A chara, - While extending my sympathy to the Wellwood family on the death of Judge Bertie, of fond memory (March 26th), perhaps you will also permit me to recall the memory of his brother Dickie. For many years, he was the manager of the Merrion Row branch of the Munster and Leinster Bank in Dublin.
When we founded Gael Linn in 1953 we opened our account in that branch and, having our lotteries at that time playing on an even pitch, our surpluses grew steadily. In 1958 we became the only Irish controlled applicant to the Television Commission for the franchise to establish and operate the proposed national television service (with our proposed transmission network, which would have given 32 county coverage from day one). Our auditors were Haughey Boland, and Mr Charles J. Haughey, then of that partnership, negotiated a £250,000 loan for us from the Industrial Credit Company - a very large sum in those days.
In addition to that sum and to our own cash resources, we still required another quarter million to prove to the Commission, beyond doubt, that we had the necessary financial resources. I called on Dickie Wellwood at what he called a very opportune time a meeting of the board was in progress in the bank's headquarters in Cork, and he would telephone them immediately, promising me his full support for our application. Within an hour I left him, carrying with me the precious letter of approval.
Our application to the Commission was bitterly opposed not alone by its chairman, the late Judge George Murnaghan, but by certain members much closer to "Gaeldom" than our friend Dickie Wellwood, whose memory, I trust, Gael Linn will always honour.
We lost the television battle but, within the year, we became the national leaders in film production: Mise Eire and Saoirse? directed by George Morrison: our weekly newsreel Amharc Eireann, distributed by Odeon Ireland and seen weekly by three quarters of a million - and, of course, the excellent productions directed by Louis Marcus. - Is mise, etc.,
An Charraig Dhubh,
Co Bhaile Atha Cliath.