Michael Nagle and Canon Sheehan

 

 

            In 1878 a son was born to John Nagle and his wife, Ellen (nee O’Donnell)  of Main St. Doneraile. They operated a public house at the southern end of the Main St. across the road from the back entrance to Doneraile Court. It subsequently became a butcher’s shop and is now a private residence. Their son Michael showed much promise in the local Christian Brother’s school and soon attracted the attention of Canon Sheehan, who took an interest in any pupil showing a talent for literature.

            When Michael finished school the Canon arranged a job for him on a paper in the midlands. He took to journalism, and as his career progressed he was sent to South Africa to report on the Boer War. When the war ended he stayed on there and progressed to be sub-editor in a large newspaper – the Rand Daily Mail. Some time later he became ill and cancer was diagnosed and he returned to Ireland to spend his final days with his family.

            Canon Sheehan wrote of Michael’s career and his final days in his book “Parerga: A Companion Volume to Under The Cedar and the Stars” and the following extracts from Parerga maps this period.

 

Parerga: Chapter XL, p. 36.

 

            …He had been one of our most brilliant pupils here a few years ago, and had shown a marked aptitude for composition, short-hand and type-writing. Then, conscious of his powers, and knowing there was no room for the exercise of them here, he left home, took up a  subordinate position on some Irish journals, using every farthing of his salary to buy books. Thence, fired with ambition, he went to South Africa, became sub-editor to an influential paper, with a handsome salary and was moving upwards and onwards to very high positions, when one day he noticed a slight anaesthesia in the left cheek. It was nothing, apparently,  and his medical advisers suggested neuralgia. The theory was consolatory if not convincing. Then the left eye began to bulge forward and he sought the help of higher science. The verdict was instantaneous and fatal – cancer. Death  in three months, unless an operation was effected. Death in any case, but slightly deferred. And preferring to sleep under the high shamrocks at home rather than beneath the South African veldt, the poor wrecked spirit sought its native land.

 

Parerga: Chapter XXII p. 20.

             

           .... He is not impatient  nor disconsolate. He is resigned. But he cannot understand. He is perplexed by the mystery of things. He has had his sentence of death duly passed on him; and the numbered hours are fleeing swiftly by. But he is young. He clings to hope. The local doctor is on his holidays. He has a chance now. Perhaps some other may speak a word of hope. He summons him by telegram. He presents the following diagnosis of his formidable disease.

            Seven months ago, in South Africa, I underwent an operation for epithelioma of the antrum, necessitating the excision of the left superior maxilla; and, on account of exophthalmus, the left eye had to be enucleated. Since then my voice has been badly impaired; and so I wrote down these particulars, my artificial palate not working properly of late. A  few months after the operation, anaesthesia extended along the temple and forehead on the left side. It has now crossed the middle line, and involves the whole forehead and scalp.  I have been laid up for five days with a swollen eye-socket. It is with respect to the latter that I wish to consult you. Since the operation  the  socket has been in a state of inflammation, with a profuse whitish discharge. It is now greatly swollen. The temple on the same side is also much swollen. The pain is not very great but there is a feeling of uneasiness and oppression. The wound cavity left by the operation is looking well, and there is no evidence of recurrence in that quarter. I cannot account for the accentuation of the anaesthesia, for its extension and for the aggravated state of the eye-socket particularly; that region is very anaesthetic, and is affecting my head greatly. I may mention there is some granulated tissue and constant extravasation of blood behind the eye-socket or at the floor of the orbit, as I pay constant attention to it, and know how it is getting on.

 

Parerga: Chapter XIV p. 22.

 

          ....  I doubt if there were, on this planet, a more surprised man than this doctor, when he read his diagnosis. The science of medicine is a secret science. Very wisely, its professors have wrapped up all its principles and discoveries in an occult and dead language. Its prescriptions  are written in a kind of luminous shorthand, of which only some letters are of a Roman type, the rest being cabalistic signs. It is a kind of calyptic cypher of which only one man holds the key. It is pitiful, but instructive to see  how an ordinary layman turns over the mysterious paper in his hand, and stares in blank ignorance at it; and to witness his surprise when a chemist glances over it, and proceeds to interpret it in an act. Then, all medical books are written in ponderous symbols of sesquipedalian Greek, as if the writers kept Liddell and Scott always on their desks and picked out the longest and hardest words. And then, watch the contemptuous and angry stare with which any layman, or even neophyte, is crushed who dares to touch even the fringe of medical mystery. It is a kind of sacrilegious invasion in to a region where only the initiated are admitted; and happy is the unhappy wight who is let off easily with the warning: “You had better leave these things alone, young man!”

 

Parerga: Chapter XXX  p.27.

 

            ...Yes, my good doctor was much surprised. He seemed not able to take his eye from that page where the dying boy had recorded the dread symptoms of the disease that was slowly eating away his life. He whistled softly to himself, looked curiously at the patient, whispered the mysterious words “epithelioma,” “ enucleated,” “ antrum,” “maxilla,” and finally asked “You have been a medical student ?”

“No!” was the faint muffled whisper that  came from the diseased throat. “ I am a journalist “

“Oh”  But  the doctor said, after a pause, “ no one but a medical expert could have written this.

“ I made a study of the disease when I knew I was affected” was the reply

“ Rather a foolish thing,” said the doctor, maintaining the professional exclusiveness.

“ Not at all,” was the reply “there is no mystery about it”

The doctor shook his head. This was rank heresy to his mind. He turned to me.

“Strange” he whispered, although the hideous malady had destroyed the boy’s hearing, “ how things work. The blow falls here and there; and there appears to be no rule, no uniformity, no consistency.” I nodded acquiescence. “ If anyone were to ask why this boy, clever, accomplished, enterprising, should have been struck down on the very threshold of a brilliant career, whilst hundreds of mere hinds and louts go free, where would be the answer?”

            The good doctor never saw that he was passing ultra crepidam. He who would resent, who did resent, the trespass of that poor boy upon the sacred precincts of medical science, was now unconsciously usurping the office of theologian. For medical science has only to deal with facts, I presume physiological facts, pathological facts, material medica etc. etc.

            What has a doctor to do with philosophy, - with motives, reasons, causes of things? Let him keep to his scalpel and his stethoscope! But no! Everyone must have his say about these transcendant mysteries that have ever stupefied and puzzled the human mind, as if they were market merchandise, to be turned over and pulled asunder and examined and valued by every hind, or huckster, or vivandiere, who wants a cheap bargain. Well, after all, it argues the existence of more than a beaver or squirrel faculty in man, and as such, is worthy of some esteem. I thought this, but did not say it to my good doctor. Then I took the thought home with me. It was my property.

 

 

 Parerga: XXXIV (p31)

 

....Again, there can be no progress without pain In pain are we brought forth into the world, in pain do we grow and increase in pain perhaps painless pain, do we die. But never a forward step is taken by man or society  without  pain and suffering. The whole development of human character is wrought, and can only be wrought, by self-denial and suffering. by the patient bearing of weary burdens, by the crushing of one’s own will, by the forehead wrinkled and the face agonised under the pressure of torture. All the finest faculties of our nature remain dormant until they wake under the sharp accolade of pain. We all know the beauty of a suffering creature - the unspeakable beauty of death. It is only the sharp chisel of pain that can round the lineaments into such perfect and ethereal loveliness. Take the case of this poor boy. The left profile is, if you like, hideously scarred by his disease and by the cicatrices of the surgeon’s knife. The cheek is deeply furrowed and fallen in, where the maxilla was removed; and the eye-socket is swollen and discoloured from the disease that is proceeding beneath. But the left profile -  narrow white forehead, great luminous eye, straight nose, and check and chin covered with a light, fair beard -  is perfect; perfect above all by that colour of gentle paleness that marks the patience of great suffering, endured bravely, and without a murmur.

 

 Parerga:  XLI (p.37)

 

    ...Wisely or unwisely, too, he had made a study of his disease, as we have seen; and he knew the distinction between the various forms of his dread malady as well as his physician. It  was pathetic to hear him explaining the exact difference between epithelioma, sarcoma, carcinoma, etc.- words,  I could not help thinking, fit to be the symbols of flowers, or other fair and holy things, but now consecrated, or desecrated, to the nomenclature of the most intractable and hideous disease that afflicts poor humanity. But he knows it all; sees in it the indication of the existence of a Higher, controlling Power, murmurs sometimes about his youth, and all its fair promise cut away; dreams of what might have been, had he been allowed to pursue his profession under such glorious and happy auspices. Then, whilst a tear steals forth, glistens and falls, he murmurs that best prayer for us poor, purblind creatures, “Thy will be done!”

 

Parerga:  Part 2. X. (p.105)

 

....My poor boy-patient died this morning. .His face had become fearfully deformed in the progress of this dread disease, epithelioma. Even the profile, hitherto untouched, began at last to be affected, like the other; the right eye bulged forth; the malady grew down and into the throat, until at last he could swallow no food, and became emaciated like a tuberculous patient. And just as he died I took up the morning paper and read that an indubitable cure for cancer had been discovered in France; and that Pasteur’s assistant in Paris had accepted it, and it was already working wonderful cures on his patients. One is slightly incredulous about such reports, until they are put beyond doubt by repeated and genuine experiment. Yet we are at liberty to admire this unquenchable desire of Science to grapple with its great antagonist,

            Death,  although victory must always remain with the latter, it is the dread picture of Laocoön and the serpents that is presented to our imagination when we see the priests of Science grappling with the  inevitable and the all-conquering. There really is nothing for humanity but to accept its fate.

 

“Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow. A poor player

That frets and struts his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more!”

 

 

 

Parerga:. Part 2. XI (p.106)

 

It was a dreary, clammy, wet, and dismal day, as we bore his poor remains across the stretch of country to a mountain hollow, where the churchyard nestled under great trees, as if the earth alone were not able to hide its beloved dead. Great sheets of grey rain swept across the landscape, and hid the mountains, filled the valleys, clothed the naked branches with pearls, and replenished the dry channels, where all the Autumn the brown and red and green sandstone pebbles and boulders lay naked to the sight. We took him up through deep cuttings in the hills, down through pleasant valleys, until at last we deposited the sacred burden in earth consecrated in the memories and devotions of the faithful for over a thousand years. It was a lonely place, and we the mourners were few. One or two people from the straggling hill-village looked out, and seeing something that broke the grey monotony of their lives, sauntered down after us to the graveyard, and raised their hats as the last prayers were repeated. Then all departed and he was alone. “Well” said someone, penetrated with a sense of the loneliness and desolation of the place, and the sad surcease of a life that was just breaking out into such promise of great things,” it is better to rest here than in a stony grave out on an African veldt”.

 

Michael Nagle was buried in Ardpatrick, Co. Limerick, from where his father’s people came, and though we have been unable to ascertain the date of his death, it was certainly before Parerga was published, in 1908, so Michael had not yet reached his thirtieth birthday.

 

A Recollection: Noel Dempsey, a nephew of Michael Nagle, who has lived with our family in Doneraile since he was a boy - he is now a hearty 89 - recalls his mother telling him the following.:

A short time before his uncle’s death, two nuns called to his door, having spent two days travelling by train and jarvey car, from Northern Ireland to reach Doneraile to visit Michael Nagle. They did so on instructions from their convent in South Africa, who knew that he must be near his end. They were there to offer any help the family might need, but as the patient was comatose and not expected to survive more than a few days, there was nothing for them to do but return to their convent. Before they left, they told the family why they had come. While Michael was still in South Africa he met with some of their order who told him they were finding it impossible to buy a small piece of land on which to build their house and school. He smoothed their way through the bureaucracy, and they had their land in no time. The visit to Doneraile was their attempt to return the favour.

 

Neill O’Donnell. April 2007.