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.  

​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. 

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!  

​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.

​My father Mickey left school at the age of 12 but yet was one of the most knowledgeable people I have ever met.  During his working life he worked as a general labourer for Sisk (Construction Company), Unicast (Modular Homes) and Ferrersflex (Leather Shoe Insoles) where he was well-known for coming up with clever solutions to complex problems.  But he started his working life as a farm labourer, working for a number of Co. Waterford farming families.

​In 1978, as we were leaving 6th class in the Presentation Convent, our teacher Sr. Pius allowed us to have a class party in school.  We were heading off to secondary school (high school), some to Greenhill and some to the Tech; so, we didn’t know if we’d be seeing each other ever again.  Twelve-year-old girls being twelve-year-old girls, I remember there being a lot of dramatic good-byes and heartfelt promises to always stay in touch. Forever. (For the most part we have!)

​One of the best things about the Christmas holidays is that you have time to revisit some of your favourite movies.  This year I got to watch the almost 30-year-old film “Forrest Gump” again – one of my all-time favourites.  Yep…it really did come out in 1994!!  When Forrest says that line “My momma always said ‘life was like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get’, no one ever spoke a truer word. The film superbly plays on emotion throughout, finely balancing comedy and tragedy and to me that’s a good description of life in general….comedy and tragedy.  

One of my favourite songs is by the late Sandy Denny, “Who Knows Where The Time Goes”.  I find that I’m asking myself that very question a lot lately ……. a real sign that “I’m shoving on”.  But I was really thinking of this song a lot leading up to last month’s Greenhill Class of ’83 40th Reunion.

Written when the singer was just 19, just a couple of years older than most of us leaving Greenhill, this plaintive song has been covered extensively down through the years.  But I love the version here released in 1973.  It really pulls at the heartstrings and some regard it as “one of the saddest songs ever written”.

For us leaving school in 1983 it was indeed a sad time on the jobs front. John F. Kennedy on his presidential visit to Ireland in June 1963 twenty years earlier had remarked ‘Most countries send 

One of my mam Peggy’s favourite songs was “Danny Boy”.  I remember it was one of her party pieces and can still hear her soft voice singing it.   I think that it reminded her of her time as an emigrant in Leeds and Cardiff in the late 1940s.  It also reminded her of her younger brother, Danny, who worked laying gas-pipes in the UK.   I too love “Danny Boy”.  Nowadays.  But there was a time in the 1980s when I dreaded it. 

You see, I got a Stylophone as a gift one Christmas.  For those too young to remember, the iconic gadget Stylophone was a pocket-sized battery-operated synthesiser used by everyone from David Bowie to The White Stripes.  You played it by tapping and sliding the connected stylus along the touch-sensitive metal surface. Each segment on the surface played a different note, the same as different keys on a piano. But unlike the piano, it was so simple to play that anyone could have a go - perfect for beginners!  Like me! 

Now, I’m no David Bowie, but to please Peggy, one of the first tunes I learned on it was “Danny Boy”.  To my teenage mortification, she insisted I play it for any visitors to the house. With lots of requests for “one more time”!!   I even remember the late Paddy Farrell being obliged to listen as he was delivering our weekly box of messages (groceries) one Saturday morning.
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Anyway, in this week’s blog, I delve into the origins of “Danny Boy”.  I also have a link to the late Eva Cassidy’s beautiful rendition of it. I think Peggy would be delighted.  If there are harps in heaven, I’ve no doubt she has some poor angel pestered to play “Danny Boy” … one more time!  Enjoy!

​I was looking with envy at all of the great photos shared on Facebook recently of the Carrick-on-Suir Musical Society’s run of The Phantom of the Opera.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it down to experience it in person.  Knowing the amazing musical talent that exists in my little hometown, I wasn’t at all surprised to hear the rave reviews and that there were standing ovations every night.  I would expect nothing less knowing the wonderful people involved.  “Phantom” is one of my favourite shows ever.  I was lucky enough to see the Broadway production in April 2006 at the Majestic Theatre on West 44th Street in New York.  It was truly spectacular.  That whole trip with Charlie, being his first time in New York and my second, was so memorable.  In this week’s blog post I share a little of what we did and saw.  Enjoy!   

​I hope you all enjoyed a great St. Patrick’s weekend. It was lovely here in Dublin…as my mother used to say “March many weathers”.  It was great to see so many visitors to the city for the festivities and the Big Parade.  This week’s blog is about a different Parade that I saw in Chicago, Illinois on 13 March 2004 (in Chicago the Parade is held on the Saturday before March 17th).

​21 years ago, Peggy and I took a cruise with My Travel/ Airtours/ Sun Cruises on the M.S. Sunbird.  It was our 4th cruise together and our 2nd on the Sunbird.  Although that 7-day trip wasn’t on the biggest or fanciest ship we ever sailed on, to this day it remains one of the most enjoyable.  It had just over 700 cabins with about 1,600 onboard and we thought it was huge!!  The staff onboard were just great and genuinely couldn’t do enough for us to make our holiday memorable.  We spent a week out of Palma (Majorca, Spain) visiting Naples (Italy), Messina and Taormina (Sicily), Bugibba and Marsaxlokk (Malta), La Goulette and Carthage (Tunisia) before sailing back to Palma in Majorca.  This is how we got on.  Enjoy!

This week’s blog post is on a favourite song of mine, "Big River", a song written and performed by English singer and actor Jimmy Nail,   The big river referred to in the title is the River Tyne that runs through Nail's home town, Newcastle upon Tyne. The song is an elegy to the days when shipbuilding and industry in general were at their height in Newcastle and laments the later decline of the industry and therefore the decline of the importance and activity of the Tyne itself. However, in the last chorus, the song takes a more hopeful turn, declaring that, "the river will rise again".  The guitar work on the song was provided by Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler, who features in the music video.