The Incredible Mr Kavanagh

If I suffer from even the slightest headache, I pack up and go to bed early; hobbling around on an ingrown toenail makes me feel dreadfully sorry for myself; and don’t talk to me about backache! I still remember the time I decided to water my garden - after dark - and fell headlong into the rose bush. For days afterwards I walked around with two nasty gashes up my face feeling like a war hero. I was on the receiving end of many a furtive look as I walked the aisles in my local supermarket, but I sported my wounds with pride, glad however, that the evidence of my late night gardening would soon disappear. How on earth would I fare if I had really had something to complain about?

Arthur Kavanagh came into the world in 1831, the fifth child of an amazingly strong-minded woman who considered him another beloved son to be treated no different to the rest of her brood. Kavanagh enjoyed the rough and tumble of family life in Borris House, Co Carlow, where he had an excellent classical education; he also loved to escape into sport at which he neither excelled nor failed. The only difference between him and his brothers and sisters was that he had neither legs nor arms but shortened stumps with hands and feet attached. Had he been born today he would be labelled ‘handicapped’, treated separately from the rest of his clan, sent to a special school, mollycoddled, handled with care and generally made to feel different. Our Mr Kavanagh, however, had expectations of a full rounded life, and what he got was more than most people are capable of achieving in the ordinary run of things.

I discovered The Incredible Mr Kavanagh by Donald McCormick at my local library in Deansgrange, and I have lived with him in my head ever since. I had browsed the biography section looking for something to amuse and entertain me through the long winter evenings, and though I certainly was amused and entertained, I was also reminded to live this life of mine with a bit more gusto and a lot less namby pamby behaviour; life is there to be taken and enjoyed and lived to the full.

Arthur Kavanagh was a skilled yachtsman and sailed as far as Russia, India, Persia and Kurdistan. He rode horseback across Europe and Asia and was an accomplished huntsman. At the age of thirty-five he was elected Member of the British House of Parliament where he served for eleven years, becoming the first MP to obtain permission to tie up his boat on the Thames at Westminster so that he could live on board when in London. Arthur survived his older brothers to become heir to the family estate in Carlow which he managed efficiently and fairly (he was know as a good landlord who cared for the people in his area in a time when so many tenants were badly treated and left in dire circumstances).

There’s an hilarious piece in the book where Arthur’s future wife, Harriet, screamed with fright when she first set eyes on him; at the time, he was standing on the hall table looking very odd and slightly scary in his black cape preparing himself to go out in rough weather. He was actually a very handsome man and once she got over her shock they were well matched and went on to have six healthy children of their own.

On Christmas morning, 1889, with his family gathered round him, Arthur Kavanagh died at the age of fifty-eight. I have just touched on his extraordinary life here and can only think, in awe, of how much this Carlow man accomplished in a time when he could well have given up without trying. There’s a lesson in there for all of us.