Paddy 'UNREPENTANT' McGuinness

We were intrigued over half a century ago when Padraic Pearse McGuinness came to Sydney Boys’ High from St Ignatius, Riverview. I imagine him to have been bearded, in black, with a cape.

Of course he wasn’t. He was wearing a grey suit with the school crest - an open book, the Crown and the motto, Veritate et Virtute, “With Truth and Courage”.

Paddy’s funeral notice courageously proclaimed that he died “UNREPENTANT”. This was in capitals, no doubt to ensure St Peter took note.

I hope he has sent Paddy off to some purgatory to reconsider his position. But I fear that he will be outraged by what I am going to say.

The fact is that through his pen, Paddy radiated the truth as he found it, and he did it with great courage, inadvertently following the school motto he believed to be mere bourgeois twaddle. He was a rebel to the end. Named after the leader of the Easter Uprising, how could he have been otherwise?

We schoolboys were intrigued because we knew that in the confessional, the Jesuits forgave sin. So of what shocking sin was he guilty that led to his being sent down?

It was only years later that I learned that an uncle who paid his fees had fallen on hard times, and Paddy had declined a scholarship. This was in the cold war, and he soon revealed an unhealthy interest in Marx. And he was sufficiently loquacious to supersede even Marcus Einfeld and Peter Wilenski in distracting our masters from their lessons.

Without athletic prowess, and no apparent interest in music, acting, or even, strangely, debating, oratory or the school magazine, he seemed alone. But instead of trying to make close friends, Paddy set about recruiting members for a Marxist cell. I don’t think he was ever serious. The evidence for this was that no member, apart from Paddy, knew who the others were. I wonder how many judges and other eminent persons were members of his Marxist cell.

His only other contact with the boys was in intellectual discussion.

To improve his understanding of Marx, and the reading of Das Capital, he began to teach himself German. He was at his best in economics. He would often engage in long and erudite discussions with the economics master. Once it was about James Burnham and the managerial revolution - needless to say, no one else had ever heard of Burnham. But his interests were not just political and economic. He particularly loved George Bernard Shaw and was often to be found reading from a large volume of Shaw’s plays.

He was of course a republican, but well before it became fashionable. He would remain seated during the playing of God Save the Queen in the cinema, often to the outrage of those nearby. On one occasion I feared that he would be the cause of a riot.

Sitting when it is conventional to stand seemed to be a particular affectation, and not only for the National Anthem. I remember a few years ago at a mass celebrated by The Australian’s James Murray. When the procession entered the large congregation stood, except for Paddy, who was of course seated prominently and defiantly.

His rebellious nature was only on the intellectual plane - I cannot remember his ever being caned for skylarking and other mischief boys get up to. In fact I don’t think I have ever seen him running. Later he certainly enjoyed to the full the liberation that the university gave; this seemed to consist mainly of the freedom to drink liberally. I do not recall his being conscripted for military service as most of us were; he was probably deemed a security risk.

He was never taken in by the Communist Party - he immediately saw through their demonic desire to have and wield absolute power. He never fell for their so-called democratic centralism; if anything he was more an anarchist.

In fact one of his early projects was to dilute the influence of the Bolsheviks, as he sometimes called them. They rigidly controlled the university’s Labour Club, and Paddy decided to inflect a monumental defeat on them. He persuaded a number of us to join, and when the Bolsheviks rammed through some predetermined motion, he led a walk out. This was followed by the immediate formation of a larger and more significant ALP Club.

He gravitated, as free thinkers did, to the pubs where the “push” drank. And soon he was off to Europe, long before living overseas became a mandatory stage in life.

Paddy’s years overseas and his return are well documented: suffice to say he continued his personal quest for the truth. His output was extraordinary, and that I think was a factor in causing those misguided journalists at The Age to go on strike when he was appointed there.

It wasn’t only that he was prolific. It was the range of subjects and the complete and total independence of his mind when he addressed them.

At one point he even took up film criticism; the quality of his reviews was superb. Then he did some legal study, and soon mastered the fundamentals of the law. He gave lectures for me in International Economic Law at one stage; they were formidable.

Although he was a strong republican, I was gratified that he immediately saw the flaws in the 1999 model. His belief in effective checks and balances prevailed over the republicanism ingrained in him almost from birth.

Not long ago he refused to publish an article in Quadrant correcting an erroneous reference to King Edward VIII. “You bloody monarchists are all obsessed,” he shouted down the line to the author. But he relented. Perhaps he remembered Milton on truth: “Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to worse in a free and open encounter.”

He was not only prepared to open Quadrant to such encounters; he welcomed them.

He never once operated as a conservative censor. He was always open to different views. His only condition was that they should be put eloquently and with intelligence.

I last heard him speak at a dinner to discuss WorkChoices, defended that evening by Tony Abbott. Paddy could not have been more scathing about the legislation, and with all true federalists, disappointed that the High Court upheld it.

Not only did he predict the government would lose office because of it, he said they deserved this. And yet, he supported the deregulation of markets, and that included the labour market.

I spoke to him briefly that evening; he addressed me, as he often did, as “Comrade”. He once publicly “outed” me - as a member of the Sydney High Marxist cell.

I knew he was ill; his unexplained absences indicated that. But he would hear no expressions of concern or sympathy. As in those distant school days, there was a veil beyond which you did not go.

Paddy was a remarkable and extraordinarily positive influence in the life of this nation. He was courageous in his search for, and announcing, the truth as he saw it, along with any dissent, in the market place of ideas.

I hope that he has found the ultimate truth.