AS JUNE APPROACHED, there was only one thing on my mind: my holiday, which I had saved very hard for.
At that time I was taking stick from everyone and for anything that went wrong in the bakery. Mando was the funny man with the dancing feet, and a smooth talker if ever there was one. He would simply borrow or beg to get any money he needed. He knew, as did others, that I had money saved. Mando would and did pawn the suit off his back, and anyone else’s as well.
Mando was a slick mover. I found myself almost trapped in his company during 1959. He was in lodgings in the same house as me. I found working with him good fun, but being in the same house was a bit too much. Even though I had introduced him to the Cashins, I hoped he would leave.
On the first day he stayed in Cashins there were four lodgers at the table when the soup was served. Mando didn’t think much of the soup, and while Miss Cashin was out in the kitchen he hurried up to the toilet with it, quickly flushed it away, and returned to join us. Miss Cashin came in to enquire if we had enjoyed the soup. Mando was first to answer, ‘It was beautiful, ma’am,’ and gave her a winning smile. I will always remember the look on his face when Bridie responded swiftly and poured him out a second helping of the soup. He never got the chance to flush it either.
Mando and our new van driver, Regan, were after the money I had saved to go to the Isle of Man. When Mick Bradley heard I was going by boat to the island he quickly offered to pay the airfare for me. I accepted, and was delighted. When Regan heard, he moved quickly to borrow fifteen pounds from me, and offered to drive me to the airport. What amazed me at the time was that men who were so mature and settled – some were married and had nice homes to go to after work – were begging and borrowing whatever money I had worked so hard to save. I never received any money back, as they had promised.
I fell in love with the Isle of Man the first moment I set foot on its soil. It reminded me of a paradise island in the sun that I had seen in the school cinema. I was overwhelmed by its beauty, its gardens, and most of all its beautiful glens. The names of Glen Mona, Glen Myra and Laxey Glen bring back fond and cherished memories.
I went alone to the island, but once there I seemed to find company without really looking for it. Perhaps it found me. I entered a waltz competition, and I had an English partner, from Redcar in the north of England. We did well on the dance floor, and I still treasure the photographs of the occasion. She was a good few years older than me, but nevertheless, I dated her, and it all helped me to enjoy the wonderful island. I sat in my room in the guesthouse, thinking that the English people were really human after all!
One breathtaking evening I was making my way up the steep climb known as Darby Hill when a young woman came alongside me, rather breathless. ‘Have you the time, please?’ I stopped, gave her the time, and thought nothing of it. A few moments later, nearer the brow of the hill, I heard her voice. As I turned to see who it was, she was upon me. ‘Hey, Irish, we’re going the same way. Mind if I walk with you?’ She smiled warmly as the evening sun kissed her long golden hair.
‘Call me Pat,’ I said, and added, ‘I’ll be delighted to walk with you.’
She stroked back her hair and said, ‘Call me Gloria. I come from Redcar, in England.’ I was curious. ‘Have you an older sister here?’ She faced me and said, ‘Yes, I have. She’s in the dance championships.’
I loved the Isle of Man and the folk I met. England and its people filled my mind now! While I was away on my first holiday in the Isle of Man in the summer of 1959 I realised certain things about myself. These things were quite significant in my behaviour as a young adult. As I look back I can see that I was so inadequately prepared for life on the outside of the most feared Christian Brothers Boys’ Industrial School in Ireland.
To be quite frank, prisoners in Mountjoy Jail would not have had to endure the hardship, the physical and sexual abuse and punishment we kids had to suffer every day of the week inside Artane, not more than two miles from the country’s famous prison! It’s very difficult for me to come to terms with this fact, that the country’s criminals in prison were far better treated in their daily prison life than we Artane boys were in ours.
As an Artaner, I believed every word the Brothers said, as though it was the Gospel of the Lord. The hypocrisy was rampant: we were told that all sexual acts were a mortal sin; yet many of us were subjected to the most horrific sexual abuse. We institutionalised kids in their care simply feared breaking their laws, their rules.
Those in power, working for the Catholic-run state, the Free State Republic of Ireland, lied to me as an eight-year-old and they turned a blind eye to child sex abuse in their very own run schools and institutions. I and many thousands of other kids left these church- and state-run institutions poorly educated, inadequately prepared for life so far removed from their holy Catholic world of prayer and punishment where the mere mention of the word sex was strictly forbidden.
After eight years of Latin hymns, singing and devotions, I became institutionalised. It would take many years, very many in fact, to come to grips with the real world far removed from the one I was sentenced to as a child of eight. I could not come to terms with life in the real world, a world where women had their place alongside men, a world where men and women came together as one, as a couple, as a partnership, as lovers, as husband and wife. All I had been told was that sex was a mortal sin. Even thinking about it was a sin. Touching women was forbidden territory, along with touching your own body.
The trip to the Isle of Man in the beautiful summer of 1959 was the beginning of my realisation of just how institutionalised I had become, and just what Artane had done to me.
The Isle of Man was a great eye opener for me. I came in contact with many people from England, young people, and I found them all to be really nice, particularly the young lady from Redcar who danced with me in the competition in the Villa Marina. It was like being in another world: I just loved it.
I toured the island from Douglas to Glen Mona, Glen Allen and to Laxey. Sitting eating strawberries and cream in the Rushen Abbey, I just simply wanted this holiday to go on and on.
On a coach tour one beautiful evening the driver pulled into a lay-by and said, ‘On your right, folks, you will see a cross, it is a grave and inscribed on the headstone are the words “Here lies the remains of some mother’s son”.’ On the return journey I penned a long poem titled ‘Some Mother’s Son’, after I’d heard the story from the coach driver of how and where the boy was found. On my flight home I harboured visions of travelling the world. I sure had itchy feet and I longed to see England and meet old school pals like Stevo and Oxo!
The Christian Brothers fostered a Republicanism and a hatred for England and all things English, particularly their sport, soccer. In their eyes, a game of soccer was a mortal sin and we were forbidden to play it – this rule was enforced with a brutal iron fist. Yet I harboured dreams of going to Old Trafford to see my hero Bobby Charlton and to visit as many soccer clubs as I could once I set foot in England.
I would return to the Isle of Man to work, and came back on many occasions to holiday there with my family. That first trip away from Ireland gave me a window on the world at large. It opened up my closed mind to the possibilities of travel. I was hooked.