Early Days Of Marriage

Dad got pretty drunk on Xmas Eve with the lads from CIE and he didn't go home on the night that he, Pat, Helen and Jas were to catch a train to Abbeyleix to spend Xmas '59 in Ballytarsna, c. 2 months after marriage. When they did take the train, Mike was still so drunk that he was trying to start fights on the trainstation and he peed on the train to the hilarity of Jas and Helen and the shame of Pat.

Helen was pregnant so it was to be their last Christmas with the family since they were hoping to make it overland to NZ before the baby came.

Mike and Pat stayed in the hotel and Helen and Jas stayed in Balltarsna with Henry. At the Xmas dinner, there was no room for my mother to sit and Henry was put out of sight of his father in the pantry until I insisted that he sit between us and share our chairs.

Our first summer holiday was in Galway. We stayed in a hotel in Salthill. The beach there was men-only bathing since the bishop was pretty anti-women. Afterwards, he fell into disgrace for fathering a child, which of course became a big public saga. We had a nice holiday, going out on the river Shannon on the boat; there was salmon everywhere. You could almost reach in and pluck one out.