At last, I was a grown-up. I had survived the child labour, the poverty and the embarrassment of being a farmer’s son in Leitrim. It had been claustrophobic, but at least now, I was a young adult – bulging with adulthood and big shoes and leftover ideas. I could have been anywhere else that night, but I wasn’t. I was in Carrigallen parish hall, standing against the wall, expecting adulthood to beam me up. That was never going to happen. It was the 11th of March 1983 – a Friday night – my eighteenth birthday! Thankfully, no one knew it was my birthday except me, my mother and my sisters. My father and brother were unaware, as birthdays back then were not really a ‘thing’. They caused little distraction or annoyance – or joy. And being in the hall that night only added to the severity of my new-found realisation. I was eighteen and smack bang on the bottom rung!
There was sometimes an air of excitement going into Carrigallen Hall. Like when we went there to see the local play. The Carrigallen Community Players, under the stewardship of Father Patsy Young, were magic. For a couple of weeks every spring the hall was a place of laughter and expression and escapism. The rest of the year it was well-kept, tidy … and uninspiring. An all-year-round exhibition of tongued and grooved wall panelling and echo. A wooden floor, underused for dancing, badminton, indoor soccer and basketball; a balcony at the back for cups of tea and Pioneer meetings. A side room for snooker and billiards, and just off the main hall, the mineral bar and the shop – empty shelves, price lists and sticky underfoot conditions.
Tonight we were there to support a local social. There was always need for a parish social – a fundraiser. It might be for a missionary priest who was heading back out on the missions after spending some time at home – back to converting the poor unfortunate, non-Christian heathens of the world. Or a
