Daniel Augustine O'Connell, that's me, generally known as Donal since he was born in 1941 behind a veil (a caulbearer). He slid into this Daniel world as the sun rose, while a black cat walked by the bed as his mother held tightly on to a relic of St. Theresa (The Little Flower). She said I was painless birth back then, but that I made up for it thereafter. The Sun in my first house in Leo (Purvaphalguini), the Moon in my ninth house in Aries (Bharani), Mercury in my second house in Virgo (Hasta). Now, with such star energies, family lineage from my father's side, The Liberator, Daniel Mór, his aunt Eileen Dubh Ní Chonaill,18th centuary poet and then with William Smith O'Brien, founder of The Fenians, from my mother's side, I was fated to be an extremist. Presently ventriloquising echo vision from the bardic burren I humbly rumble on in my ramble. A Huckleberry Finn freedom gifted me up to twelve years of age living by the river Suir, ensuring an indelible monarchic Munster vision gained from childhood. Scrambling amidst the ruins of the Rock of Cashel and Holy Cross Abbey, "Tipperary was never a long way", but in my blood.
Transported to Dublin in 1954 ushered a rebellious embracement as "Bill Haley and the Comets" rocked World War 2 self righteous New Order and the black man emerged at last as being equal while Sidney Poitier tilted his chin to Glen Forde to the big back beat of Rock Around the Clock in Blackboard Jungle.With the back beat of Rock and Roll playing with a New Orleans abandonment the "Saints" shone forth with unshackled enlightenment and the cathedral town that had dampened my spiritual adventurousness was aligned with the prejudicial deep south and McCarthyism, and justification of the Korean War. A confused adolescent deprived of his childhood friends, dogs, river, lake and countryside, feeling angry, abandoned lonely and betrayed by the adults I had trusted. Suddenly I found alcohol to be the magic elixir that dissolved the feelings of isolation turning negative emotions into positive possibilities for exploration and investigation regardless of adult admonishment.
A boarding school run by Cistercian monks came to the aid of my anxious and distressed parents, offering an outlet for my restless spirit. This temporary sanctuary for the remaining two years of my secondary education sought not to quell my spirit but to bring forth an insatiable thirst and curiosity by fostering a keen interest in botany, chemistry, physics, mathematics, art, drama, poetry, music. My interest in rugby and athletics was encouraged while the good example shown in animal care and organic horticulture still persist in patient toil. Most of these monks were humble simple men of intellect and integrity, gentle and generous in their views on justice, mental, physical, & spiritual health, and the value of honest hard physical labor. They succeeded in inculcating some of those values within me. For those qualities I remain grateful. Attending Trinity College for me in those bigoted times required a dispensation from the Bishop of Dublin under threat of excommunication, which I would have welcomed personally, except for the humiliation and genuine pain it would have caused my father. Professors Walton in the Physics Department and Professor Green in the Irish Department were quietly inspirational but young nurses, slow horses, creamy pints of Guinness and late night boogie led me away from medicine into the a la carte indulgences and management of Star hotels