Joseph O'Neill - This is the Life

‘Sorry?’

‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘There’s no need.’

The misadventure in Cambridge was only a temporary setback. Fervently I resumed my studies, so that when I took my finals the following year, I almost achieved a first-class degree (my performance in land law let me down). Importantly, I did well in the international law papers, and it was on the strength of the promise I showed there that I received good references from my tutors. This enabled me to get an interview at 6 Essex Court and then, miracle of miracles, a pupillage. My dreams were coming true …

The papers I was sifting through in front of my gas fire were notes and copies I had made of Donovan’s writings and the reported cases in which he had appeared. I had started the collection at university, for research purposes, and after I had left 6 Essex I continued to collect, at first because I still harboured hopes of becoming an international lawyer, and later as a hobby or project, I suppose. For years I spent solitary nights and weekends carefully studying Donovan’s progress and painstakingly noting my thoughts. Although I had nothing specific in mind, no plans as such, I half-contemplated writing a paper on him — maybe even a book (why not? I reasoned). As far as I am aware, I read every word he published until 1985. It was only then that my monthly visits to the Middle Temple library to hunt for material came to an end. There had not been a conscious decision on my part to stop. I simply realized one day that I had not done any research for the last few months and that I did not feel diminished by the omission. Whereas before if I fell behind or neglected to read a quarterly I would experience guilt and a pressing need to rectify matters, now I felt nothing.

Poor sap! I can hear people say; or, How pathetic! Only a true inadequate would even think of such a cretinous activity!

The terrible thing is, sometimes I suspect that these remarks, if made, would be correct. I, too, can feel like hurling a few insults at the old, younger me: Muttonhead! Imbecile! Dunderhead! What on earth were you doing? Had you nothing better to do with your time? Had you no pride? And yes, when I look back now it is not without some element of shame, of fury even. My fixation was unwholesome: after all, could I really say that I was primarily interested in international law? If Donovan had suddenly switched to specialize in the law of trusts, was there any doubt that I would have trotted in his trail, bleating like a sheep?

Then, when my emotions subside, I find that I can justify my activities in one of two ways. The first is not so much a justification as a limp excuse, and runs as follows. In most respects, I am an untalented man. There is no point in deluding myself about that. James Jones will never attain heights, not in person anyway. People like me have to make do with things like cricket-scoring or autograph-hunting, or some other vicarious, mildly demeaning pastime. There is no point in criticizing myself for this as, since I have little choice in the matter, clearly it is not my fault. Surely I am not to blame for who I am?

Alternatively, I can take a noble and bullish stand: not only are my researches excusable as the inoffensive hobby of an ungifted man, they are positively laudable as an interesting piece of research. Yes, they are not without academic, perhaps even historical, value, because Donovan is truly exceptional, and any contribution to the understanding of his work, however slight, is worthwhile.

I sensed his exceptionality early on, at university. I say sensed because my view originated not so much in mind as in my nerves, guts, heart, liver and bones. Instinctively I knew Donovan to be that rare thing, a man who really matters. Reading his texts over and over again and each time discovering fresh evidence of his powers, I came to the conclusion that he was potentially the greatest international lawyer since Hugo Grotius, the founding father of international law. Grotius (1583–1645) was, in my view, truly a man of genius. Sometimes it is alleged that he was not an original thinker — that he was simply a man of extreme learning and trod paths laid down by people like Suarez and Gentili. That is a slur. Whilst it may be true that Grotius appropriated the concepts of societas humana and jus gentium , he did so to dramatic and innovative effect. To heat and hammer and pressurize the juridical materials he inherited in the way he did, into new and durable shapes, to produce such a work as De Jure Belli ac Pads , which resonates and bells to this day, is a creative, imaginative feat.

Armed with my accumulating knowledge of Donovan, I began to draw parallels between Grotius, a Dutchman four centuries dead, and Donovan, an Irishman at the Bar of England and Wales. I thought that there might be a thesis in the subject, comparing and contrasting the two men. In many ways they were different. Not only was Grotius a great jurist, he was also a philologist, theologian and statesman of distinction. Donovan was purely a lawyer, and furthermore, although he was absorbed by the academic side of his work, he also relished the pugilism of litigation; Grotius, by contrast, never enjoyed practising law, and was principally occupied as a politician, jailbird and diplomat. And while Donovan was precociously talented and several years ahead of his contemporaries (he graduated from Cambridge with a starred first aged twenty), Grotius was truly prodigious. As a child he published brilliant poems in Latin and Greek, was paraded in front of Henri IV of France, went to university at eleven and was awarded a doctorate at sixteen. He was a Mozart of erudition.

But then I discerned some similarities. Both men had remarkable memories; both possessed relentless energy; both worked unceasingly; and, perhaps most tellingly, both were acutely conscious of the passage of time. Grotius’s motto was Ruit hora , and it was one which Donovan could easily have shared. Despite his calmness, a weird urgency underlaid everything he did. Once he had performed the task in hand, there would be no dilly-dallying or idle chewing of the fat. He would be off and on to the next item. In some people’s eyes this made him poor company. Into the first part of my pupillage, for example, when I was still with Simon Myers, I approached Oliver Owen, who was Donovan’s pupil at the time.

‘Well, what’s he like?’ I asked eagerly (I had yet to meet him, having only caught glimpses of him on the staircase).

‘Dull as ditchwater,’ Oliver said. ‘A bit like you really. Don’t worry, only joking. No,’ he continued, ‘he hasn’t made a single joke in three months.’ He yawned noisily. ‘Just thinking of him makes me yawn.’

Philistine! I thought. Doesn’t he realize who he is talking about?

‘Is he clever?’ I asked.

‘ Fucking clever,’ Oliver said. ‘But, in the final analysis, more boring than clever. Thank God he’s away half the time. It drives me bananas, sitting there in the same room as him. All he does is sit at his desk from the crack of dawn and churn out the papers. Never says a bloody word. He’s a fucking slave-driver,’ Oliver complained.

‘So he’s not very nice,’ I said.

‘Nice? James,’ Oliver said scornfully, ‘Michael’s not going to go around being “nice” or “nasty”. It’s just not on his timetable. He’s got better things to do than relate to people. That’s far too petty an activity.’

What do you expect? I thought. Donovan sees his pupils come and go every six months. He’s hardly going to be on intimate terms with each and every one of them. Anyway, what you don’t appreciate is the importance of Donovan’s work. A man like Donovan has a responsibility not to squander the enormous gifts which have fallen his way. If his shoes were laced on my feet I’d do exactly the same. I wouldn’t have time for too much small talk either.