The Spirit Of Conor Cruise O'Brien

I have to say that Yuval Levin's appreciation of "The Great Melody" expresses my feelings about that book entirely. It's a very strange book - my mind associates it with Edmund Morris's "Dutch" - but its strangeness captures the elusive, contradictory, Irish (and Whiggish) Toryism of Burke. The Telegraph's obit, as usual, is the best:

Critics charged that he was more interested in exercising his intellectual   sinews than in resolving difficulties. But his recognition that the   divisions in Ireland were rooted in two irreconcilable traditions led to   increasing isolation within his own country, and required considerable moral   – and occasionally physical – courage.

Equally, his awareness that the problems of South Africa had no easy answers,   and his determined support for Israel, cut him off from the Left, with which   he had once been associated. Yet O'Brien never drifted, in the conventional   way, from Left to Right. Rather he remained consistently radical in his   willingness to bring a fresh mind to bear on issues normally treated with   entrenched prejudice.

A role model in many ways for all of us. I only met him once. He came to Harvard to speak about the essence of Irish culture and was completely shitfaced afterwards. Coming from a long line of ornery Micks, I appreciated that.