My first real memory of Ireland was at Easter. I was seven and my family, never one to follow trends, had just moved back to Ireland from Toronto. It was all a great adventure. The brother and I were taken out of school before the holidays. Farewell parties were held and we were showered with gifts. Trunks were filled with new clothes. New supplies were bought to keep the pair of us occupied so that the Mother could spend the voyage snoozing in a deck chair. We boarded a massive ship in Halifax and off we went across the Atlantic to arrive on the shores of our new homeland, six days later.

It dawned on us quite quickly that this was a very strange place. For one thing, the cars drove on the wrong side of the road and the people talked with funny accents. Even worse, they laughed at us for the way we talked. They thought we were from America, and did we know their cousins in Boston or Detroit. Worse still, we didn’t know our times tables, were shaky on our catechisms and had not a word of Irish. People from Canada were clearly to be pitied.

We took up residence in a mouldering pile of a B & B in Killiney. The bedrooms were huge, and damp with open fireplaces and shabby drapes. The shared bathroom down the hall was so draughty waves formed on the water as you lay in the claw-foot tub. The wife of this establishment, purveyor of breakfast, and clean towels, saw us coming and took herself off to hospital; leaving her domestically challenged husband struggling with vacuums and frying pans. His efforts failed to make the right impression with the Mother who took over the running of the household with an ill grace. Never one for housework, she was not pleased to find herself starting her new life adventure back in a kitchen.   The air was blue and the dinner was burnt but despite all, there was Easter to look forward to. Continue reading “The Egg’s the Thing” →