JOHN COONEY, author of the soon-to-be-published John Charles McQuaid, Ruler of Catholic Ireland, startled the academics and public servants involved in worthy Anglo-Irish discussions in Dublin last weekend by announcing that he wished to be the first Ambassador of Scotland to Dublin. Glasgow-born Cooney ignored the ban on questions from the floor at the Encounter Symposium and asked the British ambassador, Ivor Roberts, if he would explain why, after the SDLP, the Scottish National Party was the most pro-Europe in Britain. The ambassador said he wouldn't. Cooney then said, to applause, that he had an interest to declare as he wanted to be Scotland's ambassador. Later he said he'd agree to start as consul general.
Meanwhile, his book is creating a great stir. A mere 10 pages in 600 deal with the late archbishop's alleged sexual proclivities and the rest is about his interference in the formation of the constitution and the money trail whereby he gave generously to charity yet lived sumptuously and bankrupted the archdiocese. Cooney, in fact, thinks McQuaid was a model for Charlie Haughey in his style of walking and saluting the people, his interests in the arts, wine and the European horizon and the landed-gentry-style life he lived in Killiney, Co Dublin. McQuaid and Charlie got on well and Haughey even sent him a crate of wine. The archbishop, however, didn't like George Colley and Donogh O'Malley and was ambivalent towards the late Brian Lenihan.