Remembering Fr. Fergal O'Connor
Dominican Father, Fergal O Connor was a fixture of UCD politics department for decades, and a formative influence on many an undergraduate.(He also founded the organisation ALLY, dedicated to supporting unmarried mothers. That was in another ireland. He also regularly appeared as a critic on the Late Late show, in it's heyday)
O Connor came to prominence during the silent revolution of student activism in the early 70's ( when I was just a kid). In essence, he saw political theory in a socratic tradition. Dialogue was his central motif. Exams, he maintained were utterly ephemeral to the process, as was the points race system for university access. If he had his way, he would say, his lectures would be open to all, and scheduled to allow access to all sectors of society. For those interested in high exam achievement, he proposed that he would give them the exam questions at the outset, and they could leave the lectuer theatre and start working on perfecting that essay. Those interested in philisophical dialogue, he would say, like the characters of the Republic, were welcome to stay.
In second year, he lectured in the first semester as Rousseau, provoking the class into debate, continually wearing the Rousseau persona. What a surprise after chrismas, when he became a crusty Hobbes!
His lectures were often conveniently scheduled for the late afternoon, with no following lecture. This allowed a circle of students to keep the priest debating in a circle, long, long, after the end of the official lecture.
I was not such a dedicated student. And at the time, my antipathy towards wearers of the catholic garb was deep, but O Connor fascinated. Some of his views appeared anti-modern to me from my perspective at the time. (I still have no time for the Alasdair MacIntyre view of ethics, for instance.)
But, long before many of those who were lecturing me on marxism at the time in UCD, Fergal was citing the work of Jurgen Habermas.
Essentially, Fergal was interested in answering the timeless questions of what is a good life, and what makes a society just. With dialogue at the core, his educational method pointed toward some of that answers to those questions.
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