Published: Wednesday, 11th November, 2009 5:30pm

Athlone man was a witness

by Adrian Cusack

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Athlone native Brian Flynn, who was in Berlin when the Berlin Wall came down.

Twenty years ago, Brian Flynn was a witness to one of the most historic moments of the twentieth century, as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.

A native of Bonavalley, Athlone, Brian worked as a production assistant for the RTE programme 'Nighthawks' which dispatched him, along with a producer and reporter, to cover the events in Berlin in November 1989.

This week Brian recalled the "turmoil" he witnessed as thousands of East Berliners poured into a part of their city that they had never seen before.

"When we flew over to Berlin we didn't realise quite how big it was going to be, but once we got there we were conscious that this was history being made," he said.

A son of Jimmy and Bridie Flynn, who operated a B&B on the Dublin Road, across from The Shack pub in Athlone, Brian was selected to help cover the event, in part, because of his familiarity with Germany.

Along with Tang native Frank McGlynn, and John Barden from Longford, he was a member of an Irish band called 'Green Street' which performed regularly in Germany in the mid-70s.

Brian lived in the country for a number of years, working as a translator and production assistant with a German television station.

He returned to Ireland in 1987 and was employed as a production assistant with the RTE show 'Nighthawks'.

Two years later, with the fall of the Wall imminent, he was sent to Berlin along with producer Ann Enright (who has since won the Booker prize for her novel 'The Gathering') and reporter Ann Marie Hourihane, now a columnist with The Irish Times.

The group first flew from Dublin to Frankfurt, and Brian remembered a conversation he had with an American man on their connecting flight to Berlin.

"He was from LA and when I asked him why he was going to Berlin he said, 'Man, I wouldn't miss this party for the world.'"

When they arrived, the scene was chaotic. Brian stated that RTE had not been fully prepared for the massive congregation of camera crews from all over the world, and he had to call in assistance from a number of German contacts in order to help establish the 'Nighthawks' crew's working environment.

"The Wall had opened at midnight and we got there the next day," he said. "When we arrived there was a huge amount of people with pickaxes and chisels pulling down the wall, along with guys drinking champagne.

"I'm no fashion expert, but one thing that stands out in my mind is the very drab clothes that the East Germans were wearing. When they came over to the other side they were like kids in a sweet factory."

He added, "Despite all the clichés, Germans are very friendly and it was great to see people coming together from both sides, greeting each other, chatting to each other and giving each other schnapps and beer.

"A lot of drinking was taking place and I'm sure a lot of the people who were there had sore heads the next day."

Brian spent "a couple of days" in Berlin at the time and brought home a piece of the wall, but he has since lost it. "People have these romantic notions about the Wall itself but it was the most horrible, breeze-block muck that you'd ever see!" he laughed. "I know for a fact that, for a time afterwards, there were people gathering lumps of rock in Drumcondra and trying to pass it off as a piece of the Berlin Wall!"

Now based in Clare, Brian went on to work as researcher and producer/director with RTE. He took early retirement in 2003 and continues to play music while also hosting some programming on the Clare FM radio station.

He stated would like to return to Berlin in the not-too-distant future. "I've never been back there since, so I would love to go again sometime soon," he concluded.