The Question and The Answer
1
INTRODUCTION
My daughter asked me “What was it like to grow up in a Country town,
in the thirties and the forties?” First of all, it wasn’t any
old country town. It was the principal town of the county. I suppose that
gave it a right to some form of pretension. It had been a garrison town.
That would have explained some streets, such as Bindon Street, with its
Georgian houses and Bank Place. In my time vestiges of its garrison days
remained, but were dying out gradually.
It was old. The ruined Franciscan Abbey dated to the early twelfth century,
maybe earlier. The town got its name from an Island in the river Fergus
that flowed through it. ”Inis Cluan rua fada”. “The island
of the long red meadow”- Ennis. I’ve heard it described by outsiders
as pretty. I thought it ordinary, and even dull. Anyway, we were involved
in growing up in it. There was no time to think about it, whether it was
or it wasn’t pretty. Growing up is like that. A very serious business,
wherever you are.
The question was a difficult one. After a lapse of so many years, childhood
memories are tricky. Some are as clear as if they happened only yesterday.
Others are fuzzed, and blurred at the edges like old photographs. The town
then, and now, are not the same. That applies everywhere, even the countryside.
It had all the traits of any small town in Ireland. The good and the bad.
Was I happy there? I was and I wasn’t. Adolescence is tough, then and
now, anywhere. This gives no clue as to how it was to grow up in a small
town in the thirties and the forties.
I’ll have to rely on memory. Crystal clear and fuzzed. It won’t
give an accurate picture of how it actually was. Rather how it might have
been, or how I wished it might have been. It was no great drama to grow
up in a small town. Ennui was enlivened by the recounting of the doings
that went on in the town. Things, which to day might seem utterly trivial,
assumed a large obsession in our lives. I don’t know if such doings
would obsess the people of the town today: I think not. Why bother with
trivia, when you have a window to the world? We had a window too, the Press,
Radio (wireless), and Cinema. Not the same. Not instant enough.
When do you start growing up? Childhood is a thing apart. You are growing,
but not up. It’s the stuff of dreams. Mostly it’s Christmas and
Summer you remember. Christmas, no snow, but Santa Claus and the Crib. Summer,
the long hot lazy days. I did say it was the stuff of dreams.
Adolescence or growing up proper then was your first pair of long trousers.
Your voice breaking. Pimples. Seeing girls as girls. You wouldn’t play
with them now if you were paid. Still. You start to notice that lots of
things are wrong with the world. Boy if you only had a chance. You’d
put things to rights. You begin to read. Not stupid things like William
or Chums. Real stuff. Why, even the dry old stuff at school is interesting
now.
If you were lucky, you were encouraged. I was. Both my parents were avid
readers. Through my father I discovered Dickens, Thackery, Scott, Robert
Louis Stevenson and many others. To my amazement I became the star pupil
of English at school.
It had its advantages and disadvantages. One disadvantage was that all
this reading was making one a bit of a dreamer. You weren’t really
interested in games or athletics. A bad thing for an adolescent. You questioned
the accepted. That marked you as one to be watched. What could you do?
There was a faraway place called Dublin. With luck by train it took between
six and seven hours to get there. By car to nearby Limerick it took one
and a quarter hours. That might seem incredible to the young people in the
town today. They get into their cars, hit the road, and are in Limerick
in twenty minutes. Then and now. Living in a town you weren't isolated.
Not like those unfortunates who lived m the heart of the country. You just
felt away from things. That wasn't a good thing. It didn't matter when you
were young.
Things were happening out there. “There” being that faraway
place called Dublin. You were being stifled at home. You carried on. Went
to school. Partook of the recreations on offer. Went to whatever entertainments
there were. However, some day... you had a dream.
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