I suppose I was very lucky to have been chosen by the double,
top secret, cabal to be entered into training to become the world’s leading Master
Candle Maker. God, as you are aware,
chose me to be the High Chief of the Clan O Neill and the true King of Ireland. Now in Warrenpoint the various strands of my
training were coming together. My mother
had been an opera singer so from a young age I had been immersed in classical music.
At Violent Hell I had studied the piano and the violin.
Unfortunately this fell into the ‘family tradition’ excuse
for doing things. I was even given the
violin that had been passed down from generation to generation. I still have it for I wouldn’t have been so
cruel to send one of my children to that horrible place. Studying music was a good ruse to get out of
various study periods in the evening. Rather
than sit rigid at your desk in the study hall pretending to translate something
or other you could stretch out in a classroom all to yourself, hang out the
window and have a smoke and generally relax although you would have to be on
your guard as the dean, the Wee Scut would patrol the corridors listening for
the screeching’s of someone practising a scale.
Once you reached a suitable grade you would join the school
orchestra and after a while, if good enough, you would be allowed to join the
Newry orchestra. The school orchestra
actually entered a school orchestra competition held in Belfast. I remember we travelled up in the old school
bus and we actually won our event. I’m
sure you are impressed, as were most of the other boys at the school who were
so proud of their ever growing collection of Gaelic football trophies. At last we music geeks had a little bit of kudos. Of
course it didn’t last for very long as the other boys, the rough and tumble
football crowd, found out that we were the only school orchestra in that competition. It had been a particularly violent week in
Northern Ireland with bombs and killings by the dozen so most sensible schools had
decided not to attend. In my defence I
would have to say that we did have to reach a certain standard to be declared winners.
Attending practise sessions with the Newry orchestra was
quite exciting. The other boys would be
jealous as you would have a full evening away from the school and not only that
but you would be seeing girls. The girl’s
boarding school in Newry would allow some of its students to practise with the Newry
Orchestra too. We would just sit there
and fall in love with any girl that looked pretty. Of course the girls were protected by a
snatch squad of battle hardened nuns, who I understand were almost as vicious
and violent as the priests at Violent Hell.
Stories of punishments such as kneeling on pencils, Chinese burns and hair
pulling were always circulating.
I don’t know why but once a year, usually May time, Violent
Hell would host a dance. It would be
held in the gymnasium and the girls from Saint Michaels in Lurgan would
attend. It was quite a night and as
juniors we were not allowed to attend, we could only sit at our desks and
dream. One year I was actually called
out of the study hall during the dance. I
wasn’t lucky enough to attend the function but my sister was the head girl at
saint Michaels and she had brought me a bag of sweets. I think it was the first
and only time she was ever nice to me, and I liked it.
Now, in Warrenpoint, I was being exposed to even more culture. The dancing I learned at the Gaeltacht’s allowed
me to participate in the weekly ceilidhs in Warrenpoint. However the country and western music was a
big part of life in Warrenpoint as was the growing pop culture of David Bowie
and Marc Bolan. An extra dimension was
the folk music element which had a rebel edge.
This would come from people like Christy Moore or groups like the Wolfe
Tones who were then considered to be the political wing of the IRA. On top of which we had our very own stars
like Van Morrison, Rory Gallagher and Dana. A truly
eclectic dip in the sea of music culture.
I believe that we were really lucky, as on top of everything that
was available to us, I able to experience and enjoy the show bands. This would be a group of seven or eight musicians
who would perform country and western tunes, cover versions of current pop hits
and even rock and roll, with every tune being delivered with great enthusiasm. As you may expect we didn’t stand on the dance
floor and twist and shake like any normal teenager, no we jived. Expert jivers had the greatest respect and on
many evenings would give displays of their talents.
I enjoyed all of it whether it was performing a jig, a reel
or a hornpipe, or simply jiving to rock and roll. We were not passionate music lovers; we did
appreciate a good tune, well delivered. We,
I suppose, were more interested in meeting girls. I do remember one evening. I had been at the docks helping to unload
some trawlers which I was usually paid for in cod or lobster. I had gone home and dropped off a huge cod
that I had been given and went off to the local ceilidh. I had taken a small bag of herring too so
that as we danced about, a girl would hold her hand out to take mine and I would
hand her a fish.
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