Academic questions: Frank McNally on Titanic terriers, epic expense accounts and the rise of the ‘full professor'

Irish Times

03-05-2025

At the prestigious annual Theatrical Cavaliers table quiz in
Dublin
last weekend, held this year in aid of the
My Lovely Horse
animal rescue charity, they had a round on the theme of dogs.
A typical question asked us to identify the Pekinese terrier, named after a famous revolutionary, which was one of only three canine passengers to escape the sinking of the Titanic.
This is the sort of utterly useless information that we veteran quizzers pride ourselves on knowing. And I'm half-embarrassed to admit that I did indeed have the answer on the tip of my tongue.
Or nearly. I knew the name had three words, all monosyllables. I knew it was Chinese. And I could have written a short (if vague) essay about the revolutionary in question, including the fact that he admired and wrote letters to Michael Davitt – a detail retained from a visit to the
Davitt museum
in
Mayo
a few years ago.
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But after rifling through various dusty files in a back office of my brain, I came out with the wrong one. Chiang Kai-shek, I pronounced with confidence, wrongly. Doh! It was of course Sun Yat-sen.
Oh well. We won the quiz anyway, the generous prizes for which, as usual, included a potted plant. I have one from last year too, now overgrown. If this run continues, I'll end up with a garden.
The journalist Emile Joseph Dillon (1854 – 1933) would have known the right answer that question. He probably knew Sun Yat-sen personally.
As the foremost foreign correspondent of his day, the Dubliner befriended many famous statesmen, and as well as writing about them for the Daily Telegraph, became in some cases their confidante and adviser.
He was, as we would say today, a player, helping to end the Russo-Japanese war (1905) and the Balkan wars of 1912-13. In recognition of his influence, three of the resulting peace treaties – Portsmouth (1905), London (1913), and Bucharest (also 1913) were signed with his own gold-cased fountain pen.
Forgotten for decades after his death, Dillon is now the subject a first-ever biography, the launch of which I attended on Thursday night
The book is by
Kevin Rafter
, professor of political communication at DCU, who drew envy from some of those assembled in Hodges Figgis by describing the glory that was journalism in the early years of last century.
Much as some of us today might envy EJ Dillon's influence, more would prefer his expense account. Not only did it allow him to stay in the best of hotels and dine in the finest restaurants, it also covered such essential purchases as silk top hats and Cuban cigars.
Even after a 60 per cent cut as part of a Daily Telegraph austerity drive in 1917, which caused him much indignation, he was still allowed expenses of £1,000 a year, the equivalent of £110,000 today. He also at times had the services of two secretaries, one of whom he liked to have play piano for him while he wrote dispatches.
Sigh. Try claiming for a piano-playing secretary today and see what happens. To quote Mark Antony: 'O, what a fall was there ...'
Rafter was introduced at the launch (by DCU President Daire Keogh) as a 'full professor', a description also used on the book. You hear this curious phrase more and more these days. And for me, at least, it always evokes the image of an academic who has eaten too much.
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The spirit of 1965 – Kevin Rafter on Ireland's first television election
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I suppose the point is to distinguish from the mere assistant and associate professors that proliferate these days, and whose titles can be rounded up in casual usage, to the detriment of their seniors.
Even so, there must be versions of that problem in many careers. And yet I can't think of another that uses this construction. You never hear of full doctors, for example, or full plumbers, or full chefs (full-Irish chefs, maybe).
Come to think of it, you also don't hear of full columnists, which could be useful to distinguish those of us who write daily from the part-timers and dilettantes who do it once a week and think they're great. In support of my impending expense claim for a piano-playing secretary, I may have to start using the term myself.
Somehow it seems to go against native Irish genius to describe people as a full or complete anything. Our preference is drawing attention to inadequacy. Hence the countless diminutives in Hiberno-English, describing people who fall short of something: girleen, maneen, squireen, priesteen, etc, etc.
Strange to say, you never hear the junior grades of professor described as professoreens. Maybe that's the problem.
Speaking of Irish-English, or vice versa, my thanks to several readers who sent me the picture of a sign over a door in Beaumont Hospital, on which 'Please Knock Before Entry' is translated as 'Le Do Thoil Cnoc Mhuire Roimh Iontrail'.
The translator appears to have mistaken the verb 'Knock' (
cnag
in Irish) for the Mayo village of the same name. Unless the intended suggestion was that those seeking hospital treatment should first consider a visit to the Marian shrine. That would be a reversal of the usual order of things, certainly, but also one way to cut waiting lists.