Sister Charlotte turned to the class and asked the other boys to sing “Happy Birthday” to me. The classroom thundered with the sound. When the school bell rang she asked me to stay in my seat. She then walked up to me and wished me a happy birthday again. As I picked up my cake and was about to walk out of the classroom, she took my hand in hers.
“Gabriel,” she said and went silent for a moment or two. She looked down at my two feet as if to make sure I was wearing the shoes she gave me. She then looked in my eyes again.
I was consumed by shyness, fear and confusion. Since I first met her I believed she was my Guardian Angel with white wings growing out of her shoulders. Her magical presence made everything in my life bright and clear.
Almost at the exact moment when I felt I didn’t exist at all, she whispered, “Gabriel, in a few months you’ll be transferring to Saint Michael’s Christian Brothers School. The brothers are fine teachers. They’ll help prepare you for the day when you’ll be going out in the world looking for a job.”
The thought of me ever having a job was as far away as my entering Heaven. I’d have to be dead first to get there. My father and loads of other men were always looking for jobs.
“You’ll soon be gone from the convent here. You know that, don’t you?”
I was so shy I could only nod my head. Sister Charlotte continued to talk. What she had to say came close to erasing me from the page of life that my name was written on.
“I’m to leave the convent soon.”
I stood, feeling half paralysed.
Sister Charlotte continued. “I’m going away to Africa to join my fellow sisters there. My order has encouraged me to go and I’ve accepted. I won’t be in class when you come here next week. I wasn’t going to tell you or the class and I didn’t, until now.” Then she leaned towards me and kissed me on the forehead.
* * *
Angelo Fusco’s fish and chip shop was a place where my oldest brother Nicholas and I often got a bit of extra food when we were hungry. Nicholas was only twelve but he acted as if he was as old as my father. Because I was so small Nicholas would tell me to lie down and hide on the floor under the long wooden stalls in the fish and chip shop. Angelo would bring the fish and chips to the customers in the booth. Often the customers, a lot of them men who had been working overtime at the foundry, were so exhausted they would fall asleep before they had a chance to finish what they paid for. When they started snoring Nicholas would signal to me that Mr. Fusco was back behind the counter. It was a chance for me to reach up to the plates and swipe whatever part of the fish and chips hadn’t been eaten. A portion of uneaten fish was the prize of the night. Nicholas and I would swallow what was left of the vinegar in the bottles to wash down the chips.
Sometimes Angelo Fusco would spot us in the booth and whip us with a wet cloth soaked in flour batter. When he connected, the wet flour ended up in our hair, our ears and our eyes. It stuck to our faces and by the time we got home the batter would have hardened and we’d have to face my mother’s anger as well as her wet dishcloth.
Nicholas had courage. The way he took chances and ignored danger drew me to him. He wasn’t afraid of anything or anybody and he made sure I got part of everything he had. He was a bit loose and wild. He caused my mother all kinds of problems. He skipped school and robbed apples from rich people’s orchards. Not attending Mass or going to Confession was another thing. Sometimes he stayed out all night and slept in abandoned cowsheds. I loved him with all my heart. He ignored or didn’t see where he lived and never complained about anything. He was always jumping on the back of horse-drawn carts and committing daredevil acts and he was always there to protect me from my brother Michael who was older than me but younger than Nicholas. As boys we ran and scrambled about the neighbourhood like young pups. I followed Nicholas and Michael everywhere. When I fell behind, Nicholas always slowed down enough for me to keep up with them. It so endeared him to me I always looked forward to the next day when we could run all over the place even though we had no place to go.
* * *
At the age of ten, with a red ribbon pinned on my lapel, I received the Holy Sacrament of Confirmation. The red ribbon meant I was officially a soldier in God’s army. I was told that when I made my Confirmation I’d be strong and able to tackle the world on my own. Even though you could go straight to Heaven after you received your First Communion, Confirmation was even more important. It meant you were strong enough to be a soldier for your faith. You could go into battle and do away with anybody who wasn’t a Catholic. Being ‘confirmed’ meant you accepted the full responsibilities of being a Catholic. If you committed sin after Confirmation you couldn’t blame your mother or father or anybody else. You couldn’t blame the schoolmaster or the priest or any of your neighbours. Anybody who stole anything from you or hit you with a stick or a stone couldn’t be blamed either. You couldn’t blame any other kind of thing either. Even if you were starving to death or dying of the cold or had an incurable disease or if everybody belonging to you died, you couldn’t blame it. If everybody you knew died in a fire and if the whole town and country burned down, you couldn’t blame it. If the world fell into Australia, you couldn’t blame that either. It was as if you were given a full driver’s licence. Confirmation was an important promotion. You were stronger to fight any battle with the Devil and you knew the difference between Hell, Limbo and Purgatory. I had to be aware of committing sin in thought, word, deed or action. I could keep my little soul white or I could make it dark. Sins meant spots on it. If you had too many spots on it and if the white part of it was black it would not be a good soul. It didn’t take long for a few of the boys and girls on the street to get into arguments as to whose soul had the most black spots on it. Or whose soul was the whitest.
Around this time I felt myself getting into trouble when the discussion turned to the subject of girls. My mind began to act like an alarm clock. Every time I looked at a young girl I began to think I was committing sin and my soul was losing its whiteness. It was a good thing I was baptised before I knew I was born or alive. I think not to be baptised was worse than not having made your Communion and Confirmation put together. If you died before you were baptised you were dropped off in Limbo. Only babies who weren’t baptised and people who were born mad went to Limbo. A person born mad wouldn’t know if he was baptised or not so when he died he was sent directly down to Limbo. I never heard of anybody getting a second chance in Limbo. The babies that went there didn’t have mothers or fathers to take care of them. The priest or the bishops or even the Pope couldn’t reach that far down to save them. The only comfort the babies in Limbo got were the prayers that were offered for them when people said the rosary or went to Mass. My mother sometimes offered up the rosary for the Limbo babies. She also prayed for the souls that were suffering the flames of Purgatory, waiting to get out and go to Heaven. My mother had personal knowledge that some of her relatives were in Purgatory. Two of her uncles who went away from Ireland when she was a child never came back. She believed that they’d committed serious sins that kept them from returning. Purgatory was supposed to be as hot as Hell but you had a chance of getting out of it if enough people said enough prayers for you. If you committed a not-too-serious sin, you had to wait in Purgatory until it was forgiven or erased by God or an angel.
When I thought back to my Confirmation Day I wanted to make it all over again in case I had made a mistake the first time.
* * *
Few people in my neighbourhood really knew the difference between a ‘Christian Brother’ and a ‘priest’. A Christian Brother was only a half-priest it was thought and they had a mission that was different from a priest’s. John O Gods they were called. I didn’t know what the ‘John’ or the ‘O’ meant. The priests were to save our souls. The Christian Brothers were out to save our minds. At the Christian Brothers’ school, smartness was to be beaten into you and sins were to be beaten out of you. My mother often praised the Christian Brothers. “The
y’re fine men who devote half of their time to God and the other half to teaching the youngsters.” Sister Charlotte also told me the brothers at Saint Michael’s were good teachers and fine men. I couldn’t imagine her ever saying anything that was not true, but others who had experienced the brothers had different tales to tell. “Most of them would frighten the flies off a dead crow” and “They’ll teach ya if they have to kill ya.”
For me leaving Goldenbridge Convent and going to the Christian Brothers in Inchicore was as close to being dropped into the fires of Purgatory as I could imagine. When I was transferred I was still seeing Sister Charlotte in my dreams and thought about her almost every day. I had images of her swinging through the trees in Africa with Tarzan. And I knew if Tarzan ever met Sister Charlotte he’d fall madly in love with her. She’d even get him a cake for his birthday and give him other presents as well. She might even encourage him to go to school at Saint Michael’s.
Before I transferred to Saint Michael’s, the Mother Superior at the convent told all the boys that it was time to go on a weekend religious ‘Retreat’. She told us it was a time of transition. I didn’t know what transition meant. The Saturday morning before enrolment at Saint Michael’s about thirty of us arrived at the far end of the convent grounds. Inside the old church an altar boy was standing in front of the altar, shaking an incense silver bowl attached to two chains. The smoke and smell of the incense was making everybody cough. The smell reminded me of the foundry. Jamie Coombs, the boy kneeling next to me, said the incense was to remind everyone how Heaven smelled. Jamie Coombs was from Keogh Square and it was strange to hear him mention the word ‘Heaven’ because where he lived was known by most people in the area as hell.
Keogh Square was the place where the nuns and some priests earned their seats in Heaven. It was once a military fortification where English soldiers were billeted when England occupied Ireland. There were six barracks surrounding a large parade ground where for centuries the Union Jack flew and military parades and drills were held on the grassy field. When the English left Ireland the barracks were turned into a public housing project. Originally its fortress walls kept out the enemies of Britannia. Now, word had it that the walls were used to keep the residents in. The poorest of the poorest in Dublin were housed there. Bus drivers sometimes broke the speed limit just to get by the place. Pedestrians walking by often got hit with stones, bottles and empty food cans and other objects thrown over the wall. Nuns and priests competed to sacrifice their time on earth by going there and administering to the poor inhabitants. Large families of ten, eleven and twelve children lived in single rooms without electricity or running water. The long barrack corridors had community baths and lavatories. Where infantry soldiers once revelled and bathed, tenement-dwellers – men, women and children – shared the amenities without the luxury of soap or hot water. Thirty years or so after independence, stray horses and abandoned dogs as well as a few homeless men lived among broken bottles and tin cans. The residents lived mostly off food and clothing dockets supplied by Catholic charities. The hallways and stairways were so dangerous at night that when the men from the Saint Vincent de Paul’s Society came they had to be escorted by other men who kept an eye out for danger. Families constantly fought and beat each other up. Then sometimes they married each other. One half of the place was related to the other half. Residents of Keogh Square, it is safe to say, saw as much combat as did any of the English soldiers who were once stationed in the place.
Two boys kneeling behind me were arguing about what it took to get into Heaven. I sat at the back of the chapel waiting for the priest to arrive and serve Communion. The boy next to me was hoping he’d die just after the priest put the wafer in his mouth.
Two nuns were walking up and down the aisle and tapping some of the boys on the head to keep them awake. Then the church organ gave out a loud blast. The door of the church swung open and the priest entered. A hush fell over the church. Two nuns instantly blessed themselves as the priest passed them on his way to the altar. In seconds he was standing in front of the assembly and smiling at everyone. The church organ blasted out again and the nuns in the aisle encouraged us all to join in singing the hymn.
“O salutaris hostia, quae caeli pandis ostium!” I sang as loud as I could.
The organ stopped and everyone fell silent.
The priest blessed himself. “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.” He then took a deep breath and announced, “There will be no Communion because the Communion wafers are still at the factory.”
A sigh of relief reverberated throughout the chapel.
With a much louder voice the priest called out: “Boys, I want you all to pay special attention. I want you to listen and heed what I’m about to say. What I want to talk about is the time you’ll be feeling urges of the flesh. The images of young girls will be there to tempt you. When these urges come to you and you know what part of the body makes you aware, turn your mind to the Holy Word of the Church. And if your mind gets stuck with the devil in your trousers, touch nothing. Find your rosary beads and get a firm grip on them. Any thoughts of fondling anything or any part of you should give way to saying a quick decade of the rosary. I remind you that only with Our Lord can you find the strength to turn away from such temptations. Boys, we’ll have the Devotions and Benediction after dinner.”
He stepped from the altar and walked down the aisle towards the door. The nuns signalled for us to march in an orderly fashion out of the church.
As we walked along the path that led to the dining hall, I walked in another direction and departed from the grounds and the Retreat.
* * *
My brother Nicholas had some kind of problem with his throat that made him cough all the time. One night while we were all in bed my mother took him to the hospital. Sitting in semi-darkness downstairs two of my older sisters, Rita and Carmel, kept mumbling prayers and blessing themselves. The rest of us who were younger listened and waited for my mother to come home. While waiting one of my sisters mentioned the word “tuberculosis”. Tuberculosis was what everybody dreaded in Dublin. My mother often prayed for people in the neighbourhood who had it. She also prayed for them when they died of it. My father, knowing his oldest son was in hospital, got out of bed, walked downstairs, sat by the fire and said nothing. It wasn’t long till my mother came in the front door crying. She told my father that Nicholas had to stay in the hospital.
“God has punished the whole family!” she cried. “God is not happy with the life we’re living. We don’t say the rosary enough and half the sacraments are not bothered with. Our Heavenly Father is not happy with what goes on in this house. Look at me daughters! Look at them!”
She felt that God had paid her back because of her daughters. They wanted to wear lipstick and powder their faces. They painted their legs with make-up to substitute for nylons and, before they went out, my mother would lash at their legs with a wet dishcloth hoping to wipe away some of the paint. Also the way they dressed invited sin, according to Molly. Her own sense of glamour was based on how the nuns dressed. Going to dances at the local nightspots, The Crystal and The Four Courts, was also not condoned. When the girls came home late they often found the front door closed. My mother believed they were out committing sin and deserved to be shut out to teach them a lesson. My father was obliged to get out of bed and open the hall door. My sisters were still met with a barrage of doomsday warnings from my mother who’d be standing at the top of the stairs in her nightgown.
For my first day in class the Christian Brother talked about Oliver Cromwell as if the man was still alive and living next door to him. He said he was the Devil himself who murdered thousands of women and children in Drogheda and drove all the true Irish out of their homes and westwards to Connaught, behind the Shannon River, shouting “To Hell or to Connaught!”
To me the Brother was like bad weather, cold, damp and the flu all rolled into one. He was a young man who looked old. Like a
fish monster that had been thrown up out of the ocean. His face was easier to bear when he spoke, because his eyes didn’t stay in the same place. Sometimes he put his hand up to his face and covered his mouth. When he was talking he even looked more like a fish.
He’d call out: “Thógáil amach do leabhair Ghaeilge anois.” Take out your Irish books now.
I hated Irish. Irish frightened me.
“Breathnach!” He called me by the Irish name for Walsh. “Breathnach! Tell me about the Gaelic Renaissance!”
I knew nothing about Gaelic or the Renaissance or whatever the word was or meant. The Christian Brother was obsessed with the Irish language. He spoke as much as he could in Irish and wrote everything on the blackboard in Irish. Few of us knew anything about Irish. The government wanted everybody in Ireland to learn it because de Valera, the Taoiseach, said we shouldn’t use anything English. “Burn everything English except its coal,” he said, except it was someone else who said that first in the old days, not Dev. De Valera wanted every Irish person to know Irish. It made people less English, he said. Hardly anybody in Dublin spoke it. For half the school day the Christian Brother would read to us in Irish even though we didn’t understand a word of it. At the end of the week we got tested in Irish and almost everyone failed. The Brother then called out the names of those who had failed and had us line up in a row to await his punishment. One by one he lashed out at us with his cane as if he was defending Drogheda from Oliver Cromwell. He prayed in Irish at the same time. All of us would have preferred Hell or Connaught to the unleashed temper of Brother Fish Mouth. He whipped us on the palm of our hands and on our bottoms. It was six slaps with the cane and if his temper reached the boiling point he’d add three more slaps with the leather strap. The more we cried, the harder the leather strap came down. When the palms of our hands bled we wiped the blood off on the sides of our trousers.
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