AN IRISHMAN'S DIARY

"SWISH swash, swish swash," went the wipers on Ned McDonagh's old black Ford Prefect car. Its windscreen was divided down the middle, and each brusque wiper had a half all to itself. Still, neither could keep up with the downpour and the lights from oncoming cars were soon swimming all over the windscreen again.

"Look there's Ballagh," shouted my brother, pointing through the drunken line of silver street lights swirling across the glass. With every curt swipe they pulled together, only to fall back again into an easy disorder before being whipped into line once more. The old struggle. "By dad it is," said Ne4.

Ii was Friday, December 7th 1962, and we were moving with the times. My father had gone on ahead. He had spent the day at our new home where he was helped by neighbours to unload truckloads of belongings which had been packed by my mother and other neighbours at the house we were leaving at Mulglen. The distance between the two was eight miles of northwest Roscommon. It might as well have been the universe.

Lots of Noise

Ned McDonagh had been coming to our house in Mullen long before my own arrival there. He lived in Frenchpark, where he had a bicycle shop and ran a hackney service. He liked cards, and came to our house every Sunday night for a game of 25. There was always lots of noise, lots of laughter, and sometimes murder at those games.

We youngsters would have been in bed by then, but often lay awake listening to the commotion in the kitchen. Sometimes we would get up and sneak to the bedroom door, which had a crack near the bottom through which we could peep. It was not much use really as all we could see were shoes, and boots, and table legs, and Ranger, our dog, lying on the floor. We would try to make sure he didn't see us, because whenever he did he would come over and start licking at the door where we were.

We would rush back to bed then before my mother came investigating. And sometimes we would be brought up to join the card players, to be dandled on their knees, to be petted and teased by those people who were so much a part of the everyday weave of our lives.

But we had not a thought for them that wet night as Ballaghaderreen came closer. In the distance we could see the cathedral take shape, with dark Bockagh behind. St Nathy's College began to emerge next to it, its facade held forth like a proud man's chest.

The de Valera years were gone. Sean Lemass was Taoiseach, and everything was changing. Changing utterly. My father caught the mood, and we who had been fixed there for so long uprooted ourselves from the boggy countryside, and moved to town. And the heavens wept.

My grandfather stayed behind. He was in his 80s by then and, despite my father's pleas, he would not leave the old world. My aunt and her family moved in to be with him.

Property was Slow

About a year before the wrench my father had met an auctioneer in Ballagaderreen. In a pub. They knew one another of old and had shared many a glass and row together. Property was slow and value was good. The auctioneer probably guessed my father was thinking of either moving or building. There were six of us children in that small house, along with my parents and my grandfather. It was a traditional thatched, whitewashed country cottage, with three bedrooms, no water and no electricity.

Besides, my father was thinking ahead, and Ballaghaderreen had a good reputation for second level education. He was shown the house and the deal was done.

Stepping from the Ford Prefect outside the house, we looked up. It seemed to go on forever. Three storeys high, with an archway underneath and a pub attached, it was too big for comprehension that evening. The scale of the hallway alone was awesome. Its ceiling seemed as high as the clouds.

We followed its great length to the kitchen in the bowels of the house, where a great range threw out even greater heat. Our new bedrooms were big and strange too. We did not sleep for hours that night.

It was early when we awoke the following morning - the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. My mother had already gone to Mass. My father meanwhile was so exhausted from the previous day's labours he could have slept through thunder, and he did.

We ran amok. Turning on and turning off lights, messing with the taps in the kitchen and bathroom, and most of all running up and down the stairs. There were so many stairs in our new house.

But we were forbidden to enter an area to the front that was being rewired. As one who has always suffered from the Adam and Eve syndrome - for whom thou shalt not, becomes thou must - I had to see what was up there. My brother Sean and myself pushed back the great big door and found ourselves among ripped up floor boards, with wires and dust everywhere, and room after room after room, with more stairs.

Looking Out

We reached the top level of the house and were looking out the top window at the street, thrilled and terrified at its distance below, when we saw our mother coming from Mass. We ran for the door, and another one and another, but we couldn't find our way out. Fear of chastisement gave way to terror before the unknown. We sat down and bawled.

My mother found us there, and such was our state she said nothing about venturing into the forbidden zone. When she got home from Mass every light was on, every tap was running, children were chasing up and down the stairs, my father was fast asleep, and neither Sean nor I were anywhere to be seen. That was how it began, the first day of the rest of our lives.