Christopher Hitchens on Conor Cruise O'Brien

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Writer and Journalist Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and Love, Poverty & War: Journeys and Essays on Conor Cruise O'Brien.

Conor Cruise O'Brien (3 November 1917 18 December 2008) colloquially known as "The Cruiser", was an Irish cosmopolite politician, writer and academic.

Polemics and academia
Between 1979 and 1981 O'Brien was editor-in-chief of The Observer newspaper in Britain. He held visiting professorships and lectureships throughout the world, particularly in the United States, and controversially in apartheid South Africa.
A persistent critic of Charles Haughey, O'Brien coined the acronym GUBU (Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre and Unprecedented), based on a statement by Charles Haughey, who was then Taoiseach, commenting on the discovery of a murder suspect in the apartment of the Fianna Fáil Attorney General Patrick Connolly. Haughey's short lived government from March to December 1982 became known as the GUBU period.
Until 1994 O'Brien was Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dublin.

Unionism
In 1996, he joined Robert McCartney's United Kingdom Unionist Party and was elected to the Northern Ireland Forum. He was involved in the talks process that ultimately led to the Good Friday Agreement until the party withdrew on the installation of Sinn Fein. He later resigned from UKUP after publishing an extract from his book Memoir: My Life and Themes in which he called on Unionists to consider the benefits of a united Ireland to thwart Sinn Féin. In 2005 he rejoined the Labour Party.

Conor Cruise O'Brien's many books include: his picture of the politics of polarisation States of Ireland (1972), The Great Melody (1992), his unorthodox biography of Edmund Burke (a figure with whom he feels a great affinity, as Burke is apparently one of his ancestors[citation needed]), and his Memoir: My Life and Themes (1998). He also published a collection of essays, Cunning and Passion (1986), which includes a substantial piece on the literary work of William Butler Yeats and some challenging views on the subject of terrorism. Perhaps his most controversial work is The Siege (1989), a sympathetic history of Zionism and the State of Israel. His books, particularly those on Irish issues, tend to be very involved and personal such as States of Ireland where he made the link between the political success of the republican Easter Rising and the consequent demise of his Home Rule family's position in society. His private papers have been deposited in the University College Dublin Archives.
He was a long time columnist for the Sunday Independent and his articles have been distinguished by hostility to the peace process in Northern Ireland, regular predictions of civil war in the Republic of Ireland and an openly pro-Unionist stance. In 1997, a libel action was brought against him by relatives of Bloody Sunday victims for alleging in one article that the marchers were "Sinn Féin activists operating for the IRA".
In 1963, O'Brien's script for a Telefís Éireann programme on Charles Stewart Parnell won him a Jacob's Award.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Christopher
• Hitchens
• Conor
• Cruise
• O'Brien

[RebelAvenger6]

I like Hitchens work but hes wrong about O Brien,he plaigarised many other writers.

[padraic2001eire]

@RebelAvenger6 Really? Who did he plagiarise?

[Guedingen]

'The Irish Mind' in the collection of essays Passion and Cunning is my personal favourite.

[padraic2001eire]

I actually picked up Passion and Cunning from my library today and read "The Irish Mind", after your recommendation. Agreed, and excellent essay. I don't always agree with O'Brien, but I have to say he is always interesting to read.

[mackers1916]

Conor Cruise-O'Brien's writings were nothing more than gutter journalism you'd expect from The Daily Mail or the Daily Express , he was a prat and an apologist just like Hitchens .

[padraic2001eire]

On another video of mine you said you admired Hitchens, now he's "a prat and an apologist"? And because you don't agree with someone, that therefore reduces their writing ability to the level of "gutter journalism" - sure, that's fair.

[Dabhach1]

O'Brien was the biggest arsehole Ireland ever produced, and that's a tough set of laurals to claim. A foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but I can't think of a single major issue he didn't do a 180 on at some time or other, except for those he did a 360 on. With him, it was all about justifying each turnabout just so he could show how achingly clever he was. An utter waste of education.

[RonanG]

Conor Cruise O Brien was like a lighthouse in a bog. Brilliant, but utterly useless!

[Zanderzan1983]

so many negative comments about the wonderful writer conor cruise o'brien. hands up who has read one of his books? didnt think so

[sbreathnach100]

O'Brien also knew that when you put an issue on the table, the Irish were to last to rise any worthwhile analysis. The Irish don't do 'debates'; indeed, the don't do 'action', merely emotional reaction. That's why, I believe, he supported the Unionist and 'more' secular cause, , rather than wallow in imperialist guff about secular Britian coming from those most comitose to the threat of the Mediteranean Myth. CCO'B was not a Betagh; I think he came to dislike them...

[sbreathnach100]

Even defending the memory of a distinguished Irishman can still bring out the yelping dogs. The 'children of God' know how to be personal and vindictive like no one else -- and all from behind either a pulpit or a mask. The Irish character, as O' Brien well knew, was steeped in the worst aspects of the Christian conquest, an island that is still more monastic than liberal. And now that the Vatican has issued the Jesuits with computers, nothing escapes their vicious, poisonous pens.

[RonanG]

@sbreathnach100 Rather rich coming from one who's name appears nowhere on their rather uninteresting and un-viewed channel. Methinks that you consider yourself somewhat of an intellectual, however from the rather scattered and incoherent ramblings you have posted here, I would beg to differ. However, if reacting to posts that are a year old with gibberish is your thing, then who am I to stand in your way. Be my guest.

[sbreathnach100]

I don't think that O'Brien was a very deep thinker: rather an informed journalist, who could talk authoritatively (and critically) on Edmund Burke or D. Hammersjold; but in Ireland, as in America, where the wise ones are as boring as Biblical cardboard and as predictable as prieshteens on a pulpit, anything he said made ahateful stir. He therefore belongs in the tradition of Adam 'Dubh' O' Toole (burned heretic), Alice Kyteler, Joyce, Toland, D Allen,Morgan (Dermot), Tommy Kiernan, etc, etc.

[sbreathnach100]

In Peter Lennon's film, 'The Rockie Road to Dublin' , or some such name, he courageously admists that the Irish on one Internaitonal occasion voted one way and the UN. It wasn't to the liking of the US. Then someone politely visited them -- some cardinal or other -- and they reversed in favour of what the US was voting for... Who else but the Cruiser in Irelaand would reveal such appalling biddability!

[sbreathnach100]

CCo'Brien could not see what Joyce saw. I think he saw something and for a while reared up against what he saw. For the family and perhaps the Gaelic side of things,he made some compromises; but in his heart he knew with Casement that the history of the Vatican in the Congo was as bad as it had been over a longer period in Irlland and generally around the world. He also knew that Ireland was a monstrous Holy Roman monolith made up of incurable religious Leprechauns-- all pretending to be secular

[sbreathnach100]

@RonanG So, let me put it another way; take off your anonymous mask and give some weight to whatever it is you imagine you have to say about the Cruiser. Otherwise, enjoy the bog; but please don't invite the rest of us to sup with you...

[sbreathnach100]

@Borgia Or, more importantly, how imperialistic are those who could write Unam Sanctam? Surely this piece of Papal nonsense is the fons et origo of totalitanianism? Most Catholics have never read it, which, of course, allows them to yawn on and on about imperialism. The Monolithic Irish Catholic mind was anathema to O'Brien.. He saw that the secular side of Unionism was, thereofore, the only game on craggy island. And he was right. What Irish men since Joyce have challenged the RCC?

[RonanG]

@sbreathnach100 Let me put it another way. The Cruiser was about as useful to society as a cat-flap on a submarine.