Year of Dramatic Events

1968 – The Year of Dramatic Events

The multiplicity of earth-shaking events which impacted the US and indeed the wider world in 1968 were without precedent. On the music scene R&R bands were at their peak; think Jumpin’ Jack Flash/Hey Jude/Born To Be Wild. And for me, between September 1967 and September 1968 I shuffled through my Masters Degree program, met my future wife and secured my first real job! Definitely a dramatic time.

The year started with the Tet offensive in Vietnam, highlighting the lies of the Johnson administration that the war was being won and underscoring the morass that the US military was in. An infamous quote from a US army officer was “we had to destroy the village to save it”. In April, Martin Luther King was assassinated, giving rise to riots in more than 100 US cities. And as protests against the war intensified student protests became widespread, including in NYU and Columbia. In May, Les Evenements occurred in Paris involving 5,000 protesting students which spread to the whole of France and gave rise to similar student protests in many countries. In June RFK was assassinated as his presidential candidacy was gaining momentum. And in August people worldwide were able to see on their TVs the police and National Guard rampage as they mercilessly attacked the peaceful protesters at the DNC in Chicago. 1968 also saw the creation of Intel, the demo of the first word processor and mouse, and the inaugural flight of the Boeing 747. And finally the year ended with something positive for all mankind, the flight of Apollo 8 which orbited the Moon and took the famous “Earthrise” photograph.

I’ve devoted space to recalling these events because so much of import happening in just one calendar year was unprecedented, and because, for me, after 1968 I was to go for 12 years cut off from any sort of news source. From a feast to a famine.

Being in a quiet spot in a quiet university processing the work needed for my Masters was somewhat isolating in itself. There may have been one other student pursuing a similar course but I never saw him. At that time, regrettably, all Engineering students were male! The degree was titled M Eng SC which stood for Master of Engineering Science. The work requirement consisted of reviewing the literature to see what else had been. published on the topic of non-linear vibrations (my research topic); then designing a mechanical apparatus to run various tests; then creating an analog computer simulation of the experimental results, and finally writing up all the results.

I had a little space in a lab in the Engineering School and precious little assistance from the supervising professor. On the other hand there was no real timeline, I was living at home and so I could socialize as often as I liked. Because there was no structure I suppose there was the benefit of teaching me self-motivation and personal responsibility. The frustrations I remember were trying to get the crazy analog computer to function, getting time on the university’s newly acquired IBM digital computer (lots of people wanted time on it) and avoiding spilling the associated punch cards; and trying to speed up towards the summer of 2018 so that I could finish and get a job! The final indignity was arranging to get the work printed and bound. I think to save money I planned to do the typing myself, although I had never before typed. So I took a speed typing course. But I soon realized this was not practical, so I ended up getting a nice Nigerian woman to do the necessary. The result is below!

On the social side, John Sheridan asked me to be Best Man at his wedding in Killarney. The event was mainly memorable because we both ended up totally drunk the night before the ceremony and I had to drive like a maniac from wherever I was staying to arrive at the church somewhat later than the appointed time. I have a feeling that John also was late. Oops.

The norm for entertainment in those days was to go to a pub for a few pints on Saturday night around 9 pm and then decide whether or not to go to a dance in a Rugby club or something similar. Anyway, not long after I came back from Canada, probably late September 1967, Oliver Kavanagh and I, for some sort of flukey reason and completely unplanned, decided after our few pints to go to the 4Ps, a large ballroom-type dancehall in town where the Engineer clubs used to run dances. The dances in those days were rather like the way we poke fun at the Australian stereotypes of boys on one side of the hall and girls on the other. At the beginning of a session, as though on an unheard signal, the boys scurried across the floor to ask the best looking girls to dance. This was a high-risk strategy, because as often as not the girl would decline to dance and then one had to slink back across the gaping space of the dance floor under the pitying gaze of the boys propping up the wall.

That particular night I must have been in a confident mood, because I saw this beauty across the way, made a beeline for her and she surprised me by agreeing to dance, and furthermore turned out to be an excellent dancer and a lively conversationalist. That was how I met Elizabeth Burke! I think she had a friend with her and of course I was with Oliver. I don’t remember if I had a car, but I think I must have asked if I could see her home and she agreed. Wow, I was ecstatic and especially so after I realized she actually lived within walking distance of 110! Very soon we became inseparable, though dates were probably limited to weekends. I think we went on a lot of double dates with John Sheridan and his wife (he had access to a car!). We also went to parties that others of my friends threw and we saw a little of Liz’s friend Anita and her husband. I think also sometime over the next 12 months we discussed whether she should apply to Aer Lingus for an air hostess job. I think she was a little reluctant, but anyway she did end up being selected. Gradually we got to know each others parents and I think I spent more time in her house than I did in mine! The only slight glitch that intruded on our romance was when the Canadian girl invited herself to Dublin and we accommodated her in 110. Thanks to her visit I actually climbed Nelson’s pillar before the IRA blew it up. And thanks to Dermot who somehow surfaced the sketch below!

Liz called her the “stalker”, and my mother said she was thankful the romance died because after all she was a Protestant! You may wonder why I have not included a photo of Liz from that time? Simple. I don’t have one.

Now thoughts turned to finding a real job. There were very few jobs in Ireland for graduates. The few engineering ones were in the utility company (the ESB) or in the civil service. As a result nearly everybody emigrated. I would say perhaps 10 grads out of the 120 engineering students stayed in Ireland. So the tax payers of Ireland were paying for other countries benefit. When job hunting, a good gimmick was to line up a few interviews in England at the same time. Each company would pay your expenses so you could make a little money from the overlaps. I got job offers from ICI in “paints” (cue The Graduate and “plastics, my boy”) and Lucas Industries (car parts). The fun think about that company’s interview process was that you got to drive an Austin Healey 3000 sports car as fast as you dared on a disused aerodrome. Both companies offered a starting annual salary of Stg 1250! One other interesting offer I got was from DuPont in Derry. In a sort of prescient way I asked the Brit who interviewed me if there might be any concern about civil unrest. “Not at all” he said. I think it was less than 6 months later that Derry was in flames and the era of sectarian violence in the North was well underway. Needless to say I had turned down the job.

About this time I finally met the other graduate, Bernard Gillespie, who was doing an M Eng under my Prof. He was a year ahead of my but had still not submitted his thesis! It turned out that he was still working on his while actually being employed. Hmm I thought, that might be interesting. He told me he worked for an oil company that I had never heard of (Mobil) and his schedule was 45 days in Libya and 18 days at home and he was paid for the total time. I wrote to Mobil in London expressing interest and in due course an interviewer came over from London to check me out. Interestingly, Mobil was in the process of recruiting for 3 engineering positions from UK grads because, again, the US draft for Vietnam left American companies turning to Britain and Ireland for graduates. Luckily the interviewer from London was Irish and indeed, as I later discovered, was the nephew of Kevin Barry, the young UCD student who was martyred by the British in 1920. Maybe selecting me for further consideration was his was of getting revenge on the Brits!! Anyway, next step was a group session in London of 20 kids from all over England. The key selection criterion seemed to be could you drink a cup of tea with your pinkie sticking out while also eating a watercress sandwich, all the while standing and making polite conversation with the various “suits” who were circulating.

The group was reduced to 6 for the ultimate hurdle, an interview by 3 execs seated behind a table. Suffice to say, and much to my delight, I was offered the job at the princely salary of Stg 1300 per annum. Needless to say, compared to the foregoing alternative options, I accepted the offer with alacrity! Now thoughts turned to finishing up the Masters thesis as quickly as possible and going to work in North Africa. Exciting!