FEATURE: Cork war survivor’s pen is mightier than sword
MCCARTHY’S Bar, in the square in Castletownbere in West Cork, is familiar to visitors because it was on the front cover of the bestselling book of the same name, by writer Pete McCarthy. This traditional bar incorporates a small grocery shop and snug, but hides a dramatic story of human endurance.
Owner Adrienne McCarthy’s father, Adrian McCarthy, was interned in a Japanese prison camp in Nagasaki during World War 2, and escaped execution when the nuclear bomb was dropped on the city. McCarthy was the senior allied officer at the prison, so it was to him that the camp commander ceremoniously surrendered his Samurai sword. The sword’s hilt contains ashes of the commander’s ancestors. A film crew, with Irish Film Board funding, has returned to Nagasaki to tell this remarkable story.
