Maeve Binchy and the intricacies of chess

In the Comments in the Simuls page Oisin McGuinness referred to an article on chess by the celebrated writer Maeve Binchy which had appeared in the Irish Times. He thought it might have been in connection with a Hecht simul in April 1974 but was concerned he might have conflated her involvement with another event. His concern proved justified but interest sufficiently piqued, I have managed to find the Binchy article on page 6 of the Wednesday, September 13, 1972 edition of the Irish Times.

It wouldn’t do to reproduce the entire article, of course – but here’s a fair use tasting menu.

Opening

“I crept up the stairs in Kiely’s pub in Donnybrook, because if there’s one thing everyone knows about chess people it is that they are quiet, calm people. The one thing they wouldn’t like would be loud noise. They were sitting at tables and there was a bit of gentle ruminative coughing, much ticking from those double clocks, graceful slithering of pawn to King’s Bishop Four, and the occasional murmur of chess conversation.

They play here on Monday and Wednesday nights and they assure me that they are not at all bookish and reserved and lost in thinking about the 18th move ahead. They are have been known to have a drink downstairs before or after or even during their night’s play.”

Middlegame

Binchy was at that time Women’s editor of the Irish Times and the article appeared in her “Women First” column. The centrepiece of her article was an interview with Aileen Noonan, Ann O’Clery and Dorren O Siochru.

“Three Irish women are going off to Skopje at the end of the month to play for Ireland at the end of this month to play for Ireland in the women’s events of the Chess Olympiad. It will last for almost three weeks and will be extremely arduous. This is only the second time  (1) that Ireland has sent a team to the female events and they feel a heavy sense of responsibility. Were they rehearsing? I asked. Rehearsing was not the word that my contact man would have chosen, and he didn’t go for the word practising either. They were playing, he said firmly, and analysing their games as they went along.

I tiptoed over to the women’s team to help them analyse their games as well.”

A photograph of Noonan, O’Clery and O Siochru “analysing” accompanied the article, but rather than join in, Binchy engaged with the Irish women’s Olympiad team (and described in a whimsical and good-natured way in the article) on such issues as endgame theory (2), whether individual characteristics influenced style of play, chess clocks, attracting sponsors, the Armstrong Cup (then residing in a downstairs room in Kiely’s) and an over-subscribed beginners’ course recently advertised. On the latter the three female experts referred her to Joe Keenan, who was giving the lessons. He explained that his next lesson would include how having two rooks on the seventh rank was very good for you and very bad for your opponent. Binchy “pondered over this for some time” and then agreed with him.

Endgame

“And suddenly I was out in noisy Donnybrook again having chicken and chips in a place nearby and wishing that I had been able to whisper a few more questions in the lovely chess silence upstairs in Kiely’s, about why do the French call what we call a Bishop “Un Fou” and were female Grand Masters called Grand Mistresses. But it was all over, and I had even forgotten to wish the Irish women’s team good luck at Skopje on September 28th.”

(1) Binchy was misinformed here. Noonan had been a member of the Irish team at the previous Women’s Olympiad (Lublin 1969) but Ireland was also represented in the very first such event (Emmen 1957).

(2) “What was endgame theory, for heaven’s sake? I mean once a game was ending it was ending, wasn’t it? Not at all, you must learn to recognise positions on the board which are leading to a winning, a drawing or a losing ending and deal with them.”