Pat Howley's TV Comment

Scandal is nothing new   YEARS AGO in the weeks around Christmas one of the most evocative of all Irish traditions, storytelling, was always  to the fore and because I had heard the best of stories from the best of storytellers I grew up thinking the market for storytelling had been cornered here in the West of Ireland. In that I wasn't entirely accurate and have since become aware of other places where the ancient Celtic art of spinning a good yarn might be as good but not any better. Unencumbered by the written word, the storytellers  could so skilfully blur the boundaries between fact, fiction and fantasy as to imbue every last spine-chilling detail with the absolute ring of truth. Much has been lost since and television is today's poor substitute, even if TG4 is fighting the good fight. Its new eight-part series, Scéalta ÃÂtha Cliath, has been a feature of recent Thursday evenings on TG4 and, despite all its material being drawn from Dublin sources, it has been rich and diverse in content and a storytelling eye-opener.  Some of the tales are apocryphal maybe, but Dublin icons such as Molly Malone and Bang Bang work well on the small screen and the best to date was screened last Thursday about the strange and wondrous events that took place long ago at the infamous Dublin Hellfire Club. I've never been up to see it but ever since my first visit many years ago to Dublin I've had the Hellfire Club pointed out to me. A clearly visible landmark on the skyline of the Dublin Mountains, the grandeur of its setting was  never so splendidly captured as in this production for TG4 from Windmill Studios. Originally the site of a passage tomb dating back thousands of years, all that remains today is a hole in the ground because the large stones from it were used to roof the building that in time would become the Hellfire Club. With all its windows on its north-facing side so as to make the most of the spectacular views of the city, the interior was a dreary place at the best of times and when a storm blew off the roof within a few years, it was seen as revenge by the Devil for the destruction of the tomb. Built in 1725 as a hunting lodge by the wealthy William Conolly who was Speaker of the House of Commons in Dublin, he could have had no connection with the building's later notoriety as he died a short four years later. His lodge was bought by the idle and very rich young men of the Dublin Hellfire Club and when they moved in it quickly acquired a reputation as a place of drunkenness and depravity. It attracted the worst and it wasn't long before the Devil himself decided to check it out, in person. A portrait of the men who set up the club hangs in the National Gallery in Dublin and was referred to frequently to convey an image of degeneracy. A more telling indication was available from a series of steps outside the club's front door, a mounting block used to saddle up corpulent and unfit patrons on their waiting horses. No John Wayne there. One of those in the painting was Richard Chappell Whaley, the club's president and its most famous member. A descendent of Oliver Cromwell, he was known as Burn-Chapel Whaley because of his special delight in burning down Catholic churches, that's when he wasn't drinking, womanising and playing cards. Such was the scene on the stormy night when a tall stranger dressed all in black knocked at the door of the Hellfire Club and was admitted. He sat at the table, was dealt a hand and quickly demonstrated he knew how to play it. Courteous and considerate to a fault, the attractive stranger was winning handsomely when one of the other players dropped a card and, bending down to retrieve it, caught a glimpse of a cloven hoof. It was like the night long ago in Tooreen only more dramatic. Enraged, the Devil jumped up and out through the roof in a rush of flame which caused the building to catch fire, reducing it to the blackened an unsightly shell it remains to this day. Other stories tell of a large black cat seated  at the top table but not with erect pointy ears like the cats you and I know, only ears flat down like horns; of women murdered there and their bodies sent rolling down the steep hill in barrels of whiskey; of innocent passers-by foolish enough to peep in a window and found wandering later in complete distress. But there is no official record that anything unpleasant ever happened in Speaker Connolly's hunting lodge, other than having a roof blown off, catching fire and being left a ruin. Just to be sure, a company that specialises in hunting for ghosts was recruited for the documentary and two of their members, having set up their ghost trapping equipment, spent a long dark night in the building. They recorded women screaming and found cold spots but came to no conclusion. Maybe they should have sang a verse or two of the old Ghostbusters song, 'Who you gonna call?' That used to attract every kind of a devil. â€Â¢ â€Â¢ â€Â¢ ANOTHER frightening story from the Ireland of 50 years ago was recalled for RTE1 on Monday evening's Scannal!, the amazing saga of the fraud and greed that became known as the Shanahan's Stamp scandal. Shanahan's were a respectable auctioneering firm in Dun Laoghaire who had an unannounced visit from a stranger by the name of Dr Paul Singer and he convinced them he had a sure-fire scheme to make money. What's more he convincing thousands more up and down the country of the financial viability if his scheme and within a short time he was the man with the Midas touch. All that people were asked was to buy a small quantity of rare stamps which would then be sold at auction at a small profit. Paul Singer, a huge man of 19 stone, claimed he was an international expert in rare stamps and, as RTE's Jimmy Magee remembers, people were very sheltered and naïve back then. It was also remarked on the programme how there is nothing as likely to make a man throw caution to the winds as the sight of his neighbour making quick and easy money. Word got around and more and more people became investors in what was a fraud known as a pyramid. The new money came in at the bottom and was paid out to make huge profits for the much smaller numbers at the top. It couldn't last and, in words we understand today, the bubble burst following a supposed break-in at the Shanahan Auctions in which all the rare stamps were said to have been stolen. People had invested their life savings in Shanahan's â€â€ I knew one such person and it killed him â€â€ but with the first flicker of doubt panic set in and it was found that all the money was missing. That was 1959, Singer was arrested and following a sensational trial received a long prison sentence. He appealed, there was another sensational trial and he was acquitted. He walked from the court in April 1961 and was never seen again. Neither was the money, and it was a hard lesson. People said never again would they invest in airy-fairy things like stamps but keep their money in the safe reality of bank shares and houses.