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"Will ya dance if I ask ya to dance?"

In 1985 after one year of university I said, "Mam I won't be that monk or priest that you dreamed of all these years. I have decided that I am going to find out who I am, what I want, live out my own dreams and not the dreams of others! I shan't be sivilized!"

When I was little I was only that person which other people saw me as. I knew definitely, I was only trying to be that person whom my mother saw me as. You feel obliged to please your mother seeing as she is putting the food in your belly, the clothes on your back and not to mention offering all those prayers up to God on your sickly behalf. It would be hard not to feel obliged. But now I know that person wasn't me, that me I wanted to be.

First, I have to be conceived and well, to be conceived, my parents have to meet. Yes the Phelan gene has to find a willing and eager ovary.

Did you know that Phelan, along with its common variant Whelan, comes from the Irish O’ Faolain, from a diminutive of faol, “wolf”? Taken together, the two names come among the fifty most numerous in Ireland. The family originated in the ancient kingdom of Decies, part of the modern county of Waterford, where they were rulers up to the Norman invasion. From this centre the surname has now spread to the adjoining counties of Kilkenny, Cork, Wexford and further north to Carlow and Laois. It is also to be found throughout the country, however. The best known modern bearer of the name was Sean o Faolain, the novelist and short story writer, whose writing career spanned six decades.

As a teenager, my father has to grow up very quickly. His father died when he was only fourteen from a sudden heart attack. This meant that there is no male figurehead behind the bar. His mother says that he should now become a professional barman. “It is time you go to Dublin to learn to be a proper barman and a proper business man.”

As he learns his trade up in Dublin at the Vintners Federation training academy the world opens up to him. There are many parties. Young hungry people with a glint in their eye say that this is going to be their chance at last to make their own way in the world. Many are learning the bar trade so as to move to Dublin, London, New York and Sydney. Dad wants to follow them too. But, because of this death in the family, he has a filial duty to fulfill. He returns to the White Horse Inn to help his mother run the business. At the age of sixteen he is now a man. However, he is still a child in the eyes of the law and especially the drinking laws of the land.

Even though he runs the pub Dad is not allowed to drink in it by his mother. Mr. Roche opposite May Morrins shop is not so strict. On a night off from working in the pub dad meets Jerry Deegan down at the White Horse river near the sawmills. They rendezvous at the new foot bridge that crosses over it. This bridge now makes it easier for the good Christians of Father O Connor´s crescent to get to mass quicker on a Sunday. Dad and Gerry´s mission however is not to cross the footbridge and cleanse themselves of their sinful nocturnal fumblings underneath the sheets but to enter Roche's pub discreetly by its hidden rear entrance. The pub's back gate is covered by creeping red ivy and it is always unlocked. They enter the bottom garden belonging to the pub and then tiptoe up through the nettles and briars to reach the door of the back shed that houses crates of Smithwicks and Guinness. The shed is lit inside by a singular sixty watt bulb hanging from a black cable in the rafters. The corrugated rusting iron roof keeps the shed dry but it is not very warm. Gerry and Colin perch themselves on a crate and wait for Sean Roche to spot that his shed light is on. Sean eventually comes in with two lovely pints of Smithwicks for them. "Sure didn't I know it would be young Phelan and young Deegan. Now lads, be stayin fierce quiet in here and I´ll look after you young boyohs this evening. Not a peep out of ya, hear me?" The secret drinking makes drinkin even more fun. Gerry lets off a whore of a smelly fart when Sean leaves. They cover their mouths not from the smell but to stop themselves from burstin out laughing. They have four pints more each. When Sean comes in with the fifth he whispers, "Here you go lads, get dat down ya and don´t forget, when you´re leaving, to make bloody sure you´re not seen by nobody and don´t be tellin anyone you´ve been here in me pub neither. The last thing I want is the Gardai comin in and shuttin me feckin down just because I was helping out two young thirsty strappin men like yourselves. Now do I?"

In 1958 dad's mother marries Mickey Moloney. He owns the electrical shop next door. Things are tense in the family as my dad doesn't like the fact he has a new male figurehead to answer to now. Secretly he despises the hole in the upstairs wall that now connects the two buildings. It has become a symbol of all that is wrong with the marriage of his mother to a new man. It may be a sign for him to move on in life and find his own way. At the far end of St. Patrick's street there is the dance hall called, "The Castle". As the years roll by that is where he now likes to go on a night off from the White Horse Inn when he feels like he needs a break. On one warm Indian summer Saturday evening in the year of 1961 he quickly sweeps the two bars, empties the ash trays, washes all the glasses and restocks all the drinks from the cases lying in rows along the bar floor. Turning out the lights and locking the front door behind him he steps out into the darkness of Main Street, Mountrath. Gerry Deegan, as ever, is puffing on a John Player waiting for him in his car. Within five minutes they are both standing in the Castle eyeing up all the fine Mountrath girls giggling on the other side of the hall.

”Colin, they are all gaspin for it tonight. With this heat we won't have any bother getting up close and personal and having a feel.” Colin's eyes wander up and down the line of girls. He spots one. He crosses the floor and prepares his mind to smoothly say, “Will ya dance?”

But, before he could say it to her, Fint Tynan has already got her up. He stands like an eejit in the middle of the floor and dares not turn on his heel cos the lads and Gerry will only take the almighty piss out of him. He continues on purposefully along the line of girls. To the left there is another pretty girl with long black hair, too pretty for him. She is like a film star. But he might as well ask her out. Getting the cold shoulder from her would be a lot better than having to explain to all the lads that he was beat to the punch by little Fint Tynan.

"Will ya dance?" "Yeah sure, but only because I feel a little sorry for you. I saw you get beat to the punch by Fint Tynan for Nina´s hand in this dance."

"What´s your name?"

"Philomena, but everyone calls me Phyllis." She glides across the dance floor like an Egyptian queen who moves as if she is being transported on a throne far away across the oceans to Arabia for a royal wedding.

"Can I see you again?", he cheekily asks.

"That'll be hard. I am living in Galway and studying to be a nurse. You were lucky to see me this weekend. I don´t come home that often. It`s a bit too far to travel. The train only goes to Tullamore and my dad has to pick me up from there to get me to Mountrath."

"Well how about we have a day out in Tullamore every so often, I'll come and pick you up? I don´t want to let a beauty like you out of my sight without a fight. How about it?"

“Well OK then”.

Every two weeks Phyllis gets on that train down to Tullamore. Dad drives over to pick her up in the pub’s deliveries van. During the week the white van is used to deliver groceries to the farmers up the mountain who have an account at the White Horse Inn. Often the farmers can´t make it into town because of the work they have on during the week. It might even be calving time or harvest time and they welcome the fact that their supplies get delivered instead. Dad invites her to the Bridge House hotel for Sunday lunch. They hold hands under the table. They declare their love for each other in a matter of weeks. Dad can´t believe the beauty of the woman. He can´t believe his luck. He dreads every minute which passes that means one less minute spent together on this date.

"How can I hold on to this woman, this dark haired beauty? She has a good career ahead of her in the medical profession and what have I? Nothing but a  lowly paid position in my mother´s bar. This is all going to end in tears unless I can win the lottery or kidnap her away from a young girl's fancy life in Galway."

"While in Galway one might as well enjoy it", Francis says to Phyllis. "Forget about Colin while you are here. Whilst you are here with me we are going to have some fun."

"I can´t, I can´t Francis, Colin is the one for me. I can´t explain it, I just know it."

They court for months like this despite the distance between them. Colin knows now he has to have something to offer her if she is ever to accept his hand in marriage. But he has nothing, only his singing voice.

In the back lounge he serves another whiskey to the family accountant, Bill O Neil, who is slumped over the counter. The vapors of his sixth Jameson begin to set in. His tongue loosens and he says, "Colin there's something troubling me, I've something on my mind and I want to talk to you about it. Will ya listen?"

"Yes Bill what is it?"

"Colin, this place, this pub in which you have been a common low paid barman since your dad died, is actually yours and has been so for many years unbeknownst to you!"
"You must be mistaken, sure it's my Ma's pub?"

"No, it's yours Colin. I saw the will many years ago and I had another look at it recently when I was giving my files a good sorting out. It is definitely yours. Colin I am sorry, I wanted to tell you before but I didn't know how to all these years, I best be going now. I have had a bit too much to drink, All the best Colin. I'm sorry."

The next day he marched into Bills office on Main Street and demanded to see his dad's will. There he sees it in black and white with his own two eyes. The White Horse Inn was left in his name and only his. Colin there and then realises that his mother had been pretending all along to him that it was hers. It was the ultimate betrayal. The first emotion he feels is rage, enraged at been fooled into thinking he was obliged to pass his youth as nothing more than someone's else's bar assistant when he could have been his own boss fulfilling his Dad's dream in his home town running his own business and answering to no one. His own mum knew that, for two years, he had been dating Philomena Murphy down in the Crescent. Colin even had confessed to his mum that the biggest obstacle to marrying Filomena and starting a family was her father, Paddy's disapproval. He disapproved because he could see that Colin did not have any assets of his own or prospects for the future. He only worked as a bar assistant in his mother's pub! She knew all this but said nothing. Now all that was going to change, wasn't it?

Colin makes his mother and Michael Mahoney move out of the pub and into the house next door which she had already bought with her new husband. Colin tells his mother in no uncertain terms what he thinks of her underhanded actions at keeping the pub all for herself.

"Pack your things because I am going to marry the woman of my dreams and we are going to live alone in the pub together without your deceitful interference. You are no longer my mother and I will never refer to you as my mother ever again. From now on, I will only ever refer to you by your Christian name, Cis."

As soon as they get married the first thing Colin does is block up the wall in the front yard that joins his pub to his mother's new property. Yes she has moved out, but only to the next building along. But that is not the end of it. No sooner has the new wall been built than a huge kango hammer was put to one of the walls on the second floor. It happens to be the wall between the bathroom upstairs and his mother's next door kitchen. Michael and Cis are not going to be banned from their previous home that easily it seems.

Colin calls the police and in court the order is finally given to brick up the hole made in the upstairs landing and a injunction is given to Michael and Cis that says that they are not to set foot on the property of the White Horse Inn for 15 years.

A nervous truce settles over the feuding mother and son and many years pass by with few words spoken between them.

Colin settles into life as boss and sole worker in the White Horse Inn. As early as ten o clock in the morning, starting from the back lounge each fireplace has to be cleaned out and sufficient wood and coal placed beside it for later on in the day when it needs lighting. That takes Colin a good twenty minutes. He drags the Hoover out from underneath the stairs and makes it suck up every fag butt and burnt out match stick in the back lounge and the front lounge. With a long gray well used sweeping brush he gets every last bit of dirt up from the middle bar floor. He wipes down the black round seat backs used in conjunction with the long soft seated furnished bench that is set against the hallway passage wall. Once they are wiped he runs another clean j-cloth along the bar counter to bring out their reflective black shiny enameled gloss!

Then both the ladies toilet and the men's have to be restocked with toilet paper and cleaned with Jay's fluid disinfectant. The smell of stale urine and matured vomit was what made Colin retch when doing this most unpleasant of all tasks. But he had a business to open and a family and wife to feed and clothed.

Finally with a flourish he swept the hallway from the backdoor down to the street and removed the long bars that crossed the length of both entrances to the pub. The time, eleven o clock in the morning. Now to sit behind the bar for the first customer of the day.

That day the first customer arrived at two fifty three in the afternoon! This is what you have to do when you start to create a family. This is what you have to do day in, day out, as you begin to plan and create your very own small tribe.

In 1963 Michael is born. Oh what a baby.

Yes, Michael is no longer a glint in the eyes of my dad but the very first member of the Phelan tribe. In the winter of nineteen sixty three, he is born into a world where small town Ireland revolves predictably and lazily around everyday life. Profumo has resigned in the UK over having sex with Christine Keeler. He is not resigning because the public discovered that a pensionable respectable married man was having sex with another woman half his age but because the public knew that she was having sex with a Russian spy too. The government and the country implied that this was a step too far and they could not allow him to let slip some government secret while he was in the throws of orgasm or even afterwards when she finally rolls off him. Imagine the situation, imagine the risk and now, imagine the scandal.

"Tell me a government secret my love. You know it makes me all hot and wet and horny when I hear governmental secrets Mr. Profumo."

"Splendid. You know what Christine my love? I have just learned that the prime minister is actually planning on launching long range ballistic missiles on Moscow next week. Now pray tell, does that make you horny? Is that the type of stuff my pumpkin wants to hear?"

"Oh, yes Mr. Profumo. Oh yes, more, more, much more, I am coming!"

More symbolic for the arrival of Michael in the eyes of Phyllis is the visit of John F. Kennedy to Ireland. JFK is the type of son they already hope for in Michael.

“Sure doesn’t he have John F K´s looks? He is dark, small and handsome just like JFK. Michael could be a future leader of Ireland couldn’t he? Sure he may be the greatest thing ever to happen to this Phelan clan. The visit of the American president may be an omen for the future. Welcome Michael. Welcome Michael Phelan into this wicked world.“

JFK is assassinated in Dallas within weeks of giving birth to Michael.

“Ah well, a life of a good man is extinguished as a new one is dawning”, Phyllis sighs. “God only knows what lays ahead now for my first baby in such uncertain times?”

Within months there is a rumble in the jungle and Phyllis and Colin soon are dancing to the beat of the drum that is announces the imminent arrival of Alan Phelan. Just like the newest baby in the UK´s Royal family, Prince Andrew, this second baby touches down into their lives on a leap year. In order to get Alan’s first months off to an exciting start Ronny Biggs and friends board a Royal Mail train and steal the most amount of money ever stolen in the UK. The court decides that they should serve three hundred years in total for this crime. Somebody must be truly embarrassed and pissed off for that to happen. The British have their priorities all wrong. Just look at how wrong they got the Independence of India in the forties. Instead of leaving behind a united independent country they left behind a divided fractious one with the newly created Pakistan in the north. And now Nehru, who masterminded the creation of Pakistan, has just died. It is obvious that, despite his death, his new nation will live on arguing with the older neighbor India. The world is a divided belligerent greedy place. Nelson Mandela, a lawyer driven to terrorism by apartheid is unjustly jailed in South Africa. Three civil rights activists are found murdered, probably by white extremists, in Mississippi in the USA. Why are we living in a world where the honest and the fair minded are still being repressed by the rich and powerful?

On top of all that Winston Churchill has died across the water. The country is in mourning, the end of era has arrived. The people realise that he saved them from the tyranny of a Third Reich. How different Europe would now be if the German army had succeeded in achieving Hitler’s goal of “Total War”. Is the world coming to an end? A US space probe has crashed on the moon. Will they ever conquer the challenges of space and will the human race ever set foot on the surface of another planet?

The possibilities of new horizons in the evolution of man being reached are almost palpable as another baby is born into the Phelan clan one year after Alan. Michael and Alan will have to share the attention of their mother with another soul and wait for their food as she prepares bottle after bottle to nourish their newest member, David. This is all becoming too much work for one woman to handle. As Phyllis watches the TV they announce that Ronnie Biggs has escaped from jail and fled to Brazil. She wonders for a moment if she should escape from this life of nappies and sleepless nights.

"I suppose it could be worse Bridgie. Sure if I were an American woman, I could be one of those unlucky wives whose married to one of those fifty thousand Americans forced to go to Vietnam and fight in a war that has nothing to do with defending the freedom of the ordinary American. I mean, how silly and foolish they are to get involved in a war in which they don’t belong aren’t they?"

And then I was born to them in 1966!

Even though there is a window that looks into the bathroom, no one can look in as you are naked and vulnerable and lowered into the bath. I don't mind been seen naked, I am like that you see, I like naked, it fees comfortable to me. Now some people, they don't like that. Take my mother for instance, So far, I have never seen her naked. Well once I did, when I was born six months ago. She has a lovely body let me tell you. I don't even get to suckle on her nipples anymore. Now all I get is the powdered milk that Nestle makes for me. So tell me who is my real mother, Nestle or her. Anyway, as Josie holds me in one arm, she reaches down to the taps of the bath to start the water running. I wiggle a bit because she is holding me in an awkward way. I slip out under her arm and find myself tumbling and flying to the ground. The button of my baby outfit gets caught in her blouse and as a result I revolve in the air. Instead of hitting the ground with my feet, my head hits the yellow ceramic edge of the bath. The surface of my cranium bends in and my head flies back out and down to the ground where it smashes against the wet checkered yellow linoleum floor.

"Jesus, Jesus Mary and Joseph", shrieks Josie. "Oh Lord Phyllis is going to kill me, I have killed her baby. Wake up Gary, wake up, please wake up. Oh Lord, what have I done? Josie you dumb bitch, why didn't you keep a good hold of him with both hands. Now you are in trouble. Now you are done for."

Even though I felt like I was back in my mam's belly with my eyes wide shut I wasn't dead. I was feeling just very queasy and light and dizzy and shook up. I open my eyes, look up at ashen faced Josie and think,

"I am alright you stupid girl. I just feel strange in the head, very strange in the head."

Is this the kind of world in which I have to live from now on? One minute nice and warm and cozy and the next whacked over the head and knocked unconscious by the inconsiderate hand of another. Is this what awaits me? Is this the life I have to experience? It does not sound too rosy to me. It does not bode well at all. Is this just a one way ticket out of my mam's belly? Perhaps it is still not too late to go back to where I came from, go back to a place where there no heavy knocks, no thumps, no cold air, no clumsy handling, no expectations of me to walk and talk and earn this thing called money.

"Can I go back please, can I go back, I have had enough, I want a refund?"

Being a sickly child with Asthma and Eczema I was covered in a sheet of my mother's anxiety and her battle with God for a cure to my suffering.

To my mother my happiness was secondary to finding a miraculous cure. Whenever I got adventurous, she always steered me away into something safer.

Mam went to doctor Doolin in Durrow many times and he gave her an old war medal, a piece of Padre Pio's habit and a holy candle. He promised her if she placed the cloth and the medal on my chest and melted candle wax over it while saying the rosary God would come and intervene in my illness. I guess I got my passion for alternative medicine from my mother's dabbling with quacks and semi quacks. Even though I look back with scorn and pity at these desperate attempts I ironically will defend Reike and Buddhism and the Natural herbal remedies of today.

In that respect my search has come full circle and now I appreciate her openness to try something new and alternative.

Not having many memories of this part of my childhood I do recall photos, those black and white ones with the frayed edges. There I am sitting on a pony in a sailor's hat with my Dad holding the reins and I excited out of my wits at being on top of such a warm blooded huge beast, feeling free for the first time in my life. I was scared but wanted to see where I would go and who I would meet.

"You can become a millionaire during your First Communion", they said to me.

St. Fintan's church yard was a big open space for a boy of six years and when I stood outside this church in my bright red first communion suit I felt smaller and cuter than I had ever felt before. I felt special and even more so when many parents whom I had barely known asked me to stand in for a photo with their own girls all beautifully dressed in white lace. I didn't mind at all as long as the compliments of how gorgeous I looked kept flowing. It made a change to receiving attention only for been poorly. At the same time I couldn't wait to go to all the houses and shops looking for money and saying cutely and shyly "It's my first communion.....(blush...blush) , would you like to make a contribution?" I planned with military precision to visit in the afternoon Martin's news agents, Georgie Galbraith's, Mortimer's, O Rourke's Chemist and the butchers. If I was clever I could cross the road and milk PJ Delaney's, Mckevitt's and Walsh's as well. I wouldn't dare go into Keegan's or Lawlor's. They had always put the fear of God into me and I wouldn't be sure if I would come out alive. Now if I was even cleverer I could skip around the roundabout and also pay a friendly visit to Mary O Rourke's and Deegan's. It was a bit like going on the wren only that was on St. Stevens's Day, the day after Christmas Day, but this was summer and people gave more when the sun was shining.

Only a few hours later and my pockets were brimming with notes and coins and Da and Nana wanted to see me in my red suit and white slacks. We stood at the bottom of their garden and they stood proudly beside looking down at this meek little boy on one of the happiest days of his life. It was a pity for apart from getting loads of dosh, I still didn't understand what all the adult fuss was about with this thing called First Communion.

It was shortly after that my skin got worse and worse and I just couldn't stop scratching it. The main areas of irresistible irritation were the underside of my wrists, the inside of my elbow area, behind my knees, around my ankles, behind my shoulders and underneath my cheekbones along my neck. They felt on fire as they screamed to me like a banshee demanding me to remove all the layers of skin that lay above any itch promising me eternal bliss if I did so in that instant. I knew I shouldn't trust a banshee but the temptation was enormous, so I complied fervently every time.

It was when I was thinking or worrying about something that I would begin to rub the insides of my wrist. Rub rub rub rub rub. The skin grew redder and redder and began to burn. When it began to burn it felt lovely. That lovely feeling made me mad with desire to rub it more until the rubbing wasn't giving me enough pleasure. I found that my nails dragged across the same area gave me that intense pleasure. So, forming one hand into a claw I dug away at the reddened burning skin until I broke through to the other side. I looked down to see that my skin was now not only red and swollen but weeping and sore, so sore I had to leave it for a day or two to dry up and ease the pain. But even though it dried up a little, the sore still kept on weeping and weeping.

All I had to do to start off the burning desire again was to approach the dried up scab that covered the inside of my wrist with one sharp finger nail and gently push it underneath the scab and lift upwards. Half if not the whole scab came off in one go revealing a gorgeous sea of weeping open itchy flesh. It felt so nice to pick at the scab that I hoped it wouldn't all come off in one go. Like eating a choc ice, it is no fun if all the chocolate comes off with one prod of your tongue. If it comes off in small pieces your anxiety builds and builds driving you deliciously demented. You feel so proud by the end when you have completely removed all the chocolate and nothing remains but the naked vulnerable melting vanilla ice cream that is about to be attacked from all sides. I often wondered if I could pull all the skin off my body in one sweeping movement would I end up as a huge tall weeping living mobile sore.

At what age do we learn to be deceitful?

Christmas is that period when we are taught as children that we will only receive whatever we want from Santa as long as we request it in a letter which we must send to the North Pole. Meanwhile we must at our peril behave reasonably well in the months running up to that special day of delight, the 25th of December.

I wanted a cowboy suit that particular year and I made it very clear in my letter I wanted one.

Suddenly it's the night before Christmas and I just couldn't sleep. I twisted and I turned and all I could think about was my cowboy suit and my two silver guns. You know the ones I mean. The ones that fit into the brown leather gun holster that straps on to your waist like a belt. I was going to be the meanest coolest dude in town and I just couldn't wait.

Everyone had gone to bed four hours ago and I couldn't wait any longer. Santa must have come and gone by now and so I decided it wouldn't matter if I discover in the morning or now if he had left me my cowboy suit and guns. I never had noticed how squeaky my bedroom door was before. Every inch I opened it I wanted to die, as it creaked and squeaked my life away. But at least my bedroom was at the top of the landing, and the landing and stairs were covered in enough blue paisley carpet so as that no one would really hear me sneak downstairs into the living room. Yes, the same living room where I had learned to drive my plastic race car the previous year. It felt like an hour had passed as I reached the last step at the bottom of the stairs only to find as I bent the handle down and gently pushed, the bloody living room door was making even more creaking noises than my bedroom door. But hey, I'd gotten this far hadn't I? I'd might as well go all the way!

There, in the corner on the far side of the fireplace were a hundred stars blinking all around our Christmas tree. Reds, purples, yellows, whites, blues and browns all shining and reflecting off the white tinsel and baubles that wrapped themselves around our tree like a child wraps his arms around his mum who provides every little precious thing he needs.

At the base were all these lovely presents all wrapped and shiny and square. Santa had left even more this year. Of course the biggest one must be mine! And there it was, all big and square and as I looked at the label tied to the ivy green ribbon it read, "For Carl!"

Carl! That's right Carl. Not Gary! Just Carl! It can't be! Why is he getting the biggest present and not me? Beside it was a package half the size with my name on it. "For Gary". As I studied my brother's huge present I saw the wrapping was loose enough to see, if I was careful, what kind of present lay underneath. As I lifted the edge of the silver wrapping I could see the transparent plastic covering of his present and through this plastic cover I could see a full cowboy suit and a pair of silver guns. NO! I was suppose to get this present! Santa knew I wanted these things. It must be a mistake. Doing the same with my present I lifted the edge of the silver wrapping. I could see that it was a transparent plastic truck with all the mechanical bits easily visible in order to let you know how a truck works when it is moving. Wow! Big Deal! I am not into trucks this year! How could Santa get it so wrong. Maybe he was in a hurry and put the labels on incorrectly. Of course that is it folks, isn't? I thought, so if I change the names on the presents around then I would be doing him and me a big favour saving my brother a lot of confusion. Nobody would ever know it happened not Carl, not my brothers and definitely not my parents whose only concern was that Santa ate his piece of Christmas cake and drank his bottle of Guinness stout that they had left out for him on a small table in the kitchen! Which happily he had. I could see out of the corner of my eye as I was kneeling down in front of the Christmas tree one empty plate with crumbs plus one empty black bottle of Guinness.

I woke late Christmas day to find that Santa had brought me exactly what I wanted! My parents looked very perplexed at me but strangely said nothing. Carl was bored within an hour of playing with his truck and I had, I think, one of the best Christmases ever, running around all day shooting all my brothers dead again and again as I dived behind one sofa after another after another! Don't you just love the magic of Christmas!

When I was a sickly child suffering from late night attacks of asthma and eczema my dad and my mum would try to distract me from my suffering and thus alleviate somewhat my frustration and anxiety. It worked the majority of the time. Of course the greater the suffering, the greater the distraction I seemed to need.

Usually I would be allowed downstairs to play cards in the back lounge with the fire lit so as I would not get a chill. Mum would stay up most of the night with me playing twenty five, generously allowing me to win on many occasions. I loved playing this game. Each player gets five cards and each player places a card on the table to see which person has the better card. If I laid a black card, like a club or a spade, then mum would have to lay a lower card of the same suit or a picture card like a jack, queen or king to win. If I laid down a coloured card then mum would have to lay down a higher card of the same suit. Of course the best part of the game was having special cards in your hand. These were magic cards that gave you an enormous opportunity to win the game in one dealing. In order of merit, these were the five of trumps (trumps being the suit of the first card turned over on the deck after dealing each player their five cards), second best was the jack of trumps, third best was the ace of hearts and the last magical card was the ace of trumps. God my hearts skips a beat still when ever I get one of these cards in my opening hand. We would play for 2 or three hours until I felt so tired and exhausted that I would sleep after each of the earlier attacks.

One Christmas Santa gave me a car. Not a dinky but a real life size car. Well big enough to fit my 5 year old frame onto. Only instead of an engine it had pedals. Mum and Dad had bought it in preparation of my nights of suffering to come.

Each night the attacks came, Mum would say, "Time for your driving lesson Gary". In my pyjamas I tip toed down the stairs in order not to wake my brothers and my father. In the kitchen she would move back the brown wooden chairs that surround the dining table giving me a clear run all the way through into the kitchen. To me it was as good as a formula one track. My car was made of a red orange plastic with a black steering wheel and black pedals and a black seat. The steering was very sensitive to my touch and best of all was that I could reverse into any space by pedaling backwards! Night after night after night these words uttered by my lovely caring mum were repeated so much that now they have become part of my, forever memory. "Straight ahead, left up along side the dishwasher, stop, reverse back along side the kitchen door, right turn into the kitchen, straight ahead up to the cupboards, stop, reverse back along to the kitchen door, reverse, stop, right turn back through the door into the living room, straight ahead to the lounge door, stop, right turn going straight to the wall and stop alongside the dining room table, stop, reverse back to within one yard of the radiator, 3 point reverse turn, head straight ahead, stop at the lounge door, right out through the lounge door, go around the pool table and back here into the living room. Good Gary. Now lets do that again without making so many mistakes. Are you ready. Yes, Yes, Yes Mammy!

I remember that one time my parents were affluent enough to have a series of nannies to look after us, the children. Does a nanny make a difference to the development of a child's personality?

I remember one, Josie Dollard. Well to be more precise she remembers me. Josie has always been cheerful and cheeky to me. She comes from Woodbrook, a looked down upon part of Mountrath which is found on the way out to Abbeyleix.

I don't remember the faces of any other nanny but I know there were a few. I don't know the real reason my mum couldn't handle us all on her own.

One evening I was been bathed by one. The bathroom was next to Moloney's house and the window to the bathroom was one of those that had bubbles in it to prevent anyone from looking in. The toilet seat squashed up against the yellow bath .......

The bathing time I dreaded most was when I had to get into the sea down in Curracloe. But I did enjoy the adventure of going down there.

Temple Street.

They doctors kept me there for 3 weeks. One time a nurse locked me into a cupboard in the hallway and threatened not to let me out until I promised to stop getting out of my bed to wander around the world of little sick children. This terrified me. She left me in there for twenty minutes and it stank of surgical disinfectant and dead cockroaches. I wasn't a happy bunny. When our parents came to visit us the first time they brought me a large bottle of lucozade, a jumbo packet of cheese and onion Tayto crisps, a large bar of Cadbury's fruit and nut and always some fresh fruit like an apple and an orange. It was the only thing I looked forward to during all of the first week as they constantly removed and wrapped eighty per cent of my body in tarred bandages.

As soon as they, left nurse Kennedy came over and scooped up all of the sweets and drink and warned me that I would only get them back when I left. The only thing she would allow me to eat was the horrible hospital food and the fruit that was given to me by my visitors. Well I balled my poor wee eyes out that day and had an asthmatic attack there and then because of her mean behaviour.

For the rest of two weeks I hid as much chocolate and crisps as possible under my pillow before she came to steal them away!

Why was I sent to O Connell's private school and not to St Fintan's primary school like the rest of my brothers? I guess it was because I had just come out of Temple street, the children's hospital in Dublin, and had missed a lot of lessons in St Fintan's primary school.

I had to catch up with my studies and that meant getting some private tuition from Mrs O Connell. Lessons were given in the kitchen. During the break I would go outside into her yard to kick football. I felt kinda special to have my own private teacher. I don't know how long I was at her private school but I know it was long enough for me to make friends with their children Eoghan, Deidre and Ciara.

They had a long yard like ours going down to the river. If it wasn't for my acquaintance with one of the O Connell sisters, Deidre, I would probably not have had my first brush with infamy.

Deidre was coincidently having her First Communion with me too. Her mum and my mom both plotted days before to have our photographs taken afterwards outside the church yard. The thing is I didn't think this would be a big thing as it seemed everyone else was doing the same with their children and friends.

Two factors conspired to make this photo appear out of nowhere later on in my life. One, Deidre went on to become one of the most mischievous and cheeky girls in Mountrath girls convent and two, I was the only innocent tiny platinum blonde boy of seven wearing an outrageous bright red jacket for his First Communion.

I learnt how to ride a bike in our back yard. I am proud to say the bike was a golden Raleigh Chopper which came initially with balancing wheels and later without once I got the basics down pat! The day we removed the balancing wheels I remember my Dad holding the back of the bike as I stepped up on some grey cases of empty Guinness bottles in order to throw my leg over the saddle. Around and round the yard he pushed me as I got use to steering and peddling the chopper. Sometimes he would, without warning let go of the bike and I would let out a yelp of fear and excitement whilst still trying to steer and peddle all on my own. Each time as I was about to lose control and wobble my way into the side whitewashed wall which separated our home from Moloney's, I would feel the strong arm of my Dad grab hold of the back of the bike once again. He'd steady my balance and give me the confidence to have a go once more at steering and peddling the bike. My chopper had three gears. The gear stick with its red plastic top was placed right down the middle of the bike in between my legs. To me they were really flash especially since nobody else in town had their gears down the middle of their bike like me. Oh yeah!

Things were getting better at primary school. My favourite teacher Jean Simmons was preparing some of us to put on a Christmas show for the parents. But first we had to learn how to march. This was great cos we were missing loads of mathematic classes and loads of religion classes. At the front of the school nearest to Patrick Street was the activities room. It had wooden oak beams, high ceilings and tall windows. It felt like we were in the bowels of a cathedral every day as we learnt how to march. I needed something to keep my mind off my fiery skin and, trying to get my left arm swinging out in front of me when my right leg stepped forward, was the very challenge I needed. It took me almost two weeks to get that right. Luckily once I got that sorted, my right hand, all of its own accord, swung out in front of me body as I stepped forward on the left foot. That stroke of luck saved me another two weeks of marching practice. Mrs Simmons marched us around the corners of the room in a circle. It was tricky on the corners cos I had to swing on one foot and step out on the other. Then she marched us diagonally from one corner to the next, back and forth, back and forth, criss crossing, criss crossing. It would have put any sea captain into a watery spin.

"Phelan, you are swinging your right when you step forward with your right. What did I tell you, left with right, right with left, right? Got it? Now march! We have only two days to go to the Christmas show."

Her voice penetrated me like an arrow. She was twenty yards away but her aim was perfect. Deego whispered to me to do a skip and a hop. That works for him when he messes up. What? Do a skip and a bloody hop? What are you bloody on about Deego? Are ye mad? I tried it. I looked down and saw low and behold that my arms and legs had fallen back into synchronisation.

The big day came. In front of all the parent we stood in bright white t-shirts with blue ribbons in both our hands. Off went the normal lights and on went three long lines of blue fluorescent bulbs. On went the song, "Yellow Submarine", from The Beatles and off we marched, in squares, in circles and in those awful awful criss crosses. It was a proud moment for me and the more I marched the more proud I felt to be doing something artistic and choreographed just like theys do in them Winter Olympics gymnastics on TV. I didn't care that me teeth were shining out of the back of my head like the minstrel man on a Lyon's tea box, or that I was twirling blue ribbons like a fairy or that I had to do Deego's "skip and a hop"twice during the night to get back into synch with Mark Winters in front and Fran Kelly behind.

Mam was there. She looked beautiful in her black and white shawl. I could see her from the stage with the lights off. She shone like one of Martin's whipped ice cream cones. She said I was wonderful and the most coordinated lily white marcher she had ever seen. "Mind you, I don't want you getting any notions now about joining the army when you grow up. You look like one of God's chosen angels up there on stage and it made me cry to think He might even be singling you out already to work for him and his flock of sinners in the future".

"Ah Mam shush."

My grandma died when I was only nine. I never called her grandma, I only called her Nana. I remember the night when she died. There were a lot of strangers in our house that night. Nana lay in the front bedroom as everyone stood in the sitting room drinking bottles of Guinness and talking quietly. Their faces were sombrely lit by the candles burning in her memory.

I know this because I sneaked a look from the end of the landing corridor when I should have been in bed. Of course they spotted me and before Dad got close I ran pyjama clad back to my room. As he sat down, the bed began to sink, the covers tightened up around my body and it all made me feel immediately safe and warm. In the darkness and the strangeness of the evening I knew that everything was going to be OK. Well that was the final emotion I felt as my Dad lay his big warm eczema hardened right hand on my forehead and combed his fingers up through my shiny straight blonde hair. He did it again and again until he had made me fall into a deep long safe slumber. Goodbye Nana.

My own private adventure playground is The White Horse Inn an it garden. I loved hiding up on the roof. The best way to get up onto the flat roof of the kitchen in the yard was from the side of the oil tank that supplied the boiler with fuel. Incidentally the boiler room was a great place to hide when we played hide and seek but it tended to get a bit too hot and sweaty if you were in there in the dark too long waiting to be caught. Sometimes, it got so bloody hot I would give myself up or run out and try and find another hiding place nearby.

Anyway, once up on the roof of the oil tank it was just a short hop skip and jump along the wall and onto the kitchen roof. The roof was covered in black felt that smelled of tar and dirty oil. And it stank even more when a new layer was put down for winter protection against leaks and frost. But once on the roof the best hiding places of all were at my disposal. I could just hide there by lying flat. Nobody could see me even if they were sure I was hiding up there. If I was feeling really adventurous I would scale the drain pipe which hung over the long galvanised roof that covered the pub hallway This precarious climb boosted me up onto the top of next flat roof that covered all our bedrooms upstairs. One slip going up this drainpipe and I would have ended up crashing onto the hallway roof and then into Moloney's yard below. But it was worth the risk! Once up there I was king of the world. I could see all the way down to the bottom of our garden in front of me, I could see into Kissane's yard to the left of me and I could see all the ripest golden delicious apples in Georgie Galbraith's garden to my right. I spent hours alone up on this roof when I was young, happy to escape the house chores, happy to take in the fresh air of the blue sky above me and happy to enjoy a silent moment with the shiny black crows perched beside me who sometimes came to visit when I was on top of my childhood world.

I remember one Christmas when all of us were having a snowball fight in the back yard below.

The back yard consisted of two sections, in front of the whitewashed wooden fence and behind. The kitchen door and the pubs hallway door opened out into the front yard. This section also contained the green double wooden doors of the store where all our crates of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink were stacked up high to be kept dry. This front part housed the boiler room which gave us growing children all the warm central heating any comfortable well off middle class family could want and it contained that flat black felt roof that proved to be an irresistible temptation for all budding juvenile climbers in our family. The front yard was only about fifteen metres square but it was big enough to hit a ball up against the whitewashed brick wall that divided our yard from Moloney's yard which faced opposite our kitchen door and kitchen windows. This wall was about 6 feet high but looked like that it had been built in haste not a long time ago but strangely in recent years. If it was providing free access to Moloney's yard before then why was it now blocked up?

At the bottom of our property there was a garden almost fifty yards long and 10 yards wide. In it, when I was growing up, were a swing and a revolving clothes line. The swing was painted rusted red and sometimes I would hang happily upside down from one of the bars which supported the upside down V-shape poles that made up one side. Often with Ken Kennedy and Carl and whoever turned up on a sunny day we would throw down two pair of jumpers as goal posts and kick a football around until we ran out of breath or until we could hear from over the shed roof the cries of our mother from the back yard calling us in for our tea.

The back wall of the garden led out into O Rourke's field which had the most splendid huge chestnut tree in which we would sometimes spend hours climbing and hanging about unbeknownst to our parents who themselves didn't know where we had got to. The end wall had in one part a number of bricks removed which made it low enough to climb over if you were a child and even more easy if you propped a stick up against this section to give you a leg up and over into O Rourke's big field.

Crossing O Rourke's field to the left would lead you to a wired fence that protected the Protestant school, a foreboding place where you never wanted to get caught by the local Protestant priest, a monster of a man who seem to eat children for breakfast quite regularly. Turning left again as you climbed under the fence takes you down the concrete lane that the cars drove up to the school. This lane on the left was bordered by the high garden wall of the Kissane family. In this garden they grew wonderful raspberries, strawberries and gooseberries, rows and rows and rows of them. On the right hand side of the lane was a wire fence which marked the back end of the farmer's hall. The grass in summer was so high here we spent many afternoons playing hide and seek until the cows came home.

At the end of the lane was the main street where, a little bit to the left, the front of our pub could be found presenting it's initial image to the thirsty passing public. This route proved to be for me a very successful route to take when playing hide and seek with my brothers in our own house. When they thought I was hiding down in the garden somewhere I would have actually gone over the wall and all around again to come back in through the front door to sit down in the kitchen and have my tea. And when they gave up looking for me, they would come back in and find me there at the table or watching TV and say, " Where in the hell were you hiding?" I never told. Not until this day that is! I just said, "Oh, I just went to Kissanes to see if Animal was there."

From the windows of my bedroom I can see Kissanes, with the red roof of the shed they had in their yard. From this window I sometimes dream of running across the rooftops of the houses to their house to play. It wasn't that far away really. I only had to climb up on to Moloney's flat kitchen rooftop jumping across to the big spruce tree that leant over onto Martin's inverted v-shaped corrugated grey roof top and then slide down the far side to the wall that overlooked Kissanes.

I was a little frightened of Mr Kissane. A big burly brusque kerryman. I never found out how a kerryman had ended up in Mountrath but if nothing else he was a clever interesting big man whose bellow always put the fear of God in me. He had as a passion the most bizarre thing. In his yard he had a pig pen. Imagine that, a pig farm in the middle of town not more than two doors down from our pub. He wasn't a butcher. He just decided he wanted to breed pigs in his yard. Of course that meant that his sons Donal, Ciaran, Kevin and Benny all had to muck in. But I must admit, I was a little jealous of them because of this. They got to do all these wonderful strange things that their dad got himself into. The pig shed was to the right of the first part of their own yard on the same side as the black wooden kitchen door. Their kitchen always felt warm and welcoming. I often would call to their house knowing that none of the boys were in only to feel the warmth of their kitchen stove. Once there, I'd sit down with a family grown up like Mrs Kissane or Dan Kissane and feel like as if I was a grown up as well. Mrs Kissane was not a pretty woman by any standards but she had a contorted beaming smile that you could only warm to when you walked into that kitchen. Hobbling around the kitchen like the hunchback of Notre Dame she kept it spotless and homely. The big kettle was always ready to go into action to make the hottest big mug of tea you ever saw.

"Come in, come in. Sit yourself down there at the table and I'll make you a nice cup of tea. Ciaran is not home at the moment but he will be back in half an hour. There's sugar there on the table."

Hobbling to and fro I'd sit with my legs crossed and my hands under my bum to keep warm and wait gleefully for her to serve me, knowing full well I am the centre of her attention.

"Hold on a second, Mary would love to see you". Mary Kissane is another weird member of the family. But she liked me and I liked Mary even though I felt strange whenever we talked. I didn't know why but everyone treated Mary in a strange way to the rest of the family.

"Oh Gary Phelan, is that you?
"Yes Mary".

"Isn't great that you came today? Well now, weyyyyll ah now, is my mudder getting yo you a cup of tea? "

"Yes Mary."

"Weyll, weyyyyyll that's nice."

"Yes Mary."

"Weyll Ciaran isn't here, and Donal is is out gettin his bike fixed. Now, how is is is Mrs Phelan your mudder?"

"She is fine Mary."

"And and and how is David and Carl?"

"Fine too Mary."

"And and Michael and Alan?"

"Fine Mary!"

Proud as punch she sits there in silence once she has reeled of all the names of my family, genuinely happy to know they are all still well. The only person she never mentions is my dad.

Then the kitchen yard door opens and in walks Big Dan Kissane.

"Well, Gary Phelan, if it isn't Gary Phelan", he bellows out with the smile of a child as he bends down to pluck off his Wellington boots and place them behind the door to the yard. The red and black slippers he puts on means he is ready for his cup of tea and a chat with me. Sitting across the brown lino covered kitchen table he looks across at me at right angles to the position he sits in. I want to tell him all my troubles and all that I did that day. I wanted to tell him all that troubled me an ask him such important things such as if there really was a Santa. Big Dan seemed to know everything.

Well now, did you know, did you know that when Eamon De Velera became president of this country he was once the leader of thousands of rebels dead set on not recognising the Irish Republic in the first place when the free state was originally born? Did you know that young Gary Phelan?

"No Mr Kissane. Tell me more!"

The excitement of going to Curracloe for my summer holidays began for me as we loaded up the blue Peugeot 505. It was going to be a long road trip so in went the tartan blankets, flasks of tea, ham and cheese sandwiches, two large screw cap bottles of Dwan's orange and five packets of cheese and onion Taytos for the five boys. By the time we get down to Enniscorthy all the food is drank and the drink eaten! I had a fair share. I could feel the crumbled Taytos sitting and swirling around in my stomach. David sat with his legs crossed and arms crossed in the back corner all the way to Curracloe, sitting there just being cross.

It's hot and airless in the back of the car even though we are in our long shorts. The Bay City Rollers sing out from the radio, "'I'll be your long legged lover from Liverpool and I'd do anything you say ...." Mam goes to change the station because of the lascivious lyrics and we think it is because she wants to hear Gay Byrne's morning slow. Mam would prefer if we were going for two weeks to the Bahamas. She feels she ought to have a life like the rich who switch effortlessly between many of the exotic homes that they own all around the world. "We know Mam that you deserve better than looking after three sickly children for many years and a husband who can't give you the luxuries you were told you would have one day by my grandmother Nana who doted on you, her only daughter, all her life".

Once we arrive in Enniscorthy we know we are almost there. We can for the first time smell the pungent sea air. The sun reflects off the water and Enniscorthy castle reminds me of the rebellion that almost brought the English to their knees. But the battle of Eniscorthy was doomed from the start. For every ten that were willing to die for the freedom of Ireland there was one who was willing to spy on their plans for a few slivers of gold. So the english knew in advance of the rebel's every move.This caused massacre after massacre driving Irish rebellion underground for another hundred years. Driving over the bridge we turn left into Murphy's caravan park and pull up alongside our cream and brown mobile home. Opening the door of the mobile home we get a whiff of old furnitue and old bedding. This was the whiff of a summer holiday just about to begin. The caravan park is two hundred yards from the beach sand dunes. In between is the marsh land yet to be developed. It smells of manure. We do not care. As soon as we offload everything we head for the beach. We race each other over the dunes and down to the water's edge. I lose, David wins. Rolling up the legs of my trousers a sudden wave rolls in over my feet. It sends a chill up my body and I run back up the beach. "It's freeeezing", I scream to Mam and Dad. But I love it really. That is as far as I want to go. The salty water is an enemy of my skin. Because of my eczema, every part of my body that has been wounded by my scratching turns into a sea of pain when the salty seawater washes over it.

That is enough. I am off to Murphy's arcade at the entrance to the beach just in front of the whispy candyfloss dunes. Speaking of candyfloss, I have enough money to buy one. My mouth trys to wrap itself around a pink pillow of pure sugar. It only manages a tiny fraction of its intended aim. The explosion of melting sugar in the mouth make me swoon like the first kiss of a young girl. The change left over lets me play the amusements. Some machines have an iron steel ball which you send flying all over the shop with a flick of a silver piston lever on the right had side of this vertical rectangle block. If I manage with skill to land it in a certain slot I can win double what I spent. Two times two pence is four pence. I am rich. I am off to races. In the middle of the arcade is a long machine with plastic horses lined up inside waiting for the starting gun. I bet on horse number six, black beauty, and she wins by a neck. Four more pence. This day will never end if I keep winning like this. I think I deserve an ninety nine ice cream cone. Before I wrap my lips around the milky ice cream I remove the cadbury's flake from the cone making sure to scoop up some ice cream with the tip of this ripply chocolate stick. With one bite, the chocolate crumbles and disperses all over inside the walls of my mouth. The ice cream soothes the hot flushes of chocolate heaven that are invading my body. Oh I love been in Curracloe.

My dad knew he had to get into the greyhound game. He had been looking after his mother's dogs for years. Now with her removed from the pub he could use the small room behind the bottle shed to house his first two 2 dogs. His childhood experiences had thought him how to feed them, breed them, walk them and race them. All he needed was a bit of luck and he might just come up with a true winner.

Unfortunately that meant many years of getting up early and taking the dogs, in the van, out to the Slieve Bloom mountains letting them run free. But mostly it meant walking them with dog leads so as to give them some form of regular daily exercise. My responsibility was to make sure they got their dog nuts everyday or rather on the days I was told to feed them. I felt sorry for them sometimes. I felt sorry for them because they were cooped up in a small concrete room with a green wooden door at the end a yard behind a country pub. It just didn't seem fair. Alcatraz surrounded by alcohol. Once, I dreamt I had gone downstairs in the middle of the night and out through the kitchen door, tip toeing down the yard, releasing the latch on their door to free them from their prison forever. They ran past me down the hallway of the pub and out into the streets of Mountrath down towards the fountain and beyond along the banks of our own river, the White Horse. Then I sneaked back up into bed pulling the pink fluffy rimmed top blanket and the heavy brown under blankets over my head. In my foetal position under those covers I swear I heard, as I waited for dawn to arrive, the joyous barks of those greyhounds as they discovered the open fields and hills of the midlands of Ireland.

5 years later,one dog which was aptly named, "Time Up Please", was strangely beginning to show promise at the racetrack. It was winning many of the local meetings easily. She won in Portlaoise. She won in Tullamore by two lengths beating the outright favourite, "Playboy of the Western World". He won in Roscrea. And finally she won in Kilkenny. My Dad was over the moon. Every other week over the next year their was a new story of victory to tell the regulars in the pub. Batty O Rourke was jealous. He kept greyhounds himself and he was use to coming in for his pint of Guinness and a double Paddy Powers whiskey to lambaste the latest disaster my Dad had at the races. But these last months things had changed. "Time Up Please"was winning and Batty's whiskey was getting more and difficult to swallow. One Friday night he gave my Dad some advice.

"Ah ya better sell him before he breaks a leg. Now he's worth something to you with all these wins under his belt but it is probably a fluke he has so many. But to someone else he looks great and you would get great money for him Colin. Sell him, sell him quick before he breaks a leg."

The next week in Roscrea, "Time Up Please"limped in last because of a toenail that was split and digging into his foot. Colin remembered the words of warning from Batty O Rourke urging him to cut hi losses. In a rush of panic he put the word out at the races and in the racing press that he wanted to sell, "Time Up Please". Batty O Rourke naturally, was delighted.

" It's the best thing you ever did Colin. Wait and see. He's too old for racing now. You did the right thing."

Within a few days Jimmy McCreedy from Athboy made an enormous offer for "Time Up Please". It was so big my Dad thought it was a mistake. It was six hundred pounds the equivalent to the yearly wage of Frank McKenna who worked down in the sawmills but was now sitting in front of the Guinness tap propped up by one very supportive elbow. Batty O Rourke came in at a quarter to eleven as usual that Friday night.

"Jesus Colin, you'd be a fool not to take the money and run before he changes his mind. How about a free double Paddy for this advice while you are there at the optics?"

The day came to hand over "Time Up Please". We all stood at the end of the hallway holding the lead. We looked down at him and he looked up at me and I knew he didn't want to go. I knew my Dad didn't want to sell him. I knew a light would go out of his eyes once he was gone. He brought so much magic to our family. He was more than a racing greyhound. He was an angel. I could have sworn I heard the dog saying to my Dad,

"You deserve all the joy I bring from winning your races. I loved winning for you. You were such a gentle and kind master, so much so that it was easy for me to beat all those unhappy dogs that I lined up with in the traps. You should have heard all the stories they told of the poor lives they had at home. And now, I hope and trust you have found a good master for me. I hope he will have some lovely children for me to play with like I had here. Thank you, thank you.

Then as the Jimmy McCreedy's van pulled up Time Up Please turned his watery eyes away and bowed his head, accepting his new faith.

Two years later on a Friday night about a quarter to eleven at night in came Batty O Rourke into the bar.

"Night Colin! Can I have just enough change for a pint of Guinness and a double Paddy", letting off a huge cackle that made everyone's head turn to realise that yep Batty was in at last tonight and he had something up his sleeve and he wanted everybody to listen in to what he had to say.

"God Colin, didn't I tell you not to sell Time Up Please? Sure didn't he win the Limerick national finals last week? That purse won Jimmy McCreedy twenty times what he paid you for him. Didn't I tell you he was a great pup and that you'd be mad to sell? You should have listened to my advice. What do ya think lads? He should have kept him, what? Wha, wha, wha, wha, wha, wha!"

Sure enough he had won the biggest race in the whole island. And instead of anger or sadness, Colin felt a warm feeling inside of pride and a big smile came over his face. One thought strangely filled his mind and that was, "Sure Jimmy McCreedy must have had some lovely playful children in his family too!"

Another year past and on another Friday night Batty O Rourke came in at half past ten, earlier than usual.

"Colin, Colin did you ya read the papers today. It's "Time Up Please". Sure hasn't he gone and won the Limerick National final for the second year in a row.

"No!"

Before another word was said Frank McKenna from the end of the bar raised his pint of the black stuff and shouted "Three cheers, three cheers for "Time Up Please". The bar erupted and above the last "Hip Hip Hurray"Batty O Rourke shouted.

"Stop, stop, stop all your shoutin! Colin, that's not all. Its Jimmy. Jimmy McCreedy is dead, dead as a door nail from a heart attack. He died last night at the race track watching in disbelief as "Time Up Please"won the biggest race in Ireland for the second time in a row, a feat never achieved before in the history of greyhound racing. His heart couldn't take it and he must've just dropped like a stone!

And that's why you will be instead growing old like a willow tree, seeing all of your sons take life head on. Four of them will produce between them eight gorgeous grand children all carrying your genes creating the newest generation of the Phelan clan. Yes you will be there to see it all happen. Now that's a result that can't be all that bad, can it Colin?"

One Sunday my Dad went with Da to Kilkenny to visit the kennels where Dad had to leave the greyhounds. On the way back Dad stopped near Durrow at Flemings pub.

" I want to stop here for a drink Da. Do you mind?"

"I don't drink don't you know? I haven't drank a drop since I started to pay the rent on that house of mine back in nineteen sixty one. And if you think after eighteen years I am going to start now you have another thing coming to you Colin Phelan."

"But Paddy you paid of the balance of the house price last month thanks to the council turning your rent into mortgage payments. You are now in possession of the deeds to your own house at the age of sixty five. Now that is something to celebrate is it not?"

"I suppose. But that pub in front of us is shut at eleven o clock in the morning."

"Let me check first damn you."

Coming back Colin says, "Well if that pub is shut then I don't know where all that laughter and music is coming from inside. It is jammed packed Paddy I tell you. Come on, what are you having?"

"Alright then, alright you blaggard, I feckin well should know better, I will have a pint of Smithwicks and a Jamesons and you won't force a diligent pioneer like myself to have one more after that. Sure once inside, Big Jim Fleming, closed behind them the doors with his master key and only after five rounds were they allowed out onto the road to Mountrath again. Paddy had scored but, was now back on the drink.

I am ten going on eleven and starting to wonder what lies beyond the boundaries of Mountrath. Martin Moore lives on the other side of the road from our house on Main St, Mountrath right beside the post office. He says,

"Come on let's go to Portlaoise."

"But Martin I don't have any money to go and I'm not allowed. I'll be murdered.

"Sure we'll hitch. I've seen them get lifts that quick just standing outside the prods church on the pavement. It'll be a doddle Gar. Come awn let's go."

But someone will see us there on the corner and rat on us Mart.

Sure then, we'll walk out a mile to O Rourke's and start hitching from there.

Nobody picked us up for ages when we walked all the way out. So, to kill the time, we threw milk bottles along the road and watched them smash into smithereens. We got a lift, walked around Portlaoise in awe like two Japanese tourists in London, bought a bag of gobstoppers and hitched home in the rain.

I was drowned as a rat when I got in the door. When I started to bound up the stairs to change Dad sternly shouted, "Get into the living room, now!" His voice was not the usual puppy yelp I was used to hearing when he used to put me to sleep when I was recovering from one of my asthma attacks.

"Where were you? Your mother's worried sick. Where were you I asked? Don't make me ask again."

'Emm, I was playing football with Ken Kennedy in the church."That was the first time I was ever conscious of lying to my parents.

"No you weren't young man", Mam says coming in from the bar. "We got a call from the Sinnot's on the Portlaoise Road, who thought we should know that they had seen our second youngest hitch hiking and throwing empty milk bottles outside their house. What have you got to say for yourself now?"

Peeing in my bed is so good.

Lying in my bed I am now ten years old and I feel so snuggly under the blankets. I feel so warm I don’t want to go to the toilet to pee. It means I have to get out of bed as the snow falls like a stadium of floating feathers outside. To get from my bed to the toilet involves going down the landing, descending 4 steps, turning right to go to the toilet at the end of the hallway on the left.

“No. I am not doing that. What about if I lie here in bed face-down and let the pee decide?”

As I lay there I feel the pain of the need to pee rise and rise. But I feel warm. I love this warm feeling under the tightly tucked in blankets. My penis is squashed underneath my belly and I can feel it get hard and harder. Not only does it press against the sheet covering the mattress but, as it gets harder, it presses against me belly too. I started to drift into a light sleep and dream of a warm tropical beach in the Caribbean. At the same time I feel the pee rise within me. I am not sure if it is part of my dream or if it is real.

There is a tension of opposites in this moment for me. At one end I am desperate to fall off to sleep and enter a world of softness and at the other end there is the faint welling coming from between my legs that I want to coax and nourish to fruition. Which of these am I going to choose, I don’t know. The soft cotton wrinkled embroidered creamed pillow sucks me deeper and deeper towards a world of cozy secure dreams. At the tip of my wiener I feel a tingling, I feel a promise, a promise of something exciting and dark that wills me to express or expect death if I don’t.  I feel overpowered by its strength and it feels like a mountain river at full flood and I am just a helpless man overboard been bounced off the rocks on the way down the zig zagging river to God knows where. Should I give in? I feel I have no choice. The world of dreams seems further and further away. The world of warm exciting seas seems nearer and clearer. Even though I can hear the voices of a packed pub below the floorboards I still don’t want to stop. Now I know I want to it to happen. I want the bad because I know it will feel so good. I flay my arms out and throw myself deep into my pillow and onto my bed. I am ready to be horizontally crucified whilst dreaming of resurrection and ascent into heaven.

I feel the pee flowing to the tip of my wiener. I try to control it. I want to feel I have some control over this. But I know it is illusionary or at best fleeting. This is my last effort at being the innocent good Gary. There is no way back to that person after this, no matter how much I pretend. This is the coming of age for me. This is, my loss of innocence.

It is my choice, not someone else’s. I have chosen to lose my innocence. I have chosen to see the dark side. I am the lucky one. Some children have that choice taken away from them by force and subterfuge.

Oh, I feel it. I feel it rushing up to the head of my weiner. At tip it feels like a dull pain and then it comes, a burst of pleasure. The hot golden stream does not shoot down into the bed below me. No. It shoots up towards my belly button. It feels like it is trying to find something, find my belly button or just trying to escape to a magical wonderland that it has been told about for centuries. It is hot and it streams and streams and streams.  I feel the spasmodic pumping as if a volcano is exploding for the first time and the lava shoots out over the lid of the crater in timed pulsating intervals. A well of hot wetness spreads out around my belly and instead of jumping off the bed in disgust I press my face into the pillow and my body even more. I press it into the hot lake of my future pleasure. When the spasms stop I lay there. I lay there and stop. I feel cleansed of my past. The only thing that exists now is me, and my future. There is no going back now.

“Arise! Arise! You are no longer a boy. Now you are, a man.“

And now I am a man, I better get rid of the evidence.

What evidence. Well I have to let you in on a secret. Before I went to bed I slipped a blue marine towel on top of my lower sheet. This towel I was lying on is now soaked, soaked right through to the mattress. Oh no! Under it there is a big round wet patch. I thought doubling over the towel would have prevented this happening. But I am wrong. So I strip off the sheet, put my white t-shirt over the wet patch and put on a new clean purple sheet. Now, how do I get down stairs with this pee soaked towel and bottom sheet without being discovered?

There is nothing for it but to brave it and hope that no one is around in the house. When I enter the kitchen where the washing machine is who do I discover there but mam and David. Crikey! I act real cool and pretend I am pleasantly surprised to see them in downstairs so late.

“Are you cooking anything nice”, I enquire as I stuff the evidence of the crime into the washing machine.

“Just making some supper for David here, he said he would be up early in the morning to make sure to let in the guy with blocks of wood.”

As soon as I switch on the wash I heave a sign of relief internally and politely excuse myself back upstairs to dive onto my clean purple sheets and into my sweet memories of moments ago which enhance the warm wet exciting dreams to follow.

My next major step in search of me didn't take place until I went to boarding school at an Irish Gaeltacht. At the tender age of eleven I was sent to Ring, an Irish school in County Waterford. My tour of duty in an Irish school had come as it had for all my older brothers before me.

How did it form me? I learnt I was a quiet boy who didn't lead the group in anyway. I enjoyed my second year as the most intelligent boy in my class only because I had done all the subjects the year before. The other students were just starting their own first year and had no idea of the subjects we were about to cover!

I discovered almost by accident three of what are now my all time favourite adult passions. Whilst there, I was still a sickly boy plagued by asthma which I cleverly used to my lazy advantage. I excused myself from taking part in many outdoor sports like Gaelic football and hurling. Instead, in the warmth of the sports/dance hall I learnt to play table tennis, chess and draughts. I won the draughts final and did myself proud in chess and table tennis.

Everyone has the following question to ask themselves. "Do I want to be a smoker or not?"

For me this question presented itself when I was 13. One by one my friends in school were beginning to start smoking. It became a social occasion. "Let's go to the bike shed on our break for a fag". Sometimes I would go with them because I felt well that's was where the most fun was going to be in between classes. But then I found that, even though I was there with them, I still felt like the odd one out.

Most of the initial conversation was like "Who can give me a fag?", " I will pay you back tomorrow", " Can I have a drag?", " Who has a light?"

Then as each of my smoker friends would take a puff of their cigarette a sigh of satisfaction and relief would be shared between them. It seemed to make their friendship even more assured than before because of this shared addiction and passion. I could see in their eyes a glint and a joy which I thought I should also try to experience to see if I got the same buzz. Besides, if I did become a smoker I would no longer feel like the odd one out every time I joined them at, the bike shed.

I live in pub. That means that I have easy access to cigarettes and alcohol. So one evening after serving all the customers and cleaning up all the tables I manage to secretly accumulate several unfinished packets of cigarettes from those customers who were too drunk to remember leaving them behind. Normally I would throw them away but this time they would be used to enact my experiment.

The premise of my experiment was that if I smoke enough cigarettes in rapid succession I will easily become just as addicted to cigarettes as my good friends. After tomorrow I will finally be able to experience with every cigarette the same feeling of relief and pleasure they experience with their first drag behind the shed.

The next day after school I went to the cupboard underneath the stairs that led upstairs to the bedrooms. The entrance to this cupboard was from behind the back lounge counter. I had hidden the half empty packets of cigarettes there the previous night waiting for an opportunity to test out my theory. I got it when my Dad asked my to mind the bar while he was having his tea.

Once inside the cupboard, I found the light bulb was not working and so I had to leave the door slightly ajar to allow me to light up. Sitting down on a crate of Babycham I removed all the cigarettes form their cartons and lined them up one by one on top of the unopened box of Tayto crisps. Their were fourteen all together. Four Major, six Benson and Hedges, two John Players and two Rothmans.

One by one in rapid fire I lit up and puffed hard not knowing exactly how to do it properly. I sucked and sucked on a cigarette until it burnt down close to the end before stubbing it out only to immediately light up the next one. Bit by bit the cupboard filled up with smoke. I felt like I was sitting inside a cloud on a dark black night guided only by the beam of a bright red star in the distance, the glow at the end of my cigarette.

I never got to the fourteenth cigarette. On the twelfth I felt a sudden rebellion happening in my stomach, my eyes began to water and my head began to spin. I thought I was going to faint but my stomach, been a stronger foe than my head, ordered my feet and legs to make their way to the nearest toilet to expulse all that was inside me.

Out into the hallway and into the cold desolate "men's shitter", I drop to my knees and for the next twenty minutes exorcise myself of that demon called nicotine. "Get thee hence Satan". It wasn't till I drew blood that I knew that the demon had gone and I had my body and mind back under my own control once more.

For the next four years in school I rarely went with my friends to the bike shed. And when I did I never felt the least bit of desire to be part of their satanic ritual. Even through my years of going out in London I never felt tempted to convert.

Only now at the age of 36 I have discovered that demon once more stealthily winning its way back into my favour by my unconscious odd public plea for a drag from anyone who lights up a cigarette in my presence. The demons newest messenger is none other than my new girlfriend Ileana Guglietta Ramirez. I find myself seduced by whatever she suggests me to do even if it is to bend to the wishes of the narcotic nicotine which I had been successful in fighting all these years.

"Don't ever underestimate the power of the demon nicotine to convert your body and then your mind to be a slave to its own malicious carcogenic design.'

%%%%

Tiger how did he come into my life and how did he go? Well the bottle bin was responsible in reality. Yep the bottle bin.

What chore as a child did you dread the most? We had a pub and in that pub we had what we called the bottle bin. The bottle bin lay underneath the counter of the back lounge, the lounge nearest the kitchen and the back door of the hallway that ran parallel along the side of the pub.

The counter was about 4 feet tall with black shiny enamel on top. The enamel was easy to clean if drinks were spilt but yet still stylish enough to make you think in a haze of Guinness that it might be black marble. The middle part of the counter lifted up like a lid to allow us to leave from behind the bar. On any given day we would do this for a variety of reasons. Usually it would be to go the toilet or to collect glasses for the glass washer behind the bar. On a Sunday afternoon, after everyone had left to go home for Sunday dinner, whoever was closing up the bar had the best opportunity of the weekend to check for any lost change from the previous night´s party crowd.

Where was this treasure usually to be found by a boy of thirteen? Down the back of the long seats that lined the walls of the "New Lounge", the Middle Bar and the "Back Lounge". The "New Lounge"had been built nine years ago but that didn't stop my dad from still calling it that. In the Middle Bar and the Back Lounge it was easy. I just lifted up the long black foam cushions and pocketed any two ps, five ps, ten ps and the odd fifty p. With the New Lounge, because of its new orange seating it was a bit more difficult. Only when we were assigned to the chore of cleaning behind the seats did we ever get a good look down behind. And we all wanted that chore. It was the difference between snuggling up on the sofa upstairs in front of the fire and TV with only a curly wurly or with a huge bag that not only contained a curly wurly but also a licorice sherbert, love hearts, freshers, fruit pastilles, a loop the loop, a wibbly wobbly wonder and even a lucky bag. We fought like starving cats do over a can of sardines for that chore.

On other occasions, I would cross out through the Back Lounge counter to play pool on the table in the middle of the floor or to play the slot machine in the left hand corner whilst listening to the lastest hits on the jukebox like "Tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree' or, "I've got a brand new combine harvester"or, a classic like, "Mull of Kintyre". The worst time to leave the bar would be when I was asked to clean out all the ashes in the fireplace against the right hand wall. The best and most important times were when my shift was up and David or Carl had take their turn to look after the bar. Lifting the lid of the counter a rush of happiness filled my boots as it meant I was about to eat my dinner, my tea or my supper or, go out to play football in the farmer's hall.

Of all the day shifts, the worst ones were the ones when my Dad would say,

"While you are sitting there doin nuttin behind the counter, you might as well clean and stack the shelves and then, fill up the empty crates from the bottle bin. It's full again."

"Not the bottle bin again Dad! I did the bottle bin a few days ago. I'll stack the shelves but I'm not doing the bottle bin. David can do the bottle bin."

He stood there on the dirty beer stained wooden lats with the palm of his hands placed behind his back and on his hips. He smiled and then, with a sterner voice, looked me in the eye.

"David already brought in all these cases on the trolley from the shed when you were out playing football in the farmer's yard. Therefore, you my lad are doing the bottle bin. Do I make myself clear?"

David was always making sure to avoid the bottle bin or to do a stint behind the counter. He would use a variety of tactics. First he would act so grumpy Dad would not dare ask him to do something first. Then if he was the first to be asked to do a job he would be aggressive, belligerent, rude and at the same time storm off shouting, "Why me? You always ask me, always". However, the surest of ways to avoid the bottle bin he found was to wheel the crates of beer and soft drinks in early in the morning and then disappear before Dad could say it was his turn to do the bottle bin this time.

The dreaded bottle bin was brown in colour. Three foot high and made of fibreglass, it had a curving base with four small roller wheels underneath to make it easy to move it around when it was full. Well that was the aim in theory. The fact is when it was full it leant to one side which made steering it in a straight line up the hallway almost an impossibility. Nevertheless, up to the end of the hallway and against the yellow painted walls was where I had to take it and empty it.

Getting the bloomin thing out through the back lounge door was the biggest challenge. Full to the brim, I had to drag it with all my might as the bottom of it scratched itself over the step. Once it hit the ground with a tremendous thundering thud several bottles always went flying over the side as it rolled down the pub hallway towards the brown varnished door of the Middle Bar spilling the remaining contents out onto the recently washed green floor tiles of the hallway. Oops.

anyway, the worst thing about the bottle bin was the stench of it. It was the stench of several drinks mixed together and left to stagnate in a warm humid smoky atmosphere. This smell was completely different from what you might expect mixing together several sweet varieties of hops. It actually smelt of sickly musty vomit and the closer I got to the bottom when I was emptying it, the closer I got to heaving my stomach up inside the bin. I tried to do the bottle bin before mealtime as often as possible because naturally, it would have been too dangerous to it after.

The Dwan's orange, lemon and cola bottles all went into whatever Dwan's cases there were since they all were the same size. I had to keep the Pepsi and cola bottles separate for some reason. I put that down to the different lengths rather than the international commercial world domination these perspective companies were trying to accomplish for almost two generations up to when I was born. The baby bottles of tonic water, bitter lemon, tomato juice and soda water all went into the same plastic cases. Nevertheless, even though the Britvic bottles were the same size I had to put them into their own particular wooden crate. If there were a few spaces left over in the Schweppes cases, I would secretly put in these Britvic bottles just to fill it up completely since Dad gave us two pence for each full case. Most times, I would get away with it but sometimes, he would inspect my job and growl, "What are these Britvic bottles doing in this Schweppes case?" I would always reply, "They are the same size as the other bottles, I must have been asleep when putting them there. Sorry", sheepishly bowing my head knowing that was as tough as he was going to get with me about it anyway.

Sometimes he would ask two of us to do the bottle bin so as to get it done quickly on a busy day or night. Christmas Eve or New Years Eve would require us to empty it up to three times during the day. Usually Carl and I would end up doing it together. Neither of us wanted to do the awfully smelly bottom part and the argument, would be the same.

"I'll do the top half and you do the bottom half. I have to be up in Kennedy's in a half hour. Ken is waiting for me".

"No way, I'll do the top half and you do the bottom half. I have got a game of football starting in twenty minutes up in the church yard."

"Forget it, I'm not doing the bloomin bottom part, I hate it. Tell you what I'll toss you for it. Heads you do the bottom part, tails I do it."

"No way, I lost the toss the last time, so it's your turn Carl to do it. I am not doin it again. You always weasel your way out of it. You're doin it!"

"No I'm not. Please Gary you do it. You can have my fifty pence and I will do the top half?"

"OK. Nevertheless, if I want you to do it next time, then you have to do it. Alright?"

"Ok, deal!"

When I got to the bottom, the stench was even more musty and sickly than I remembered the previous time. By persevering, there was a bonus of sorts in completing the task. Remember the black vinyl counter I mentioned. Often the change belonging to some drunken customer would get knocked over the edge of it and fall into the depths of the bottle bin below. This change was the goldmine awaiting anyone who had the stomach to take on the bottom half of the bottle bin. Not only was I getting Carl's fifty pence along with my own fifty pence for doing my half but, also up to two pounds more in lose change from the sludge below. It was like fishing. Sometimes I saw something shiny flashing up from the bottom of the bin from under two inches of brown thick slime with chunks of cardboard and bottle labels and as I stretched my arm down into the liquid I would often find it was only a bottle top belonging to a large bottle of Dwan's lemonade. Other times, it would be a whole fifty pence. However, I couldn't be sure until I washed off the grime stuck to the coin from under a running tap and dried it with a paper towel or beer mat. My arm didn't use to reach the bottom but with such treasure within inches of my grasp, I learnt to tilt the bin towards my body and bend my head pushing my whole body inside, far enough so as my hand could reach the bottom. The fumes were noxious enough to knock out a fully-grown elephant but I learned to always take a deep breath, before diving in.

Then, after giving the empty bottle bin a good hose down, I wheeled it back into position under the back lounge counter. I dreamed of all the sweets and lucky bags I was going to buy and all the games of Defender I was going to play down in Eddie Phelan's chip shop for ten pence a go, thanks to a smelly old bottle bin.


Anyway, where was I? Yes, there I was cleaning out the smelly disgusting bottle bin for the umpteenth time when in sauntered this small puppy dog with a rusty brown coat and a sweet playful innocent look. I dropped the hose in my hand, bent down and stroked his small back. He responded with a smile and a wag of his little tale and began to run around in circles in front of me chasing it as if it was the best thing in the world.

"Where did you come from little fella? I guess your owner will come into the pub eventually looking for you. So why don't you stay here in the yard while I go and get you some greyhound nuts mixed with stale bread and milk. You are just going to love it."

The next morning I didn't want to go to school and leave my lovely terrier in the yard alone. In fact I refused, and it wasn't until Mam said he could come with us in the car that I agreed to go to St Fintan's primary school that morning."

In the back of the grey Morris minor all squashed up with Carl, David, Alan, and Michael I named him, "Tiger", and declared.

"Mam we can keep him forever can't we? "

"Can we keep "Tiger", can he be our dog?"

"Yes and No Gary! Not forever but only until his real owner comes looking for him. That's the condition Is that OK with everyone back there? Now everyone out and I'll be back at four to pick you up."

"OK Mam".(Brill bloody brilliant. Tiger is ours, he is mine. Mine, mine, mine, at last my very own dog all to myself. )

His mysterious owner never did come a lookin for him and Tiger became the sixth child in the Phelan family. Of course, since I was the one insisting on keeping him, I had to feed him. I made a bed for him in the shed out of an empty crate of onions from the farmer's hall market. I put some straw and an old tartan blanket in it that we use to use on picnics up in the cat holes in the Slieve Bloom mountains when we went swimming in the summer.

I remember seeing his feet sometimes scurrying down the pub hallway at lightning speed. He had got the scent of another dog and there was no one going to encroach in on his nice little setup here in the pub. He never learnt to slow down at the end of the hallway at the front door. When he applied the brakes at top speed Tiger found he had no grip on the recently washed tiles and often crash slid into a car parked outside the front door. Rolling back on to his feet he would flick his head from side to side to spot the whereabouts of this impostor dog who was brazenly looking for handouts right outside his pub, Tiger's pub.

His most consistent flaw on these occasions was the fact he never bothered to compare his size and strength with that of the intruder. Kelly's dog, four doors down for example was a monster of a black dog trained by Paddy Kelly since an early age to tear up dolls and teddy bears without the slightest provocation. Tiger had a soft spot for him but Kelly's dog detested his advances. So, whenever Tiger went sniffing at his ankle (for that was as high as Tiger reached) looking for some sweet love and tenderness, Kelly's dog would snap into a rage and tear into Tiger's neck leaving gaping vampire holes. Tiger, distraught and very confused would scamper back up the street and into the pub where I would find him, all too late, huddled and shivering in fear underneath the pool table in the Back Lounge.

"Oh no, not again Tiger, how many times do you have to try it on with Kelly's dog? Haven't you realised yet that far from being normal it is a psychopath?"

Over the next thirteen years, Tiger would best be found laying flat out either in front of the dining room fireplace, the living room fireplace, the back lounge fireplace or the bar fireplace. If he wasn't in front of either of these he was probably asleep, breathing deeply, under the pool table. In fact he seemed to be asleep for most of his life with us, only ever waking up to stroll into the kitchen or back yard looking for a nice meal before retiring, once again, to one of his many resting places.

It was one day just like any other when Alan felt guilty about Tiger's growing belly and wanted to take him for a walk down by the hurling field and up along the river to the Russian Bridge before turning back and heading back home along the Ballyfin road. Tiger wasn't in the bar, he wasn't under the pool table, he wasn't in the dining room and he wasn't down the garden in the shed or hiding in some corner of the back yard. The last place Alan looked was upstairs which was the last place he was expecting to find him. And sure enough he was flat out on his back on the sofa, where? Where you might expect flat out in front of the upstairs living room fireplace!

"Come on Tiger, up you come, we're goin for a walk down the river, you lazy lovable mongrel."

Not moving Alan poked him gentle not to wake him up too quickly. But he still didn't want to move. Normally he would jump up and join you wherever you wanted to go so Alan made the assumption that Tiger was feeling far too ill to join him that day. Then worry set in and Alan decided to take him up to Macinerny's, the vet, just in case. Alan was only fourteen at the time I have to say so, it is no surprise that without examining him, he scooped Tiger up and put him into a cardboard box to take him to the vet.

It took him twenty minutes to get to the vets up in Brick Lane past the Holy Grotto behind Byrnes. God, he was sweating buckets. Tiger had gotton a lot fatter in recent months and this was probably not a practical to carry him all the way up to the vets. But he felt too embarrassed to ask Mam if she would take them up there in the car just in case it was nothing.

In the reception of the vets Mary Kelly asked him to wait ten minutes until the vet was ready. There he sat alone in reception with Tiger in the cardboard box on his lap worrying that he might have been a bit rash in bringing him up to the vet. Maybe he should have let him sleep a little longer rather than make him go for a walk with him. Perhaps Tiger was just protesting at the thought of unnecessary exercise.

"You can go in now young Phelan, the vets ready."

"What can I do for you today young Alan Phelan?"

"Well its our dog Tiger sir, he seems a bit tired recently and I was wondering if you could tell me what might be his problem".

"Where ishe then?"

"In the box sir."

After a careful study of Tiger and placing his palm an inch away from his nostrils the vet stood back from the box, folding his arms and letting out a deep sight said,

"Young Phelan, I think I know what the problem is with your Tiger."

"What is it sir?"

"He's dead!"

"Dead?"

"Yes, I'm quite sure. In fact I am certain. Tiger, is dead!"

%%%%

We didn't know who this band was visiting our town but the word had got out that the show would take place in Delaney's field between the White Horse river and St. Fintan's church yard.

This show was for the teenagers and the young adults of Mountrath. A rock band called "REM" was coming to town and me and Deego and Animal were not going to be denied admission because we didn't have the two punts to get through the gate of Delaney's field. We had to scout the perimeter of the field for the easiest way to get in without being caught by the concert security. From the girl's convent we got through into a field that made up one side of the concert perimeter. We thought we might find a possible breech in the security here somewhere. We reckoned that it was too long a field for them to have guards all along its fence.

It was great fun jumping down into the dyke that ran along the length of the fence made up of bushes and small trees. We squeezed and shoved our bodies through any gaps to see if there was a big enough hole for our wee selves to slip under come the time of the concert.

Another way in was through the wasteland behind the brown wooden gate in the churchyard which we used as a goal mouth during our gruelling long football games.

At the last moment my brother Carl wanted to come so we had to think fast. We went down to the bridge that connected the sawmills side to Delaney's field side. Hundreds of locals were pouring through the ticket entrance and they were all getting a black stamp or the back of their hands to show if they had already paid.

The field war now full to capacity and the warm up band, the Oliver Brothers, had already started their set.

Night was setting in and the crowd were queuing up at the gate near the river and foot bridge. Six of us went all the way around by Patrick Street and in through the main entrance of St. Fintan's church yard.

But every fifty yards along the perimeter there were security guards dressed in a blue T-shirt with REM written on the back. Not all of us were going to get through. Some were going to get caught if we all went over together. God knows, we might end up in prison thanks to this daring act of gate crashing the concert. But we didn't. We all got in and it was great craic. REM were fuckin brilliant.

That wasn't the only time we all went out together. Nosiree.

The only town I know well in Kilkenny is Durrow. As a sickly child I went to a quack doctor in Durrow's, County Hotel. Ten years later I am frequenting the same hall with Animal, Deego and Ken Kennedy for the Saturday night disco. The trick wa,s to turn up early down in the square in Mountrath. Johnny would pull up in his camper van after bringing in the hay and take us down the back roads to Durrow to avoid the gardai who, if they caught him, would discover he was no licensed taxi driver. Deirdre Kelly, Siobhán Kelly and Gárinne Kelly would usually be on the same bus. Dan Phelan was always on the bus too if he weren't doing a shift in Eddy Phelan's chippy that weekend.

Once pass the bouncers, the ticket desk and the make shift cloak room we all made Dan Phelan go the bar and ask for seven Bulmer's cider. The reason being, we were all under age but Dan stood six foot four tall and nobody would know he was seventeen.

The hall was black even with the lights on. The smoke machine made everyone invisible. So when I asked a pretty girl or two to dance with me to one of the songs of the slow set the guys could not see me getting blown off.

Animal used the loud music to good affect when he got blown off, And he got blown off a lot. In the early part of the night he would Say,

"Do you fancy a dance?"
"No way", she'd say.
"No, I said do you have the time by any chance?"
"Oh sorry, yes sure, it's a quarter past twelve."

At a quarter to two as the last slow set got under way he would try again."

Do you fancy a dance?"
"No way", she'd say again.
"Do you fancy a dance?"
"No way."
"Do you fancy a dance?"
"No way."
"Go on, do you fancy a dance?"
"No way."
"I suppose, a blow job is out of
the question then!"

Denise Reynolds has taken a fancy to me at the St Fintan's Hall Saturday night disco. Deidre Kelly told me so herself and that if I play my cards right I will be shifting Denise before the end of the week. The next Saturday night I ask her up to dance for U2's song "Forty". By the start of the next song our two bodies are so tightly pressed against each other I could tell she surely had two lovely enormous breasts. My cheek is pressed up against the nape of her neck where her straight black hair has not yet reached. My mind is in a tizz and images of Tommy Gorman snogging different girls down the lane to the footbridge that crosses the ever shrinking White Horse river flash by. Time to see if Deidre was right. After Air Supply I lead Denise out by the hand and down the lane. I am hoping to get her down to the river but half way down she pushes me up against the wall and attacks my lower face with her two fiery lips and lashing tounge. I give her as good as I get. She has more stamina than I. After twenty minutes I surrender my stretched jaws, pulverised lips and limp tongue to her continuous onslaught saved only by Tommy Gorman passing by with yet another girl who had come over on the bus from Ballyfin. Not wantin to be slagged off for been outside too long we rush back for the last slow set. At the end of moulding our bodies once again to 10cc's, "I'm not in Love", Rod Stewert's, "Maggie May" and Bonnie Tyler's, "Total Esclipse of the Heart", we make a date to meet at the end of the lane on the footbridge the next day to continue this new adventure.

Denise gives me a present. It is a silver necklace that has two silver horns joined in the middle. I love it. It is the first present any girl has given me. This must mean we are now boyfriend and girlfriend. That means anything goes. She lays into me against the wall by the footbridge like the night before. I stop her and say,

"Wouldn't it better we find a more private spot now that it was daylight and everyone will be passing by on their way to Sunday evening mass from the Crescent?"

I take her to Old Moore's house on the other side of the stepping stones from the hurling field where we can hear the under fourteens take on Castletown who, always win. The anorexic reeds of the riverbank wave at me and salute my good fortune this weekend. Inside the old house things are a lot worse than I imagined. The fallen charred roof beams that are slung across the floor of the arsoned house hinder my sexual enlightenment. I find a spot against the far wall where we both have sufficient room to balance at lest one legs firmly on the ground. Our tongues swordfight for ages. I press my kness in and up between her legs against the wall. I win the tounge tug of war. I feel it only fair I take my spoils. I unbutton her blue blouse that has tiny squares all over it. The buttons burst out of the button holes like popcorn out of saucepan someone forgot to take off the ring. I am too hungry to unbutton her bra properly. I give up with freeing only one metal hook and rip down the cups of her bra which has had several Daz treatments in the Reynold's washing machine. What was white is now tinted blue. Denise grabs at my shirts tails and runs her nails down my sixteen year old back. I bury my head in her breasts like a severe asthmatic reaching for his oxygen mask. I wrap my novice lips around her rosy pimpled button nipples. I stayed there till my deprived lungs told me in no uncertain terms that it was way passed the time for me to breath again. It was a pity that I my summer was already planned out. Now I don't want to go to Wales to work in my grandmother's hotel. Oh Denise what are we going to do?

When I was seventeen we went down to Cork on da train to see a concert with Christy Moore, Don Maclean and Mary Coughlan. I went there with Deego and Ken and Mark. The train was packed. Everyone was huddled together and after buying the concert ticket, we only had enough money to buy a one way ticket. The hairy part of the day came when we all piled back on the train in Cork after squeezing our way throw the throngs of drunken young carefree boys and girls. There were even more going back up the country than there were going down to the concert. Everyone on the train was either singing or playing a musical instrument or telling jokes or taking the piss out at someone. Deego was the first to spot the conductor working his way through the old rusty green and brown train carriage just before ours.

"Quick lads the fuuckin inspector is in the next won."

Thanks to the age of the carriage, it had those long soft seats where the back goes up in a forty five degree angle. When you put two of them together you have a nice little cavity to slip in underneath. That "s where I went. I found in mine a small slip of a girl from Dublin with short black hair, mad eyes and a shy cheeky smile.

"Come on, quick, get in or we both will be caught by das inspector."

I never asked her name, there wasn't time. Deego slipped into the cavity on the other side of the carriage and Fran covered our entrances with a guitar and a rucksack taken down from the racks above. Ken got up on another large luggage rack and slipped into a sleeping bag and covered himself with even more bags of shopping and stuff.

"Right gentlemen, tickets if you will."

We could see his feet. She wrapped her arms around me. We were too afraid to breath. In the darkness she pressed her two lips against mine. A storm brewed up in my pants. Even though the inspector went on to to the next one, we stayed there in our safe cave until we got to Portlaoise when the lads and me all had to get off. Deego says,

"Gury Phelan, are you gettin off or what, or are you gona snogs your way all the way to Dublin?"

They all cackled and I got off, red as a beetroot but, embarrassingly proud.

Seabank Hotel - More girls please!

I was put in the spare room in the attic with all the old spare armchairs and sofas not needed any more in the hotel down below. For years, I had been receiving ten English pounds in the post for my birthday from Cis, my grandma, who lives in this hotel and now I was actually staying here for the summer of my seventeenth birthday. It was the first time in my life I was allowed to go on holidays or my own without my parents in tow. I was excited, I was scared, but most of all I was on a new travel adventure.

Now I am here I feel like I have been led on. I don't get to stay in one of the best rooms but in the room where everything is dumped. On top of that I am expected to get up early to help with the breakfasts. My job is drying the hot dishes and cutlery that come out of the old dish washer. Mickey stands in front of the grill and cooks the bacon and sausages while Cis cooks the eggs on the range. Alwyn picks up the breakfasts that are ready and delivers them to the guests. When all the guests are finished she also resets the tables. When she waits for Cis and Micky to prepare more breakfasts she watches me from behind my back at the sink. She smirks a knowing smile and says,

"Why don't you do me a favour Gary and prepare me some cornflakes and orange juice to go with the breakfasts that are coming out of the kitchen."

I feel somewhat immature in her prescence. Alwyn gives off the air of having lived a lot more than little old me, little paddy over on the boat from the wee country called Ireland. I think I am falling in love with her. My heart beats a mad man's rate whenever she comes up along the corridor that joins the dining area to the kitchen. I love watching her after breakfast folding the red knapkins around a knife and fork as she sits in front of the windswept bay window that looks out onto the beach promenade. The dining room is so peaceful. It is just me and her, the only two people who matter in the world. I slurp on a slice of grapefruit freshly served out of a large can of grapefuit slices bought at Portmaddock's cash and carry. She places the knife and fork in the knapkin with her chin held high. The simple black and white waitress outfit barely conceals a slender fit young ripe body that makes me all wanton down below in my breeches. Alwyn glances at me out of a corner of her eye. I am in heaven. That slight gesture gives me the slighest hope she might be intimately interested in this flaky skinned ashtmatic. I would love to shift her. Just one chance, Lord give me one chance. But where, but when? Alwyn provides me with answer.

"Gary, I am baby sitting this Friday night and I was wondering if you are not doing anything, if you would like to join me. It is such a boring job you see. But I need the money. We could watch some movie on telly."

Siting on the couch, watching Duran Duran, I barely withold my excitement finding myself all alone with Alwyn in a dimly lit romantic living room off the coast of North Wales. She has just put the baby to bed. As she sits down again on the sofa, I can't resist, I dive on top of her. A warm sensous glow flows around my body as she teaches me the art of a slow sexy kiss with th odd use of her secret doubled over folding tongue. I am won over. She tells me we can only meet like this when she is baby sitting and I am not to think of her as a girlfriend. I agree and for the rest of the summer I watch her walk in and out of the kitchen and wonder when will be the next time she will invite me on to the sofa at her babysitting job.

David is working on Butlin's holiday camp having a ball of a time with the girls. They love him and he gets to ride a motorbike all over the place too. He is in a photo with a different girl all the time. He is such a stud.

Diane Fish arrived with her family from Loughborough and I fall instantly for this small petite blonde punkette bored by a boring summer spent on the Welsh coast. We go for walks around the ruined Criccieth Castle and hold hands out of sight of the hotel and Alwyns house. We kiss and hug and I get hot and bothered when my hand rests on her lovely round breasts underneath her white stretched t-shirt. I wish I could stay here forever with her. But soon she is gone and she gives me a card with shiny stars and an address to write to her in Loughborough. I would love to live there, find a job there, marry her, make babies with her and feel her breasts forever.

"So Gary, are you going to be the first priest in the Phelan family? You are such a good boy. Wouldn't it wonderful if you were. Your Dad and I would be so proud, proud as punch. Shall we go over to the monks in the monastery in Roscrea then?"