winston Churchill also has a lisp and, apart from James Dillon, he is the greatest orator in the world.’
To encourage me, my father got me recordings of Churchill’s speeches. I listened to them over and over again absorbing their rolling rhythm. I learned passages by heart and used phrases from them at school debates. Churchill became my unlikely hero...
Listen to more from Sunday Miscellany here.
