How a child’s letter about bees led to an award-winning book

Skibbereen broadcaster and author Flor MacCarthy had a gem of an idea to research a book on letters written by Irish citizens to their presidents. But she could never have predicted the wealth of literary nuggets her quest would unearth.

WHEN he was just 10, Flor MacCarthy’s son James wrote to President Michael D Higgins and asked him about the honeybees at the Áras. He was delighted to get a gift of a pot of Áras honey in return.

It got his mother, the Skibbereen-born former RTÉ journalist, wondering just what happens to all those letters that are sent to the Phoenix Park residence.

Now, several years later, Flor is the proud ‘mother’ of the award-winning, best-selling book, The Presidents’ Letters.

‘I guess I had it on the back burner for about 10 years,’ she explains, adding that lockdown, as for so many other authors, gave her the time and space to indulge the idea and bring it to fruition.

The beautifully-presented 281-page book is a veritable treasure trove for anyone interested in Irish and international history and politics, or anyone who has ever thought about drafting a letter to our first citizen.

The letters, received by Ireland’s nine presidents since 1938, are a wonderful reflection of the issues that concerned our citizens, as she says herself, from the ‘abolition of the death penalty to the abolition of homework’.

‘I knew there was an archive somewhere full of incredible stories, from people all over Ireland, and the world, since 1938, and yet no book existed about them.’

She discovered these archives were located in various locations, including Galway and various places around Dublin. Because of the ’30 year rule’ about keeping such documents under wraps, she didn’t think she would be able to access the letters sent to Presidents Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson. 

But being the incorrigible journalist that she is, she approached both women privately and was thrilled to get total access to all the documents, which were still in boxes, in both cases.Mary Robinson had an astounding 660 boxes.

With each and every letter, she had also to get the permission of the letter-writer, which in many cases required Colombo-style efforts of investigation, in order to track them down.

She even contacted the offices of the likes of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the deposed leader of Libya, and Fidel Castro, to seek permission to reproduce their letters.

‘Not one person said no to me,’ she said.

With private citizens, this involved even more probing, like cross-checking dates of birth to try and identify the right person. One such letter led her to a certain young Cian O’Carroll, who had written a letter to President Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, when he was just six years old.

If that name sounds familiar, it is because Cian grew up to become the outspoken lawyer for Vickie Phelan and other women let down by the State over the Cervical Smear scandal.

The book has reproduced his letter and, like so many others, not just in text format, but an image showing the actual handwriting on the original.

Ó Dálaigh was also one of the presidents who wrote back personal, handwritten letters to some his correspondents, as did Patrick Hillery.

Of course, these days, about 50% of all the letters received are on email, she says, so a lot of that lovely handwriting won’t be seen in the archives of the future.

Flor’s fascination with detail and history has propelled a lot of her hugely successful career in the media. Married to RTÉ’s political correspondent Paul Cunningham, the couple spend a huge amount of their (limited) spare time in West Cork – which is and will always be ‘home’ for Flor.

Growing up in Skibbereen, the children of a prominent local solicitor, the MacCarthys were brought up with a very strong sense of community, and communication.

Signs on, most of the family became journalists. 

Flor taking time out with her husband Paul Cunningham and children James and Isabelle (holding Luna) at the Beacon, Baltimore. Flor says West Cork will always be ‘home’.

But it wasn’t off the ground they licked it, as the saying goes. A cousin of her father’s, Pat Murphy from Crookhaven, was a Daily Mail journalist who claimed to have interviewed Rasputin! ‘As a very young child, he would carry me around on his shoulder and I was definitely fascinated by him,’ she recalled.

And Flor’s father was very friendly with the former Examiner journalist Jim Cluskey from Drimoleague. ‘You have to think of this keyboard, not as a typewriter, but as a cash register, because you will never make any money out of it,’ he told her, when she was just 16, warning her there was no ‘glamour’ in journalism.

But there was always a fascination at home with words, playing endless games of Scrabble with both parents. Her father used to joke – in reference to the local solicitors’ practice Wolfe & Co, – that he had to return to work to ‘keep the Wolfe from the door’. Flor started her broadcasting career with work experience in RTÉ Cork after doing some radio courses, and ‘never left’ – until recent years. 

She was the first female presenter of Nationwide, where her work included interviewing Seamus Heaney in Bantry House.

Her book is dedicated to her oldest and youngest brothers, Gerry and Barry, who both died during the writing of it – one just before, and one as she got news of the publishing deal. Both men were, themselves, regular letter-writers. ‘Like a lot of Irish families, letters were a big part of our world – from generations before us – like letters from an uncle of my father’s who ran away with Tom Barry’s flying column and ended up in the States. 

‘And then when we all went off to college, we wrote letters home to Skibbereen.’

Flor remembers one letter that was addressed to ‘the best solicitor in Skibbereen.’

‘The postman was a friend of my father’s so he delivered it to him!’

Last year Flor uncovered a story about an incredible family connection which she wrote about with her brother, the Irish Examiner journalist, Dan. It concerned an IRA attack on the RIC barracks in Rosscarbery in March 1921, by her dad’s uncle. But she discovered that her mother’s uncle, an RIC sergeant, was in the barracks at the time, and there are family letters pertaining to that period, too.

Flor taking time out with her husband Paul Cunningham and children James and Isabelle (holding Luna) at the Beacon, Baltimore. Flor says West Cork will always be ‘home’.

It’s no wonder, with a life so rich in the written word, that Flor was fascinated with the Áras letters. 

She was also intent on reproducing as many, in their original format, as possible. This includes revealing the beautiful handwriting of Seamus Heaney, Princess Grace, and Jackie Kennedy.

As a result, the book is not just a wonderful record of Irish and international history, but a beautiful work of art, with so many elements of the contributors’ personalities and creativity.

Such was the quality of Flor’s research that the National Archives partnered with her, waived the fees she had clocked up in getting copies of their documents, and that gave it great credibility. 

The Department of Foreign Affairs put in an advance order for 400 copies, because it wanted it in every one of its embassies and consulates.

‘It was a joy of a project,’ says Flor. ‘I had no idea if anybody would be interested. 

‘But I had an inkling of course … because of the stories.’

• Flor MacCarthy will be in conversation at the West Cork Literary Festival in Bantry on Monday, July 10th 5pm at the Marino (Old Methodist) Church. The Presidents’ Letters is available now.