The heartbeat of our lives was our home at number eight, St. Peters Street, just outside the village of Kilaglin. The house was small and comfortable. Its white-washed walls and overgrown hedges gave the home a cozy and lived-in look. There were three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen. The kitchen was the social center of the household, and the solid fuel range was the magnet that drew everyone in. A fire was always blazing for cooking and heating, next to which the weaving of tall tales and the creating of dreams were often told.

Necessity dictated all the furniture. There was little in the way of luxuries, save for the radio which was an event all of its own. It was a warm, clean, and happy house. Beyond the front garden was a short walk to the village and beyond that, the edge of the world. A world that was an island caught in a time warp.

That Ireland in the late fifties and much of the sixties, was still in the horse and cart transport system, at least in the heart of farmland and rural areas. Cars were a luxury and a train journey was a major event. Most of life centered on a local level rather than a country level, for the most part, everybody was in two degrees of each other, and idle gossip had become an art form with talk of the weather, sin and God.

Religion itself was another matter except to say that Ireland was a state run by a lot of servants more powerful than the people that they served. The priests, the nuns, and the Christian Brothers. They were the first in the hierarchy followed by their servants in the form of politicians, teachers, and the police that helped ban everything from kissing in public to the pill. Even great books from its home grown writers like Brendan Behan, George Bernard Shaw, and Samuel Beckett were banned, as were the foreigners like John Steinbeck, Graham Greene, and Ernest Hemingway. Sex was seen as a perversion and did not really exist anyway. Ireland was on curfew and lockdown from the world and with that they all went to heaven. So much for the birds and the bees, a world I was not aware of yet. I had more important things on my mind like when do I get to shave, and how old do you have to be to wear long trousers, and where do the people inside our radio live? While our Granny Margaret kept house, Granddad Jeremiah did a bit of everything to make ends meet. Anything from selling turf to writing and reading letters for those who could not. The currency rendered for his services came in varied forms as well, from a few shillings to a gallon of milk, a bit of flour, or a few pints of Guinness, and more than a few permanent IOUs. In general, times were hard. Though in the villages, one-horse towns, and poor areas of Ireland, hard times might have been doubted if the general good will of the people was anything to go by. No matter what, Granddad always put food on the table and we always got by in this quite part of the Country.

The postcard village of Kilaglin where we lived rests itself among rolling hills and fields within the sound and smell of the sea that is only minutes away by car. A river, renowned for its salmon and trout fishing, snakes along it's front. The steep hill rising to the main street leads through rows of houses still hanging on to it's old-world charm. It is also home to an annual Fair. This three hundred year plus tradition was once a great meeting place for cattle and horse-trading that retouched old friendships and started new ones. Today the cattle, horses, and characters are gone, long since replaced by tacky traders in the form of kiosks, chip vans, doubtful looking vendors, and dodgy Travellers. Back in 1960, it was a sleepy little hamlet beating time to an old antique clock, the smell of turf fires, and the echo of evening church bells telling me that this was home. The same echo brought crossed hands, trembling lips, and tears to many an emigrants' beer. It also holds my earliest and most enduring memories of just about anything, a time when three little boys walked alongside their grandfather one morning just outside the village in that same year. There was my cousin, derek, my brother, Michael and little me.

As I was not yet four years old, my grandfather held me tightly by the hand.

"Slow down boys," Granddad grumbled good-naturedly as the other two pulled further and a little too far ahead.

They suddenly took a sharp left off the road and slid down an embankment that led into a winding, dried-out riverbed. An old stone bridge where men used to cast fishing lines was all that reminded us of its life and was now only a great body of mud and pollution.

For Michael and Derek it was another place to explore and a challenge to cross. They soon disappeared from view. Granddad's mouth opened in alarm as he loosened his vice-like grip on my hand. His mouth opened wider as he saw me dart past him on fat but fast legs; I wanted to join the boys.

Granddad roared at us to come back in a voice that carried no authority. We had long figured out that he was just a big softie with a bigger heart. We could just about get away with anything. Derek and Michael ran over mounds of grass, hopping from one to the other as if riding on air. I tried to follow but missed a step and sank deep into the mud like a lead weight. They reached a far embankment where the two of them looked on in shock while Granddad blinked and clutched his chest in horror. I was sinking slowly through the mud.

Just then, an old woman arrived at the bridge on a bicycle shouting down at me, to "stop crying!" Even at not quite four years old, I thought, I am going to die here and this is the only sympathy I can get? Jeremiah brushed past her and ran for help. Every movement sucked me in deeper.

At least my head and neck were still above the ground. I clung onto a twig for comfort as I would have a teddy bear, had one been handy. Soon, Granddad returned with the town postman, a man I knew as Tim. He brought with him two tennis rackets and tied one on to each of his boots to help spread his weight. Being of slight build, the postman's walk now made him look like he carried weight with a bad case of constipation thrown in as he slowly made his way to me. The ground held and my sobbing stopped as this calm and kind man with a great smile, gently pulled and coaxed me from what might have been my grave. I was minus my shoes and my cheekiness. The shoes never came back, but the cheekiness did.

When we all got home that evening Granny scolded Michael and Derek, while Granddad was eaten alive. I, however, was treated like a king. Every chance they got, Derek and Michael stared at me with bad intentions, watching as I slowly and deliberately wolfed down the only and last piece of Granny's homemade rhubarb pie. After supper, Granddad was slumped in his favorite armchair sulking from the scolding that he had gotten from Granny. It felt good that we were all in the same boat. He reacted the same way as his grandchildren had, which made me feel all the closer to him.

In that armchair he looked harmless smoking his pipe, mellowed by sixty plus years of living. A closer look saw his round face dominated by his nose. It was broken, and flattened from too many brawls when in younger clothes and with a harder body. His nose was a curiosity that made a kind face look too tough when nothing could be further from the truth. He was easygoing and undemanding, which made him ageless. A couple of pints on the weekend with his mates and a bet on the greyhounds were more than enough to keep him happy.

To help luck smile on him more, he owned and trained greyhounds too. Trying to inspire them, he named them Speed and Bullet, which was a great stretch of the truth for they couldn't catch a three-legged hare. They remained useless as racers but became great pets.

My grandmother, was the one we were all afraid of. She was always pottering about, cooking and fretting. One look from her could make me feel guilty about something I may have never even done. But her love for us was unquestionable and all that cooking, washing, worrying, and sometimes crying was her way of showing it. She carried weight that didn't help her permanent limp or her varicose veins, and carried worry as her duty. Everything about her was etched in her face of sixty years: stress, strength, and kindness. She was a familiar sight to us in her blue-spotted apron and hair always tied in a bun. Granny was the matriarch of the family and the one we went to when we needed our wounds tended. With three fast growing children running wild, we kept her on her toes and sleeping with one eye open.

My cousin, Derek, at seven years old, had a head start on me by three years. He was the only child of my father's sister, Orla, who had left him here as a baby hoping some day to come back for him. She was little more than a child herself when she had him, and lived somewhere in England not too far from my own parents, trying to be a married woman while not old enough to vote. To me, he was another brother and the leader of our gang. He looked different than local children. Long body topped by a shock of dark hair, this coupled with his sallow skin gave him a foreign appearance. Unlike my brother, Michael, who looked very much the fair Irish boy with a fine head of red hair. At five years old, he was freckled, slender, wiry. He was carried by skinny strong legs that propelled him with lightning speed.

Both Derek and Michael were naturally athletic, while I was almost a polar opposite of them.

At the age of four, I was short and chubby, and waddled more than I walked. My hair was almost black and if given a summer tan I looked like an Indian. Because of my age and little legs, plus my non-athletic prowess, I was led rather than followed about the place. Much of the leading was done by the youngest child of my grandparents, Bernie.

My Aunt Bernie, was seventeen years old and very pretty with dancing eyes. She was the only child of my grandparents still living at home. She was one of six children, four girls and two boys, the boys and one of the girls having gone off to England. Bernie was more of a big sister to us than an aunt. We had a happy family: my grandparents, Bernie, Eric, Michael and myself.

Bernie often brought us down to the Village Square with me in a pram to do some errands. At four years old, I was well out of that stage, but I was too quick to run and too heavy to carry. While shopping one day, our little troupe came across a gypsy selling YoYo toys in a big box. There had to be at least a hundred of them, all colored red except one, the odd one out was a colour of light blue.

"Five pennies, Maam," the gypsy offered.

Bernie encouraged me to take one. I went for the blue one.

"No boy," the gypsy said, "that one is broken." I cradled it in my hand, "I want this one." "But Barry," Bernie said, "you heard the man, it doesn't work." I looked up at her firmly, "This is what I want." Bernie looked to the sky and asked, "how much?" "It's free," he called after her with a bemused look. Bernie became amused at my antics of trying to get the yoyo to spin, the man was right, I couldn't get it to work.

"There, are you happy now?" Bernie laughingly inquired.

"Yes, because its mine" I said not too convincingly. My pride was already awoken, and I had the urge to walk a little on the wild side. The fact that the YoYO didn't work was of little matter to me against the fact that it was different. For better or worse, this would be the driving force of my character.

Not forgetting I found it hard to admit I was wrong anyway.

Derek, Michael, and I were great together, with the love of our grandparents and Bernie to help us along. As we grew, so did our increasing awareness of the life around us and so too the fear of things that we couldn't see or understand, like God or a stormy evening when the dog definitely stayed indoors.

One such night, when it seemed the world was about to end outside and the "big bad wolf" was trying to blow our little house down, every door and window seemed set upon by angry spirits. Michael became very frightened and upset at the raging storm and hid in a corner of the kitchen while my eyes just got bigger. Bernie fussed over his distress and decided to show him that there was nothing to be afraid of. She held him in her arms tightly and carried him outside. The big chestnut tree in the garden was only a couple of feet from the front door, swaying wildly and in full fury with a life force all its own, very moody and threatening looking. Bernie pulled a leaf from one of its branches and held it in her hand.

Slowly, she opened her fist with the leaf nestled within her palm, only green-colored veins remained without life support.

" Look Michael, there is nothing to be afraid of," Bernie whispered. He hesitantly reached out and touched the leaf and after a long moment of stroking it, started to laugh in relief. This was Michael as a child with traits that were never too far from him when we become adults. Suspicion before comprehension, holding back, leaving me to feel that I was on the outside looking in.

Bernie, one time, again being the grown-up, would not give me a piece of chocolate.

I threw a tantrum in the house and started cursing, swearing, and becoming a right pain.

Granny asked Bernie to put me outside until I calmed down. As I fumed and stomped my feet outside the front door, I kept repeating that I will say "shit" if I want to. Bernie fell about in hysterics. This of course only confused me, until in the end I fell about laughing too.

Unapologetic, impulsive, and holding nothing back, that was my way.

Back then, it was Bernie who kept that world balanced. With great patience, she nurtured and encouraged Michael, and it gave him a fighting chance for the coming trials ahead. In some strange way I was always ready, with a "bring it on" type of personality which became my saviour.

Summer seemed endless, warm and full of fun. Derek, Michael, and I would spend many happy hours in the long grassy fields that surrounded our house. Often we would race through the grass, playing cowboys and indians, using shovels as our handles, playing tag to any passing farmer who might have a sense of humour. Then fleeing on our horses back to home leaving more than a few of them looking after our retreating figures. Our grandparents gazed on us with quizzical looks, sensing we had been up to mischief while we did not know whether we had been or not. But we pretended nothing anyway and trotted back to our fort to have a "pow wow" about today while planning tomorrow.

Derek was easygoing and I was just happy that he played the part of my big brother.

He organized most of our adventures, showing me how to get worms, and catch fish even though I never caught anything. He had a very practical nature for his age and he was always given those responsible jobs like feeding the two greyhounds kept in the back of the house.

He was as dependable as I was not. Left to me, the dogs would have starved. Like me, he accepted this house as our home and all who lived here as his family. I looked up to him like the dogs did and I always turned to him for guidance. Like a great general, he would dispense that guidance back at our meeting place, a site that was our own special place of refuge, and our second home we called our "fort." That fort was an old Ford Anglia car. A big old hunk of metal abandoned by our Uncle Jerry several years before when he left for England. It was one of those that needed a starting handle to get the engine going. Once, it was an eye-catching car, it had now been reduced to a shell of its former self. Its final resting place was in the back garden of our house. Being neglected had affected many changes on its body. A few weeds and even some flowers grew out of its wheels. The doors hung lopsided and the tires had long since been flattened. With so much rust on it, it looked like a different coat of paint had been added. A tree had sprung up through the rusted floor and it was thriving in the greenhouse temperature inside the car. Dampness invaded every crevice and corner of the car giving the smell of leather a new meaning. But this was our fort and it was from here that Derek taught Michael and me other lessons of life, like the day he showed us for the first time how to catch a mouse.

In the middle of the back garden he placed a cooking pot face down, which he propped up with a stick. He then tied some string around the stick and ran the rest of it all the way back to the fort. After placing cheese inside the basin and around it, we ran back hiding behind our fort, Derek had his hand firmly on the string, ready to pull. Then we just waited, and waited, and waited. This was no small feat for three restless boys; any cat would have been proud of us. Hours passed by and at last, a cute little mouse came on by. She looked at the feast before her, a trail of cheese leading into a food emporium. Her eyes were on the alert, while we lay crouched and as still as "moving statues." The mouse slowly grew more confident and was now under the basin, nibbling away, when Derek pulled the string. The basin clanged around her. As we ran up to see our prey under its domed metal trap, Derek reached under the pot. I held my breath as his hand emerged with a very frightened looking rodent. I was amazed and asked him if I could hold it. My small hand curled around a tiny clump of soft fur. It looked up in terror with its trembling heart pulsating against my skin.

I could feel the tears come to my eyes for I wanted so much to tell this little bundle that I would never hurt it. Derek looked at me and his glance spelled "wimp." Now and again, Derek and Michael would play this game, always letting the mice go. I never bothered again; it just never felt right.

Mice were not the only creatures unsafe around three young boys. Once, the three of us were walking past a field one evening when Michael noticed a cat napping beside a small pond. He went on ahead to check it out while Derek and I chased after a daddy long legs.

We used to pull their wings off and after handicapping a few, which guaranteed their death anyway, we would let them go. After a while, we became bored and started to head towards the pond to see Michael. In the distance we could see him throwing something back into the water. As we got closer we could not believe what he was doing. He had been throwing the cat into the water every time it crawled out. The poor cat was now exhausted and near death, but it kept crawling out of the pond until eventually it would not come out anymore, for the promise of death had become the better choice. I often thought back to that time and how cruel it seemed Michael had been, until I realized I had been doing similar torture on the daddy long legs. My hypocrisy was from my affections for the cat that I simply did not have for the daddy long legs.

In the years ahead, it often seemed to me that Michael was trying to apologize for that day, though he never spoke about it. His personality grew into one of deep reflection and sensitivity, and I felt he become overly serious. He developed a deep and growing respect for all of nature. The names of trees and flowers came easily to him, even in Latin, while his respect for humans grew less and less and would only further isolate himself in his own world.

There were quiet times too at home, but for the most part the only rest for our grandparents was in the late evenings. It was our special time with them. They never complained that we were a burden, for they saw us only as a blessing. Sitting on Granny's lap and pulling on Granddad's flattened nose and appealing to them both in a nightly ritual to be allowed to listen to Jimmy O'Deas bed time stories on the radio is what I remember most.

We knew that they would always give in. Being tucked in at night, filled with the feel good children's stories of old Jimmy, that sometimes scared the hell out of you even though the handsome prince always saved the day, and the good night hugs of our grandparents made everyday of those brief years nothing short of heaven. Loving and being loved as children was our daily diet and it was food for our future life. But an ill wind was starting to blow and our perfect world was about to change forever.

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