In 1962 I was four. Mammy had brought me over from London for the summer to the family farm in north Kerry. Every evening after milking, uncles Aeney, Jimmy and Jack would lean on to the five-bar gate at the end of the boreen and look down into the sloping meadows. The five-bar gate was a big metal ladder to me, and I’d grip on to its swaying heights and look out at the green, grassy world. Once we saw a hare run so fast that he was gone before five words could be uttered about him. All the talking in the world could be done about me and I’d still be in the one spot.
Granddad Curtin had a hen with new chicks and he warned me not to chase them. But I chased them unrelentingly. Over the dung heap and out of it I ran, until I was as green and brown as the cow shit that formed it. Mammy said I was ruined, but I felt giddily increased with all that mighty scutter clinging to me.
“Holy mother of Jesus,” my grandmother said, “that child is a cloud of midges.” Sure enough, I’d be surrounded in them, like a halo from some itchy heaven.
All this is preserved in the tales of my childhood, often spoken back to me by my mammy. There’s also a photo of me from that summer: she has me dressed in a toff’s school cap and a Billy Bunter blazer. Try as I might, I’d find it hard to furnish a reason as to why she dressed me in such ridiculous clothing. Maybe she did it just to prove that I was a gentleman from London. But, with my toy cowboy gun, I fancied myself a sheriff from Dodge City.
Looking at that photo now I can see that I’m holding that six-gun more like a teacup than a firearm. And that gang of bank robbers I’m lined up with looks set to chase the chickens around the yard.
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