A number of reviews have challenged the idea that Hope: the Autobiography of Pope Francis is in fact an autobiography. The Irish Times reviewer suggested that “it is some recollections from his life by Francis which act as a springboard for his reflections on current events”. That is intriguing, even if it doesn’t fit the definition of autobiography.
Defining autobiography can be difficult. Clearly, Mandela’s Long Road to Freedom is autobiography. Likewise, Gerry Adams’s Before the Dawn is a powerful autobiography which showed the nature of Adams’s life and the struggles of the Catholic underclass in Northern Ireland. A fine example of autobiography which blends life and history is Máire Cruise O’Brien’s The Same Age as the State.
But is John McGahern’s Memoir – which essentially deals with his childhood and his affection for his mother – autobiography? Likewise, Elizabeth Bowen’s Seven Winters, which deals with her childhood, while Frank O’Connor wrote two memoirs, An Only Child, about his youth, and My Father’s Son, about his later life.
There is also the intellectual autobiography which shows the history of ideas of the writer such as St John Henry Newman’s Apologia. Newman said: “I am but giving a history of my opinions, and that, with the view of showing that I have come by them through intelligible processes of thought and honest external means ... I have no romantic story to tell.”
‘A haon, a dó, a trois’: How a tiny French village fell in love with Irish dancing
The White Lotus effect: Who’d associate themselves with such sickening decadence? Almost anyone who can afford to, it seems
I’m in my first serious relationship but too anxious to enjoy it. How do I relax?
Opinion: As Pope Francis’s book Hope shows, defining what is autobiography isn’t always easy
Pope St John XXIII’s Journal of a Soul may rank as a spiritual autobiography, as it records his development from his teenage years to when he became a priest, then a Vatican diplomat and then Pope. The autobiography of Ignatius Loyola was written by another Jesuit, Fr Louis Gonzalez, who carefully recorded the words of St Ignatius some time before his death.
While at home in Buenos Aires, Pope Francis had a great interest in soccer and was a follower of San Lorenzo. As it happens, my own post-Christmas reading has been far from the intellectual challenge of Newman: Back from the Brink, the autobiography of Paul McGrath. The Birmingham Post reviewer described it as “one of the finest autobiographies to be written by a footballer”.
Great days with Manchester United, Aston Villa and Ireland lay ahead. But there were also terrifying days of alcohol addiction and attempted suicide
Like many autobiographies, it was not written directly by the author. The McGrath autobiography is in fact written by sportswriter Vincent Hogan. It recounts a harrowing, honest story. The son of an unmarried Irish mother and a Nigerian father, Paul spent his childhood in the Smyly Birds Nest home in Dún Laoghaire, where he was brought up in the Protestant tradition, although he later reverted to his mother’s Catholic faith. A Catholic priest, Fr Aidan Crawley, was “one of my most loyal and trusted friends” from his time working for CP Security in the early 1980s. Paul described guarding a warehouse in Coolock as “my favourite gig”. There was a football team at CP. Fr Crawley said that he knew nothing of Paul as a footballer until, in a game between CP Security and Maynooth College, Paul scored several goals.
McGrath was miserable in the Birds Nest, where the regime seemed cruel. However, he made some friends there, including future senator Victor Boyhan. Before their miserable meals, they recited grace: “Thank you, God, that the world is so sweet; thank you for the food we eat; thank you for the birds that sing; thank you, Lord, for everything.”
A little later when Paul moved to another residence, Glensilva, he became fixated on football. Great days with Manchester United, Aston Villa and Ireland lay ahead. But there were also terrifying days of alcohol addiction and attempted suicide. A special event was when the Irish team met St John Paul II in Rome, in 1990. In the end there was hope. McGrath loves his children and would do his best for them.
I had the good chance to meet Paul McGrath. In 1994 my daughter and I had tickets for a friendly game against Germany in Hanover, which Ireland won. Crossing the hotel lobby, heading for the team bus to bring the team to the stadium, was Paul McGrath. In my hand I had a copy of a book by Flann O’Brien, the only book to hand, which I asked Paul to autograph. He did so with grace.
Dr Finola Kennedy is an economist and author of Cottage to Creche: Family Change in Ireland (2001), Frank Duff: A Life Story (2011) and Local Matters: Parish, Local Government and Community in Ireland (2022).
