it?’
‘Will you stand out?’ says Jam Roll.
‘I will,’ said I.
‘In the cod or in the real?’
‘The real,’ said I, ‘d’you take me for a hornpiper?’
He said no more but gave me a belt so that I thought the Hogan Stand had fallen on me. One off the ground. The real Bowery Belt.
‘Now,’ says he, when I came to, ‘you won’t call me Jam Roll again.’
‘You were wrong there, Jam Roll.’
Belfast was First Right … Then Just Straight Ahead
If you went up the North Circular as far as the Big Tree Belfast was on the first turn to the right. Straight ahead. I knew that when I was seven. The country lay out there. I visited it with my grandmother one day she and Lizzie MacKay went out for a breath of air.
After dinner on a Sunday, she put on her black coat and hat and a veil with little black diamonds on it and off we went. We went up the canal from Jones’s Road Bridge to Binn’s Bridge (and that was nearly in the country already) and into Leech’s.
There we sat having a couple till it was shutting and time to get the tram into the real country.
Lizzie and she got a dozen of large bottles and the loan of a basket and we got a currant pan and a half-pound of cooked ham in the shop next door and got on the tram for Whitehall.
‘I see yous are well-heeled,’ says the conductor, looking at the basket.
‘Well, the country, sir,’ says my grandmother. ‘You’d eat the side wall of a house after it’
‘You’re going all the way?’
‘To the very end,’ says Lizzie MacKay. ‘All the way to Whitehall.’
‘And I don’t suppose that’ll be the country much longer,’ says the conductor. ‘There’s houses everywhere now. Out beyond Phibsboro church. They’re nearly out to where Lord Norbury disappeared on the way home and the coachman only felt the coach getting lighter on the journey and when he got to the house your man was disappeared and the devil was after claiming him, and good enough for him after the abuse he gave poor Emmet in the dock.’
My grandmother and Lizzie MacKay bowed their heads and muttered, ‘Amen.’
‘They’re nearly out to there,’ said the conductor, ‘and it won’t be long before they’re at Whitehall,’ giving the bell a bang to hurry the driver up before the builders got there.
We found a fine ditch only a few yards from the end of the tram tracks and nice and handy for getting home, and there was grass and trees over it.
I ran into a field and across a big park till an old fellow with a strawbainer hat started chasing me and cursing till I got out again and ran to my granny and Lizzie.
They sat up in their ditch and took the bottles from their mouths and looked over at the old fellow who was shouting with his red face from the gate.
‘Go ’long, you low scruff,’ said Lizzie, ‘myself and this lady here with the right of being buried in Kilbarrack was here before you were let out of wherever you were let out of. Talking about your park, anyone’d think you owned it!’
The old fellow danced a bit more with temper andhis red face but they waved their bottles at him and he went off.
‘Me poor child, you’d want something after that old fellow frightening the little heart out of you. Open another bottle, Lizzie, and give him a bit of ham to take with it.’
We sat on in the setting sun eating and drinking and my grandmother and Lizzie MacKay making remarks about the way the fellows going past were either walking in front of or behind their girls.
‘Look at that fellow, Lizzie, swinging his stick, a mile behind the poor one.’
The young man looked over at them, and hurried on to get out of earshot.
‘You’d think the poor girl had a contagious disease.’
The man and the girl took one fearful look over at them and fled up the road.
When we got home that night from the country the people asked us where we’d spent the day and my grandmother said we’d been on the Belfast road.
All I had ever heard of Ireland and her green
‘Will you stand out?’ says Jam Roll.
‘I will,’ said I.
‘In the cod or in the real?’
‘The real,’ said I, ‘d’you take me for a hornpiper?’
He said no more but gave me a belt so that I thought the Hogan Stand had fallen on me. One off the ground. The real Bowery Belt.
‘Now,’ says he, when I came to, ‘you won’t call me Jam Roll again.’
‘You were wrong there, Jam Roll.’
Belfast was First Right … Then Just Straight Ahead
If you went up the North Circular as far as the Big Tree Belfast was on the first turn to the right. Straight ahead. I knew that when I was seven. The country lay out there. I visited it with my grandmother one day she and Lizzie MacKay went out for a breath of air.
After dinner on a Sunday, she put on her black coat and hat and a veil with little black diamonds on it and off we went. We went up the canal from Jones’s Road Bridge to Binn’s Bridge (and that was nearly in the country already) and into Leech’s.
There we sat having a couple till it was shutting and time to get the tram into the real country.
Lizzie and she got a dozen of large bottles and the loan of a basket and we got a currant pan and a half-pound of cooked ham in the shop next door and got on the tram for Whitehall.
‘I see yous are well-heeled,’ says the conductor, looking at the basket.
‘Well, the country, sir,’ says my grandmother. ‘You’d eat the side wall of a house after it’
‘You’re going all the way?’
‘To the very end,’ says Lizzie MacKay. ‘All the way to Whitehall.’
‘And I don’t suppose that’ll be the country much longer,’ says the conductor. ‘There’s houses everywhere now. Out beyond Phibsboro church. They’re nearly out to where Lord Norbury disappeared on the way home and the coachman only felt the coach getting lighter on the journey and when he got to the house your man was disappeared and the devil was after claiming him, and good enough for him after the abuse he gave poor Emmet in the dock.’
My grandmother and Lizzie MacKay bowed their heads and muttered, ‘Amen.’
‘They’re nearly out to there,’ said the conductor, ‘and it won’t be long before they’re at Whitehall,’ giving the bell a bang to hurry the driver up before the builders got there.
We found a fine ditch only a few yards from the end of the tram tracks and nice and handy for getting home, and there was grass and trees over it.
I ran into a field and across a big park till an old fellow with a strawbainer hat started chasing me and cursing till I got out again and ran to my granny and Lizzie.
They sat up in their ditch and took the bottles from their mouths and looked over at the old fellow who was shouting with his red face from the gate.
‘Go ’long, you low scruff,’ said Lizzie, ‘myself and this lady here with the right of being buried in Kilbarrack was here before you were let out of wherever you were let out of. Talking about your park, anyone’d think you owned it!’
The old fellow danced a bit more with temper andhis red face but they waved their bottles at him and he went off.
‘Me poor child, you’d want something after that old fellow frightening the little heart out of you. Open another bottle, Lizzie, and give him a bit of ham to take with it.’
We sat on in the setting sun eating and drinking and my grandmother and Lizzie MacKay making remarks about the way the fellows going past were either walking in front of or behind their girls.
‘Look at that fellow, Lizzie, swinging his stick, a mile behind the poor one.’
The young man looked over at them, and hurried on to get out of earshot.
‘You’d think the poor girl had a contagious disease.’
The man and the girl took one fearful look over at them and fled up the road.
When we got home that night from the country the people asked us where we’d spent the day and my grandmother said we’d been on the Belfast road.
All I had ever heard of Ireland and her green
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