Shooting the Messenger! So...50 years ago, today, I was just 7, and was playing by myself in our back-yard on Main Street, Loughrea Town (cause no one would play with me), hitting a tennis ball with my hurley against the big wooden gate that closed off our yard from the street. My brother Paul had numbered the squares on the gate, assigning scores to each target, the smaller the square, the bigger the score. I was aceing the hard-to-hit-for-a-seven-year-old #3 target that was the wicket gate, when the window above me opened up, in what was Sweeneys Grocery then, but now is AIB Bank. Gerry Sweeney popped his head out, a mass of ginger hair, animated, JFK has been shot he roared, before slamming the window shut. I had no idea what this utterance meant, but given the nature of its delivery, felt obliged to drop the hurley and dash into our Kitchen, where mum and dad and who knows how many of my 6 siblings were having their tea (supper, whatever) and waiting for the 6 oclock news to come on the warmed-up wireless, after the Angelus, that was chiming away sonorously amid the clack and clatter of cups and saucers and spoons. I blurted out Gerrys news, JFK has been shot to be met by incredulous stares and the rebuke, Shut up, the news is only coming on, what would you know about JFK, sure wasnt he just in Eyre Square a couple a months ago, shot??? Shure who would shoot a man like that, shame on you for your wicked imagination, go up those stairs to your room, what a thing to say, shhh, heres the news just coming on now...get, get you up those stairs, and dont come down until you have had a long think about what trouble telling lies gets you, boyo, ...pass the milk Clare please, shush, whisth, ...whats that they just said?.. JFK, Oh my God......!
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 09:57:43 +0000
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