The Field is a 1990 Irish drama film written and directed by Jim Sheridan and starring Richard Harris, John Hurt, Sean Bean, Brenda Fricker and Tom Berenger. It is one of my favourite films as I believe the acting of Richard Harris and the others was brilliant and absorbing. It was adapted from John B. Keane's 1965 play of the same name. The film is set in the early 1930s and was shot almost entirely in the Connemara village of Leenaun, a beautiful part of Ireland.

​One of the things I remember well from my childhood was the excitement of getting a new comic.  My mother Peggy sometimes shopped at the newsagents “down at the Bridge”, O’Donnell’s, and If I had been extra “good”, or there was money to spare, I would be treated to a comic.  It wasn’t every week mind you.  Those weeks when I wasn’t getting one, I could only look wistfully at that week’s new comic sitting on the shelf in O’Donnell’s and imagine what the stories would be.

When I was doing my recent blog on moving to Hill View 50 years ago, it got me thinking of the things that have changed for children in that time.  Growing up in the 1960s and 70s, one of the biggest things is the amount of time that we spent outdoors playing.  Hopscotch, betchels, tip (tag/ chasing), red rover, taws (marbles), elastics, skipping, juggling two-balls or three-balls against a wall and playing with a tennis ball in nylon stockings tied to your ankle and jumped over…. or hit side to side against a wall under and over your leg!  No wonder we were all so skinny.
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Television
To be fair, one of the reasons I played outdoors was that, for most of my childhood, I lived in a one-station television zone in Ireland.  We only had RTE 1 ….. in black and white! I envied those in Dublin and others on the east coast that could get the UK stations by aerial.   

​The performance of the Irish Olympics team in Paris was incredible and really lifted the mood of the whole country in this damp and miserable summer.  An unprecedented number of medals were won and national records broken.  They did us proud, every one of them.  One of the most memorable moments wasn’t even a sports performance for me.  It was seeing Irish boxer Kellie Harrington belt out Grace (her party-piece) in Stade Roland Garros after her stunning gold medal victory in the women's lightweight final.  

​This weekend 50 years ago, my family and I were getting ready for a life-changing move.  I was two months shy of my 9th birthday.  Our house in Mass Road had been earmarked for demolition by the Council and we had been rehoused in St. Mollerans….the bit on the Dungarvan Road renamed Hill View to make things easier for delivermen  The old houses, you see, on Mass Road had no running water or sanitation. None at all.  Most of our former neighbours had been rehoused at that stage so we were one of the last few remaining. 

​So, two weeks ago we got away to the “Lake County” of Co. Westmeath, just an hour and a half from Dublin.  We chose the 4-star Glasson Lakehouse as our hotel as it is promoted as being super dog-friendly……and that it certainly is.  It was our second time away with Benji, Charlie’s little doggy. 

​In re-reading my last blog post (B133: Cobh & Emigration), I was thinking again how my great grandparents John and Alice had the chance to return to Ireland.  Sadly, for some who would love to, this never comes to pass. 

​Nearly every Irish family has a story of emigration and migration.  When I was visiting my hometown last week, I took the opportunity of visiting Cobh in Co. Cork about an hour and a half from Carrick-on-Suir.  Up until 1920 Cobh was called Queenstown.  One of the major transatlantic Irish ports historically, the town was the departure point for 2.5 million of the 6 million Irish people who emigrated to North America between 1848 and 1950. 

​On 1 Nov 2019, just over 240 months ago, I published my first blog post on my bucketlist blog website 80b480.com.  I was still recovering from my 2017 stroke and multiple organ failure and 12 months since I took redundancy from the Exchange.  I had this vague idea that because I had come so close to dying I should make a list of all the things I wanted to do on my bucketlist and start 

When I first started travelling away from home and telling people I was from Carrick-on-Suir, it was often confused in people’s minds with Carrick-on-Shannon or Carrickmacross.  But as soon as I mentioned “my” Carrick’s famous sons, the Clancy Brothers and Sean Kelly no further explanation was needed!  

One of the nice things about living in Dublin is the amount of art installations visible throughout the city.  With numerous statues, sculptures, fountains, murals and other installations, you’re never too far from a piece of art.  Now, that’s not to say that everyone is in agreement as to what’s art….Dubliners have a habit of slagging off their art pieces with descriptive nicknames of their own.  Who remembers the poor “Floozie in the Jacuzzi” (The Anna Livia Fountain now in the 

​My first doggy friend as a little girl was “Tan” Guiry, the dog belonging to our lovely shopkeeper neighbour, Bridgie, three doors up on Mass Road.  At that time everyone kept their front door wide-open and, whenever he wanted, Tan would stroll down the road, cross our threshold step polished red by Peggy and stick his head around our inside door to see if I would play.  

​This week 20 years ago, I was going through trauma.  On 13th of April 2004 – it seems like yesterday - my (then) 75 year-old mother, Peggy, collapsed in the kitchen at home in Carrick while making the tea for my dad, Mickey.  In my lifetime up ‘til then, none of our small family of 4 had ever been in hospital.  Peggy had bad health early on in their marriage with the loss of her first 5 babies, she had had a tubercular gland removed from her neck in the early fifties and had suffered bad headaches when Martin was a baby that was put down to neuritis.  But nothing since I was born.
 
So, it was a huge shock to get the phonecall in Dublin that she had been taken to Waterford Regional Hospital (now WUH) by ambulance with a suspected sub-arachnoid brain haemorrhage (SAH).  The neighbours on the road had been wonderful in picking her up and calling the ambulance.  Peggy had gashed her head off the cooker.  It was the Tuesday after Easter and I had been down visiting home over the weekend.  She hadn’t been feeling 100%; feeling nauseous and headachy so I had picked up flu remedies at the pharmacy. I can’t describe the shock my 89-year-old dad Mickey, my brother Martin and I felt to see a woman that was always so fit and healthy completely knocked out.  

​So, as many of you know, Charlie has a cute little doggie called Benji.  And we are all mad about him.  What you might not know is that before Benji, there was another dog….. called Fido.  And before Elf on The Shelf was a thing, there were the Fido Fotos!  

​For the weekend that was in it, St. Patrick’s weekend, it got me thinking of the Irish diaspora away from home.  I was thinking in particular of my contemporaries who left school in 1983 and emerged into the world looking for jobs at the height of a recession.  Many of my classmates went to the UK, US or Australia and found work in offices, hotels and factories.  Many of the fellas went onto building sites.  In the intervening years many have returned to Ireland but not all.