SHAW A FREEMAN OF DUBLIN

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24802, 16 February 1946, Page 5

SHAW A FREEMAN OF DUBLIN

LONDON, Feb. 5. Dublin, where George Bernard Shaw was born 89 years ago, has invited the great playwright to accept the freedom of the city. The invitation, which went out from a Dublin corporation, was not agreed upon without a good deal of wrangling, during which Shaw was praised and abused in turn. Councillor James Larkin (Labour) led the Shaw supporters, saying: “Shaw says he is going to live to 92, but he knows no more about that than any of us. I think this council should write and ask him to come home to his native city some day and take six feet of Irish earth for a burial when he dies. “He would honour us if he did. He often says foolish things, but sometimes he is wiser in his foolishness than some of us are in bur wisdom.” Said Councillor O’Byrne, a school teacher: “What did Shaw ever do for this country? The only thing we ever Set from him is an occasional longistance wisecrack. No Dublin man can be proud of himself if he shakes off the dust of his native city and goes to sell his talents in England. “Shaw has never even written a word in the Irish language.” - But the council took a more charitable view in the end, and declared it “would be greatly honoured” if the great man would accept the freedom of the city.