Barry  Cullen

I studied social work between 1976-1980 and one of the key, enduring skills then taught, was to prepare a customized, written record based on one’s engagement with people with complex individual and social needs; in due course, such detailed narratives became important records for informing case histories, and for use in reviews, case conferences and judicial processes, as the need arose. 
   In the decades since completing my training, I have worked as a social worker, I have also worked with social workers through my other professional roles, and continue to do so, and because of various personal matters I had direct relations with about sixteen different social workers over time. In addition, I lectured to social workers at University level, including a three-year full-time stint between 2008-11. 
   Over this period, I have seen a distinct change in the way in which this recording skill has become framed; increasingly social workers are taught to abandon the customized narrative in favour of assessment frameworks that tick-box individual need and circumstance. There is more focus on pre-established categories than on providing contextual insights. In effect, new assessment frameworks have designed out personal narrative, and individual stories stopped getting told, stopped getting heard. While I am aware that in the past too much focus on individual stories contributed, at times, to poor assessment, I believe that the essential problem then was the absence of adequate on-site training, supervision, management and governance, all of which, we are told, are now remedied. In the new, transformed arrangement however, the tyranny of cut-and-paste form-filling is taking over!    

Almost forty years ago while walking back from my first Junior Sophister ESS lecture in the Dixon Hall in Trinity College, I was joined by another student, Frank Deasy. He was thin, slightly sallow-faced with horn-rimmed glasses and a large mop of hair that was already showing flecks of grey; and he was still only 17 years. Frank was very direct, with no fear about stating his position on personal, political and other matters, something that one learned about him at quite an early stage. While standing with a group of students who were introducing themselves, a future senior Irish banker stated he was from Rhodesia. “Wrong” Frank said without blinking and with finality, “You are from Zimbabwe”. His confidence in referring to the country's traditional name – three years before the Lancaster House Agreement - signalled both a knowledge of African politics and a refusal to acknowledge the claim that an independent Rhodesia, unilaterally declared, existed as an entity, even to one who claimed it as his place of origin. 

    Over the next few years, we struck up a close friendship; at times it was intense and we fell out, and indeed for two long periods we had no contact with each other at all. Fortunately both silences were broken, the first at my initiative in 1992, following which we met several times for a quiet meal or drink. He had become very reflective about life and ominously, he introduced me to the writings of Raymond Carver. Suddenly, after about two years he was out of contact again and I did not hear from him until he telephoned me out of the blue over ten years later in 2006, a year after he survived death-threatening surgery. We met and exchanged various stories and at one stage I went over to Glasgow, where he lived, and met up with his family. - his wife Marie, and three young children, Alice, Sean and Joe. 
   As a student, Frank was politically minded and had studied James Connolly's writings; within a few weeks he made an inaugural speech at the Trinity debating society, the HIST. In marking the 60th anniversary of 1916 the debate considered whether the leaders of the Rising would approve contemporary politicians. Frank’s closing line was dramatic, and typical of his directness; he stated that in the face of Irish political leaders, James Connolly would 'throw up in his grave'. He was never one for the lighter touch. He was a committed social democrat however, and believed that socialist principles could, with organised popular support, be instated within democratic society. 
   He had aversions to both democratic centralism – as represented by the Stickies - and to nationalism – the Provos and Fianna Fåil - and a few years after leaving College he became a member of the fledgling Democratic Socialist Party, which he saw as carrying the legacy of Connolly's Labour Party, but without its commitment to national re-unification. The new party also vehemently opposed Church involvement in State affairs and was highly involved in campaigning against the so-called “pro-life” amendment to the Irish constitution in 1984. He researched and wrote a pamphlet on drug issues for the party, which later became its policy, making it the first Irish political party to formulate a policy on this particular issue.
While in College Frank penned an article “Harvest of Misery” on the drugs issue for the magazine, “Strumpet”, perhaps one of the first decent pieces of writing on this topic as the drug problem began to emerge and he also made the founding of a community drug project the central focus of his college placement work in Ballymun during 1981. It was the first community project in Ireland with a specific focus on drug matters and it later became well established in the field as the Ballymun Youth Action Project. 
   Frank went on to have a successful script writing career, particularly with films such as “The Grass Arena”, “Captives”, “Looking after Jo Jo” and TV work such as “The Passion”, “Father and Son” and “Prime Suspect: The Final Act” for which he won an Emmy award. 
He died seven years ago today, September 17th in 2009, a few days after penning an extraordinarily eloquent article for “The Observer” on organ donation and also after speaking to Joe Duffy on RTE’s “Lifeline”. He was at the height of his prolific career, his death a severe blow, particularly to his young family, to his many friends, and to those who understood and appreciated the realism inherent in his life, his work and particularly in his writings. May he Rest in Peace.

Was at Eddi Reaer concert in Ballykeefe, Co. Kilkenny on July 30, 2016. Uploaded two of her songs that I videotaped: “Ae fond kiss”, Roberrt Burns’s parting love poem to his “friend” Nancy, and “Perfect”, the hit she had in the 1980s. View through this link.