Jennifer Johnston
(1930– )
Jennifer Johnston was born into a theatrical family in Dublin in 1930; her parents were the novelist, playwright, and war correspondent Denis Johnston, and the actress and theatre director Shelah Richards. She grew up in Dublin and was educated at Trinity College Dublin. Johnston is married, has four children, and now resides in Derry, Northern Ireland, where she continues to write.
Since 1972 Johnston has produced an impressive succession of highly acclaimed novels, two of which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. Her fictional works include The Captains and the Kings (1972), The Gates (1973), How Many Miles to Babylon? (1974), Shadows on Our Skin (1977), The Old Jest (1979), The Christmas Tree (1981), The Railway Station Man (1984), Fool’s Sanctuary (1988), The Invisible Worm (1992), The Illusionist (1995), Two Moons (1998), The Gingerbread Woman (2000), This Is Not a Novel (2002), Grace and Truth (2005), Foolish Mortals (2007), and Truth or Fiction (2009). In 2004, the award-winning novelist Roddy Doyle pronounced that Jennifer Johnston was “Ireland’s best novelist.”1 For her contributions to Irish literature, Johnston has won both the Irish PEN Award (2006) and the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award (2012).
Johnston has written several noteworthy plays that demonstrate her sharp humor and insights into characterization. All of them have been produced in various theatres in Ireland. Garry Hynes directed a production of Johnston’s one-act play The Nightingale and Not the Lark at both the Abbey’s Peacock Theatre and Galway’s Druid Theatre in 1982. In 1983 Robert Cooper directed a production of Indian Summer at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast. The Porch, a one-act play, was produced at the Gaiety Theatre Bar in 1985 under the direction of Caroline Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald also directed productions of the one-act play The Invisible Man (1987) and the full-length play Triptych (1989) at the Abbey’s Peacock Theatre. The Nightingale and Not the Lark, The Porch, and The Invisible Man were published in one volume in 1988. Her play The Desert Lullaby was produced by the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, in 1996.
In 1995 Lagan Press published three of Johnston’s one-act plays under the title Three Monologues. Two of the monologues first written in 1990, Christine and Billy (which later she retitled Mustn’t Forget High Noon), were designed to be performed together. The pieces portray a couple destroyed by the turmoil in the North. Under the direction of Caroline Fitzgerald, Christine and Billy, as the monologues were titled then, premiered at the Peacock Theatre in 1988. They have subsequently been produced and repeated twice on BBC Radio 4. Christine also has been published under the title O Ananias, Azarias and Misael in Selected Short Plays (2003), which also includes Moonlight and Music (first produced in 2000 by the Fishamble Theatre Company at Dublin’s Civic Theatre). The third monologue in the series is Twinkletoes.
Twinkletoes was first performed in 1993 by the Project Theatre at Bewley’s, Grafton Street, Dublin. The role of Karen was played by Carol Moore (also known as Carol Scanlan) and was directed by Caroline Fitzgerald. Twinkletoes had its American premiere in 2000 in a student-directed production at Oregon State University. Under the direction of Charlotte Headrick, in 2001 the university staged a new production of the play that toured to the American Conference for Irish Studies Western Regional meeting in Tacoma, Washington, in that same year. In 2011, under the composite title Reflections: An Evening of Women’s Voices from Northern Ireland, the British National Theatre of America presented Twinkletoes in the First Irish Festival in New York City; it shared the bill with Bernard McMullen’s Forgotten Milk. Twinkletoes centers on the lonely life of Karen, an IRA prisoner’s wife. Having just returned from her pregnant daughter’s wedding, with humor and some bitterness, Karen shares with the audience the highs and lows of her life.
Twinkletoes
It is quite late at night. The empty living room of a small terrace house. Light shines in from the street outside. A car draws up, the headlights shining on the walls. A door slams and the car drives off. There is the fumbling of a key in the door. The door opens and Karen comes in. She switches on the light. She is dressed in finery; a hat in her hand, flowers pinned to her coat, very high-heeled shoes, a shiny bag. She is in her midthirties, a bit the worse for wear. She flings her hat across the room.
KAREN. That hat cost me.
I never before bought anything that cost me like that hat.
She picks it up and puts it on the table. She unpins the flowers from her coat and puts them beside the hat. She giggles.
Tell me something, hat, I might need to wear you to the christening,
so I might. On the other hand . . .
She hokes2 off her shoes and sighs with relief.
Tell you something else for nothing, I’ll not be wearing them again.
They have my feet tortured.
Our Mary always says that plastic shoes draw your feet. Well, plastic
or not, my feet’ll never be the same again.
Never.
I’d of stayed on a bit and had a bit of crack,3 danced.
Yeah.
Danced.
If it hadn’t been for the pain of my feet.
She wriggles out of her tights4 and throws them across the room.
Freedom!
She does a few quickstep twirls around the table.
I like a bit of a dance.
My daddy taught me to dance when I was wee.
Quickstep.
Foxtrot.
Tangoooo.
Twinkletoes, he used to call me.
He told me about this little kid who used to dance on the pictures.
Shirley Temple.
All curls, he said, and twinkletoes.
I never saw her. Only heard the name from my dad.
Some people think you’re over the hill at thirty, past it. Past every-
thing, but I have news for them.
I can rock and roll, jive, strut.
Given the chance.
A lot of other things I could do too, given the chance.
God, my head’s going round and round.
Cup of tea.
I’m spinning.
Where’s the kettle?
Everything’s spinning.
Ya dee da da.
There it is.
God bless us.
Isn’t it well tomorrow’s Sunday.
Ya dee da da.
I can spend all day in bed, curtains pulled.
Tight, real tight.
Just lie there.
Let the feet recover.
Let the head stop jiving.
Cigarette. Poison.
Who the fuck cares?
A short life and a merry one.
What’s merry?
I could die in my bed tonight and no one would know.
Till Thursday.5
Someone would be sure to know on Thursday.
I was sure I had matches in my bag.
On Thursday, someone would wonder.
Nothing but tissues in here. A million tissues; my bloody eyes all over
them.
Bin6 for them.
I never thought I’d cry.
Matches.
Thank you, God. At least you recognise the need for poison.
I said to our Mary7 this morning or yesterday or whenever it was.
Why should I cry? Amn’t8 I only too glad to be getting that problem
off my back?
If I’da had sense, I’da brought another pair of shoes with me and
stayed on.
Danced.
Takes your mind off things.
Yip.
That’s what I’da done.
Never had sense.
That’s what my daddy always said.
He never said that about our Mary, only me.
Right enough, Danny McCartney was coming on a bit strong, but I
could have handled that.
I could have . . .
Just dance, I could have said and stop messing about.
I could have said that if I’d wanted to.
I called him Twinkletoes once.
One night I was out with our Mary and the girls and he asked me onto the floor.
Right enough, he was a great dancer. So I said it. I gave him that name.
There’s other bits of him twinkle too.
Keep your twinkling hands off me or I’ll deck you.
He laughed.
He didn’t mind, not like some of the others I won’t mention who won’t
take no for an answer.
Dirty buggers.
Only one thing on their minds.
If they had minds.
Danny’s not like that.
Danny’s a gentleman.
His wife’s inside in the hospital.
Stuck on tablets.9
Four, five years now, she’s been going in and out.
Ever since her brother was shot by the army.
She just sits there, Danny says, staring at the wall.
Well, that’s what he says anyway.
Lucky they’ve no kids.
You’ve no time to sit and look at the wall if you’ve kids.
It’s her nerves is shot to hell.
She was always nervous. I remember her at school, if the teacher
looked crooked at her she’d burst into tears.
We used to pull her leg.
Waterworks we called her.
I never thought I’d cry.
Tea bags.
But I did.
She looked so young.
She is so young.
And the baby showing. Maybe not to everyone, but if you knew you
could see.
My daddy was affronted having to walk to the altar with her.
He said no when I asked him. Nothing on earth would make me, he
said, but I said just get on and do it. Isn’t she your own flesh and blood.
Don’t you love her no matter. I said if you don’t say you’ll do it, I’ll
have to get Declan’s da down from Belfast to do it and you won’t like
that one little bit. That did the trick. But wild horses wouldn’t drag
him to the party.
He never liked Declan.
My Declan.
Not our Noreen’s Declan.10
He’s a harmless young fella.
I thought it was an odd thing she took up with a fella of the same
name.
Coincidence like.
Milk in the fridge.
Light goes on, always the light goes on. One of life’s miracles. Oh Holy
God! No milk in the fridge.
Isn’t that just my luck.
Black tea turns my stomach.
He never liked Declan from the moment he laid eyes on him.
He wouldn’t open his mouth to him when he came to the house.
Eighteen years ago.
That’s the waste of a tea bag anyway.
Bin.
Last week there were mice in this bin.
I got Noreen’s Declan to set a trap.
Two he caught.
It’s not a very nice way to kill an animal, but who wants mice in their
bins.
He’d just sit there and read the paper, or a book.
Here’s Declan, I’d say, and he wouldn’t lift his eyes from the page.
Never you mind, my mammy said, he’ll come round.
But he never did.
Wouldn’t speak Declan’s name when things got really bad.
He was in the navy during the war and he worked at the base here till
the government closed it down.
You can’t beat the navy, he used to say.
That’s where he learnt to dance, when he was in the navy.
“Joined the navy to see the world and what did I see, I saw the sea.”11
He’d sing that.
He doesn’t sing songs any longer now.
No one to sing them to, he says now.
Who’d want to hear my songs now.
All the nice girls love a sailor. Look at your mother. She was the nicest
girl of the lot. She’d go red when he said things like that.
She’d pretend to be cross, but she loved it. My Jack Tar12 she called him.
Do you take this man . . . That’s when I cried. I couldn’t help it. I knew
I was ruining my eyes, but I cried and cried. Quite quietly you under-
stand, but I used a lot of tissues.
For Declan.
I’ll tell him about it on Thursday.
Not all.
I’ll tell how pretty she looked and how young.
I’ll tell him my daddy gave her away.
Straight and frail standing up there beside her.
Remembering, I’m sure he was remembering.
I won’t tell him that I cried.
I won’t tell that the baby showed.
No.
I cried for Danny McCartney too.
Though I shouldn’t.
We both been alone such a long time.
What with her being in and out staring at the wall.
Not alive really.
I shouldn’t think about him.
I won’t mention his name to Declan.
Or anyone else.
I cried for my daddy.
He’s alone too, now.
So many people alone.
I wonder if there’s a drop of vodka.
Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.13
He’d have come to the party if my mammy’d still been alive.
She’da made him.
You’re a big baby, Sean, she’d have said.
She could have coaxed him. Wind him round her little finger.
Jack Tar.
We could have asked the band to play a slow foxtrot and he and I
could have dazzled them all. Big solo performance.
Only perhaps they wouldn’t have known how to play a slow foxtrot.
What’s that when it’s at home? A slow fucking foxtrot.
There are pictures of him and her all round their house.
Together.
Him in his uniform.
Them being married. Very old fashioned.
Do you take this man?
And then pictures of us all, our Mary and me.
I was the baby.
He loved me.
I was always surrounded by love.
I asked him if he’d come and live here after my mammy died.
There was just Noreen and me.
She could have slept in the room with me.
He could have been a father to her.
Your Declan’s friends might shoot me, he said to me.
I didn’t speak to him for six months after that.
I told Declan one Thursday. He laughed.
Ay, he said, the old bugger, they might and all. But he didn’t mean it.
He always told me not to mind the way my daddy carried on. It’s just
the way he is, he said.
Declan’s a good man.
I sometimes wonder if he’d been here how things would have worked
out.
Would Noreen have stayed at school?
I wanted her to stay at school.
Education is the only way, I said.
Way out.
My daddy said it too, and our Mary.
And her teachers.
Maybe too many people said it.
She wouldn’t listen.
She wanted to live, she said. She wanted a few pounds in her pocket.
She wanted freedom.
She was growing up, she said, and she wanted.
I knew there was vodka somewhere.
She finds a bottle of vodka.
A glass. Freedom.
She had her wee job in Dunnes14, so what could I say to her?
Fair dues15 to her, she gave me a few pounds every week. Left it on the
table there every Friday evening. I couldn’t fault her for that.
When we were young my daddy had us in by ten o’clock.
A minute late and you were in trouble.
Maybe that’s why I married Declan, so that I could stay out after ten
at night.
I loved him.
Excuse me, I love him. Yes.
I think.
He’s a hero.
It’s hard being married to a hero.
It’s a bit like being in prison too.
Don’t get me wrong. I mean no harm when I say a thing like that. Nine years he’s been in there.
It was Noreen’s eighth birthday when they picked him up.
At a checkpoint in County Tyrone.16
I’d said to him that morning as he was going out, don’t you be late for
the wee party. It wouldn’t do to disappoint the child.
Would I be late? He said, just like that, real cool. Would I be?
We heard it on the six o’clock news. BBC.
Three men lifted.17
In possession.
They showed us the car on the screen.
Jesus God, I said to our Mary, that’s Paddy Breen’s car.
I think they’ve got Declan.
Don’t cross your bridges until you come to them, our Mary said.
He never turned up for the party.
I had a cake with pink icing and eight wee red candles.
What’ll I say to my daddy, I said to our Mary.
Nothing, she said, keep your lip buttoned.
I knew it would happen one day.
I used to get those shaking fits.
All I could do was sit there with my hands locked between my knees and wait for the shaking to stop.
I didn’t tell Declan.
I didn’t want to put those sort of worries on him.
The doctor wanted to put me on tablets, but I wouldn’t take them.
I’d seen what the tablets did to other women.
Like Danny McCartney’s wife.
I’d rather feel.
I don’t think he knew what I meant, the doctor, when I said that to him.
He just shrugged his shoulders up and down. Suit yourself he said.
I had terrible dreams when Declan was out at night. Sometimes I’d sit
up half the night just so I wouldn’t have those dreams.
Our Mary said I should have taken the tablets.
She’s always full of sense.
That doesn’t mean she’s right though.
I was too young to be a mother.
That’s what I think about Noreen too.
She’s too young.
What about her freedom now?
I haven’t told Declan.
My Declan.
He’d be shocked, like my daddy.
Angry with me.
Why didn’t you keep an eye on her?
That’s what he’ll say.
God knows, I tried.
He couldn’t understand.
Things are so different now.
Young ones want freedom.
Nine years of changing.
He wanted freedom too.
Words are such silly things.
I’ll say nothing yet awhile.
Stay mum.
I think I’ll have another drop of vodka.
Someone once told me that the Russians just throw it down their
throats. Like that. Oh Jesus!
It must have been my daddy.
He was on the Russian convoys during the war.
He said it kept the cold out, drinking it down like that.
He said he couldn’t describe the cold. Your breath froze, he said, tears
froze on your cheeks.
He said they used to hug you, put their arms around you and hug
you. Russian men did that. Maybe it was because of the cold.
If I’d stayed on a while, maybe Danny McCartney would have come
home with me.
I shouldn’t be thinking things like that.
God forgive me.
But I do.
Maybe he would have come home with me.
Maybe . . . oh god, maybe . . .
It’s the drink in me talking.
No.
It’s not.
I’m not a bad woman.
This house is empty now.
Full of shadows.
Noreen took all her things out of her room. Her wee bits and pieces.
She left the window open and it rained and I came home and found
the floor all wet and the blue rug Declan and I bought on our honey-
moon in Galway. Soaking wet.
I sat on the bed and cried and she came in and put her arms around
me and she cried a bit too.
We’ll only be down the road, she said.
It’s not that, I said. It’s my blue rug.
Is that all, she said. It’ll dry, she said.
So it will, I said.
It was raining the day we bought the rug and we brought it back to
the caravan.18
Our Mary’s husband he said we could have their caravan for our
honeymoon.
And it rained.
It rained like I had never seen it before.
Maybe that was just Galway.19
I didn’t know.
I’d never been down to Galway before.
Or since, if it comes to that.
What does it matter on your honeymoon if it rains or not was what
everyone said. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
I’d never seen the west before.
I’d never seen the ocean.
Next town America, Declan said.
It was all white waves and seagulls.
Like kittens crying they were.
Our clothes never got dry.
Mind you the air was good. Wild air. Not like you get here.
He laid the rug down on the bed and said, ever heard of a magic
carpet?
Heard of one, I said, but never come across one.
Not too many magic carpets in Derry.20
Come here to me and I’ll show you just how magic a carpet can be.
He was so sweet.
We didn’t get to America, but we forgot about the rain for awhile.
Magic carpets.
Happy ever after.
Fairy tales.
Shit, all shit.
But we tell them to our children just the same.
My daddy used to tell me about the Russian convoys and the high
crashing seas and the torpedoes and the rum ration and how to drink
vodka, and how the ack-ack guns sounded when the bombers came
over.
He used to tell Noreen too, but she didn’t want to listen.
Everything changes.
The things we want to listen to; the things we want to be.
Is she happy now with her Declan and the baby just starting to show.
She laughs. She dances.
I laugh.
I could dance.
Twinkletoes.
Do you take this woman . . .
Do you take this child just starting to . . .
Oh, sweet fucking shit!
I told her she had a choice, but she didn’t believe me.
She didn’t want me to tell her daddy.
She didn’t want to tell her daddy herself one Thursday.
I hate empty bottles.
Empty.
I’d like to drown in drink.
Float away and then just slowly drown in vodka.
Russian convoys.
I had the choice.
No.
I was wild for Declan.
Even my daddy couldn’t stop me loving Declan.
He’s a terrorist, my daddy said.
I went out of the house and slammed the door.
The house shook.
A freedom fighter, said Declan. Tell him that. And I’m fighting for his
freedom as well as my own. Tell him that.
Of course I didn’t.
Tell him up the RA.21
I didn’t tell him that either.
I had more sense.
The people I love most all go on and on about freedom.
I don’t know what it means.
I don’t see it around.
Maybe you could find freedom with a magic carpet? If you could find
a magic carpet.
I made her come up with me the Thursday before last.
I’m passing no messages to your daddy, I said.
If you’re getting married, you’re going to tell him yourself.
You owe him that.
Since she left school, she’s hardly come at all.
I can’t be taking time off work to go up and see him, she said.
Excuses, excuses.
Anyway, I don’t want them to know.
Anyway, I hate that bus and all those women with their plastic bags
full of oranges and new jeans and the talk about our boys. And they’re
all so old.
And I hate the prison and the screws staring at you. And I hate . . .
Don’t say another word, I said.
Fuck, she said.
And don’t use language like that.
You do.
I’m old, I said.
Thirty-five last May.
Coming on seventy.
Anyway the long and short of it was that I made her take the day off
and she came up in the bus with me.
He was so glad to see her.
He looked great, all dressed up and his face excited with his big smile.
I kept my fingers crossed.
He held her hand so tight, like he thought she might fly away. You’re
so pretty, just like your mammy.
I sat watching them, quietly, thinking my own thoughts.
And the time flew in and she never said what she’d come to say.
So, out of my silence, I said, Haven’t you something to tell your Daddy?
She stopped talking and looked at the table.
She gave a little nervous clear to her throat.
I’m getting married on Saturday week.
He didn’t seem to take it in.
So I repeated what she’d said.
But you’re only a kid, he said.
I’m seventeen.
You’ve only left school. You’re too young.
You and mammy were going out when she was only seventeen, she
told me that.
He glared at me.
Karen . . . he said.
I shook my head.
She won’t listen, I said.
She’ll listen to me. Won’t you listen, love? You’re only young.
You’ve all your life in front of you.
I’m getting married on Saturday week no matter what you say and
that’s all there is to it.
She stood up, ready to go.
At least tell your daddy what his name is.
Declan. Isn’t that funny. Same as you. O’Hare.
He looked like someone had hit him.
Why didn’t you tell me before, Karen?
I could only shake my head.
He’s a nice lad, I whispered.
He looked like he’d looked in the court the day the judge had said he
was going away.
I’d like to meet him, he said.
Sentences to run concurrently the judge said.
After the wedding. I’ll bring him up some Thursday after the wedding.
Three life sentences to run concurrently.
If you gave a cat three life sentences, it would still have six lives left.
Or eight if they ran concurrently.
And they don’t run, believe you me.
They crawl.
You might have waited till I came out, he said.
Thanks, she said. We’ve better things to do with
our lives than wait for miracles to happen.
She turned and walked out.
She didn’t kiss him or nothing.
Young people can be . . . can be . . .
I’ve done my best, I said. Honest to God, Declan . . . very hard some-
times, yes.
I know, love.
He smiled at me.
My dad’s helping out with the wedding. We’ll do it well. You know,
the hotel, a meal, a few drinks . . .
Have a band, he said.
Yes.
Tell me Karen . . . is she . . .is she . . .
No, I lied.
He believed me. I could see him believing me.
I’m quite good at lying.
Thirty-five.
I want to dance.
Jive.
Jitterbug.
Tango.
Rock.
I really want to rock.
I want to have more kids.
I want to love.
Not just on Thursdays.
Aye, Declan, I love you.
I lie well.
You’ve fucking well ruined my life, Declan. That’s what I want to say.
And your own.
You’re a hero.
Wear it well, I say.
I’m just a woman whose plastic shoes hurt.
She laughs suddenly.
I saw these shoes in a book the other day.
Pale cream-coloured leather. Soft. With tiny little straps around the
ankles. Not too high. Just perfect for dancing all night.
A hundred and thirty quid.22
Just this little pair of soft leather shoes.
You wouldn’t want to wear them in the rain.
I could do the slow foxtrot with Danny McCartney, forever.
Or someone.
He has a good job with Ulsterbus.23
An office job.
Pensionable.
He’s not a messer.
He doesn’t look at anyone else, only me.
Twinkletoes.
I wonder if Declan knows all the things I don’t tell him?
I don’t want him to be upset.
I loved him.
He did what he had to do.
Even after nine years I haven’t worked out what to say to him on
Thursdays.
I practise going up in the bus. In my head, you know.
All the little things I’m going to say.
The jokes.
Keeping some sort of door open for him.
I often wonder if the other women are doing the same.
If Danny McCartney came over one night, would anyone tell him?
I bet they would.
Does it matter any longer?
I can’t answer that question.
Not when I’m full of drink.
I don’t think I could answer it when I’m stone cold sober either.
My daddy would be angry.
You’ve made your bed and you must lie in it, he’d say.
Perhaps we could both be a bit happy.
Laugh a bit.
Care.
Ever heard of a magic carpet, I might say to him.
I wonder what he’d say to me.
Declan sent the flowers . . . and some for Noreen too. Pink roses.
Hold them over your tummy, I said, and no one will notice the way
you are.
Wasn’t it good of your daddy to think, I said.
She didn’t answer, but she carried the roses.
Over her tummy.
She looked lovely.
My daddy thought so too.
You look lovely pet, he said and kissed her. I only hope this young
lanky isn’t in the same kind of business as your daddy.
I could have killed him, there and then.
She just laughed.
Of course he isn’t grand-dad. Things have changed.
Amen, said my daddy.
Amen, I said, inside my head. Nothing changes and everything
changes.
On Thursday I’ll tell him . . . everything and nothing.
I’ll smile and talk about the band.
And the roses.
And the way my daddy walked up the aisle.
And about my hat and how my shoes hurt me.
Everything and nothing.
THE END
Notes
1. Angelique Chrisafis, “Overlong, Overrated, and Unmoving: Roddy Doyle’s Verdict on James Joyce’s Ulysses,” The Guardian, February 10, 2004.
2. hokes: Flings.
3. crack: Has the same connotation as the word “craic,” Irish for good times, great fun.
4. tights: Irish and British term for panty hose.
5. Thursday: Visiting day at the prison where Karen’s husband is imprisoned.
6. bin: Trash can.
7. Mary: Karen’s sister.
8. amn’t: Contraction of “am I not.”
9. tablets: Pills, medications.
10. Noreen’s Declan: Karen’s daughter Noreen has married a man named Declan; Karen’s husband’s name is also Declan.
11. “Joined the navy to see the world and what did I see, I saw the sea.” Lyrics from the Fred Astaire film Follow the Fleet.
12. Jack Tar: A sailor, particularly a British sailor.
13. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb: Expression meaning that the result is still the same no matter what the crime. In Karen’s case, she is drunk, and she might as well be even drunker.
14. Dunnes: A store that carries clothes, household appliances, and groceries in Northern Ireland.
15. fair dues: An expression meaning to give credit for something.
16. Tyrone: The border country between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
17. lifted: Arrested.
18. caravan: A camper.
19. Galway: A city on the West Coast of Ireland on the Atlantic Ocean.
20. Derry: In the United Kingdom and on British maps of Northern Ireland, the city is listed as Londonderry. In modern usage, in order to avoid the political implications of the name, it is often printed as “Derry/Londonderry.”
21. RA: Slang for the IRA, the Irish Republican Army.
22. hundred and thirty quid: Pounds sterling. Depending on the fluctuation of the pound, around 225 to 260 dollars.
23. Ulsterbus: Public transportation in Northern Ireland.