The cutting in the file itself had no date upon it, no obvious time to anchor it to. It was yellowed and shredded at the edges, and following a particular story I was following. I turned it over to find out to which year it belonged. The reverse side reported on a luncheon at Jurys Hotel for 16 Irishmen blinded in conflict - three of them veterans of the Irish Army who had been blinded in the Glen of Imaal explosion, and the other 13 were Irish veterans of the two world wars.
Other items on this jaundice-tinted fragment reminded me of how remote this era was - six French explorers were to leave for Mount Ararat in Turkey the next day to look for the remains of Noah's Ark. Public bars, which had been banned in Finland for over 25 years were to be permitted. The Indian touring team to play the Gentlemen of Ireland at College Park had been announced.
Trade difficulties
It was the Finnish story which provided the information about the date - the ban on alcohol was being lifted for the Olympics Games later that year; the year was 1952, and the man in whom I was interested was the author of an article on the other side of the cutting about trade difficulties with the USA. That man was T.J. O'Driscoll, one of the greatest public servants this country has ever known, a man who left his mark on whatever area of administration he touched.
Coras Trachtala, Aer Lingus, Bord Failte were tender shoots which grew into sturdy saplings under his green fingers. It was he who started the Tidy Towns contest, which has probably been the single most important influence on the physical improvement of Irish rural communities.
Honoured by Greece with the Royal decree of the Cross of Commander of the Royal order of George I for his services to international tourism and on public administration, a consultant to India on the development of its tourist industry, and to the UN too, an ambassador to the Netherlands, the founder of Rosc, the recipient of so many awards - it is next to impossible to give this gentleman, and that is what he is, the credit he deserves.
And yet it was that accidentally discovered cutting to which I repeatedly returned. Here was a man who 46 years ago was writing about the economic future of Ireland on the same day that 16 blind Irishmen gathered to eat lunch, and six Frenchman prepared to search for the Ark, and Finns prepared to get lawfully drunk, and the Indian cricket team readied themselves for the challenge of the gentlemen of Ireland.
There is no hint here, or indeed in any of the cuttings of about that time, of the future which lay ahead of us; for that is the truly great mystery of the human species. Our ability to foretell what is in store for us is ludicrously deficient.
Who would have believed Tim O'Driscoll if he had written that day in June in 1952 that in the same month 46 years later, Ireland would have one of the fastest growing economies in the world, would be suffering from labour shortages, would be one of the primary venues for British tourists, and would have the most dynamic new airline in Europe?
Uproar over march
And would not those 16 blind men have listened in astonishment and awe if they were told that nearly half a century later, Northern Ireland could face bloody mayhem over a memorial march to a battle many of them had actually participated in? Why should there be uproar over a march in 1998 to commemorate events in 1916, but not half a century earlier, when most people alive in Ireland could actually remember the actual event itself?
Would the explorers for the Ark have believed it possible that within less than 50 years, French, American and Russian cosmonauts could have been engaged together on a space station in the exploration of outer space and that greater past that is out there? And could the Indian cricketers, or indeed the adviser to the Indian Government on both tourism and public administration, have conceived that, before the end of the century, India would be a nuclear power with medium range ballistic missiles, with a military capability greater than all of Western Europe put together?
The future defeats us all. The most complex liquid dynamics are as simple as the laws of gravity in comparison with the confusion of human events, of competing forces of greed and need, passion and ambition, nationalism and sectarianism, technology and hormone which propel us to wholly unpredictable destinations, and in that journey to the unpredictable there are few men or women who remain eminent throughout and almost beyond public reproach.
Modern state
Tim O'Driscoll was, has been, is and will be one of these men, as his 90th birthday approaches. Much of the emergence of Ireland as a modern state occurred under his guidance. As a civil servant he laid the foundations for Aer Lingus during the last world war; and then relaid them after the interparty government, in a spirit of mean-mindedness towards Fianna Fail which shocks even now, had closed the airline down.
He ran Bord Failte for 15 years, and was founding spirit of Coras Trachtala; and if, as Myles believed was the case, that molecules migrated, then parts of our export board, our tourism industry and the best parts of Aer Lingus are infused with and enthused by the vital atoms of one of the greatest Irishmen of the century.
There are many arguments about whether or not we should have an honours system, and the case against - that it lends itself to corruption, that it is a reward for cronyism and time-serving, that party hacks end up as the main recipients, that it debauches politics and cheapens public esteem - is mightily powerful indeed. But there is an argument in favour of an honour system; and the argument runs with a straight back and unbowed shoulders through three score and ten years of public life in this country, and it consists of two words: Tim O'Driscoll.