Skip to main content

Memories of Dr Éamon Phoenix

By Michael McCurley

Image ©: Irish News

It was in the 1970’s (I was in my twenties), when I first heard of Eamon Phoenix – my uncle John had happened upon a small group who were heading into Friar’s Bush graveyard on the Stranmillis Road.

There, the assembled group were given, what was later referred to as a ‘brilliant talk by a young man,’ who opened the rusted gates of history on an ancient time, and the people who witnessed the growth of Belfast from a leafy monastic site to rebellion and sectarian dissent. Eamon’s talk about Friar’s Bush, referenced the hurried burial place for over two thousand famine victims who left their blighted farms to die of cholera and dysentery in Belfast; in search of a life, they died nameless, ‘buried without shroud or coffin, on the plague mound in Friars Bush.’

Even back then, Eamon “lit a fire” inside those who heard him speak of a lost time.

Some years later, when I was tutor in the English Department of Stranmillis University College Belfast, the familiar face of ‘the young man I recognised from his photograph in the Irish News’ appeared. He was skipping down the back stairs from his newly acquired office in the History Department:

“Eamon Phoenix?”
I asked, in a friendly tone – I realised that this might be the wunderkind who impressed my uncle John all those years ago.

“Aaah…. yes! And you?….You are?”
….he enquired in a breathy voice, his eyes wide open.

“Michael McCurley, English Department”………. I replied.

“Curley?” MacCurlagh?” “MacCorlagh?” “Francis Curley?” he asked; making reference to Francis Curley of the long-established men’s clothing shop in High Street Belfast.

“No, there’s no connection.” “I taught in Vere Foster……” I offered.

Eamon’s response to this piece of news lead to:
“Aaah! ‘Vere Foster’….Anglo Irish Philanthropist”
“spent all of his fortune on helping the Irish poor have free passage to America”
“the Vere Foster copybooks”
“died penniless in a house in Great Victoria Street”

I told Eamon I lived opposite Christ Church in Durham Street. Queen Victoria Primary School was beside the church. The number 77 bus came over Sandy Row, up Durham Street and turned left into Albert Street.

“Aaah……I remember the 77 bus” Eamon countered with exclamations of joy.
“I must have passed your house beside the Post Office each day going to Christian Brothers (School), Barrack Street.”

I told Eamon that I also went to Barrack Street Primary and Grammar, as well as St. Mary’s Primary CBS!

Eamon quoted the familiar names: Beausang; Dwyer; Cashman; O’Neill; Wulfe; Mallon….the names tumbled out. The good and the bad.

In the knowledge I was not related to the Francis Curley clothing royalty, Eamon set to trawling old Irish News records, where he remembered reading a news report involving an action in Thomas Street in Dublin near the Corn Market:

About a week after our first meeting, Eamon came into the senior staff common room, that he had named, ‘The Salon.’

With a sweeping raised arm, he approached me and declared;
“Michael….. your Uncle….. Cpl. Joseph McCurley….. was killed in action on 23rd February 1923…… near the Corn Market in Dublin, after an ambush by Anti Treaty. He was 21 years of age.”

This, was not a grandparent or great uncle, Eamon stressed, but an uncle …one generation removed.

Eamon stored the surname among hundreds of others and remembered a name, a title, an author, an event.

Eamon later had the complete report included in his “On This Day column.” Here again was a link to events in Irish history.

We had shared a common city space and its history

Eamon later recalled the meeting with my uncle John in town when they went for ‘a cup of tea and a bun.’ The fact that Eamon remembered my uncle’s full name, John McGuinness, and the name of the author and the title of a book he recommended to Eamon, Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman (ironically, I had suggested the book to my uncle and I had even given a lecture on The Third Policeman to students).

Eamon could store such seeming trivia and recall it years later. That random meeting with my Uncle John would provide the scanty threads to weave a future close friendship between Eamon and myself.

We had shared a common city space and its history. We became friends, old friends, on the day of our first meeting.

Eamon invited me to accompany him on many night journeys all over the north, to Augher, Clogher and FIvemiletown; and to Dublin, Kilmainham Gaol, GPO, Mount Street Bridge, Arbour Hill, Grangegorman Military Cemetery, and Lisadell House Sligo.

Through many trips to Dublin, I listened to Eamon’s unbroken fluency and insights on the events of 1916. I thought I had heard it all, but each time there was some new evidence and commentary that got better every time .

Eamon’s Belfast Walking Tours and Night Classes captured the imaginations of retirees, judges, politicians, journalists, doctors, clergy, former prisoners, policemen and victims.

For several years Eamon and I took part in a series of very successful Halloween bus tours, two Friars Bush, and a series of atmospheric pubs. While the theme was Halloween, Eamon’s tales were dramatised with oil lamps and smoke machines. Their content true…. mostly, and their audiences truly terrified.

Ghost Stories

Eamon loved a good ghost story.

Before Covid, Eamon would sometimes call with me on his way back from Creightons garage, with an extra copy of Ireland’s Own.

During Covid, he ventured out on the errand, and, complete with face mask, he arrived unknown at my door, like Santa Claus, and put the Christmas issue of Ireland’s Own through my letter box. He knocked the door, and disappeared down the driveway, standing eyes wide open in anticipation of my appearance. I opened the door with the thoughtful paper in hand, shouted my thanks and made my way down to the gate. ‘Michael…,be careful..…’. Then he started a kind of impromptu robotic tango; I moved to the left, he opened the gate and moved to the left, I advanced, he retreated to the left, I spun around. The “music” stopped. We laughed. I thanked him. ‘There’s a story about the ghosts in Kilmainham gaol, he called out.’

This version of Eamon’s “visits” to me were a regular occurrence throughout the pandemic, and each time we would have a laugh at our antics – the tango dance to the front gate would become a chess game of rooks and bishops, sometimes around the car for added “protection.”

Eamon has been warmly referred to as “Dr.Google” for his prodigious recall of historical events. His was an overview from a great height. He brilliantly connected the small to the larger event. His lectures around the countryside brought people with some artefact, story, letter, anecdote, photograph, which rhymed in time with other clues to be revealed.

A bridge to peace

Behind all of Eamon’s high reputation as a historian, there is also a great humanity, simple kindness and real empathy for all those he met.

For those who would have treated him unfairly, Eamon reflected generously, “Sure people say they hate so and so, but you can’t waste your life hating people.”

He was a bridge to peace. He loved and respected his Presbyterian background, and he wanted everyone rooted in the history of this island to find their place and be comfortable with it.

His untimely passing was a shocking huge loss to his family and friends, and personally, to me.

He was funny, generous and gave the greatest gift you can give a stranger and friend – his time.