Rory Cormack McNamara, you Fenian bastard! Look at the size of you!
What's your mother feeding you, giant beans?!"

"Take no notice of them, son. They'll soon be marched past the house along with their tin whistles, their orange sashes, and their Lambeg drums."

"Ah Mam, don't fret yourself. I've been ignoring those Apprentice Proddies for years."

Mike Coony
"Rory, your sister Dolores should he home this long while. Run you down and see if she's back from the dancing practice. Ignore those Protestant boys now, you hear.


"Jesus Christ Dolores! Your poor wee face and your new dress all torn! What happened to you?"

"Rory Mac, don't get mad now. Teresa and me . . . the Apprentice Boys . . . she's a lot worse than me. They dragged her into the barn. Her da went to the barracks. They asked him what he expected with such a pretty wee daughter out and about with the marching season on and the boys full of drink. They told him to send her to see the priest . . . for all the good it would do her if she’s carrying a good Protestant babe in her belly now!"

"Dolores, did you recognise any of them? Can you name even one of them, can you?"

"Teresa gave her da a couple of names. Don't do anything crazy Mac. Leave it up to her da, please." "Ma, Teresa here's had a bit of fright. Look after her won't you. I'm away off to see Teresa Maher's da." "God no son! Rory Mac, I'm begging you! Don't bring that gun with you!"
"Ma, would you ask the wind not to blow, or the sun not to rise? So please don't ask me not to settle the score."

“D ###
Mummy, how does she manage it, whenever I’m having that exciting dream . . . now I may never learn what happens to that beautiful Russian girl . . . raped by that horrible little man and left pregnant and alone. Nataliya Yelena . . . such a romantic sounding name . . . it trips off my tongue . . . if it wasn’t a dream I could imagine myself doing with her what my art teacher, MarieÂÁThérèse Gullet, now does to me.

I never expected to be a Lesbian . . . I actually rather liked boys and fully expected to marry one, one day. “Susan! Susan! You’ll make me old before my time . . . do hurry yourself!"

That would never do . . . Mummy old before her time . . . how on earth she would attract her 'toy boys’ then, I don’t know! And no one calls me Susan anymore . . . she does, just to annoy me . . . everyone at school calls me Suzie, if they’re not calling me one of those horrible names making fun of my large breasts. Yuck!

Fearless Finn

Daddy is such a brick. He put me down for Cheltenham Ladies College a month before my first birthday . . . and now he pays the exorbitant fees and all the extras without a mummer. Mummy thought that he’d be a judge by now, but a Queen’s Counsel is what he is and probably what he’ll remain. I’ll hurry myself. I quiet like catching all those stuffy old judges leering at me when they think noÂÁone’s looking.

I think I’ll describe my dream to MarieÂÁThérèse Gullet. Yes, that should be such fun and I’ll embellish it . . . try to make her jealous. Jealous of a dream, can you imagine it . . . such fun.

“Mummy is Stuart coming with us, is he?"

“Susan, your brother is with his regiment this week. He’ll join us in chambers".

Stuart, who could ask for a more handsome upright and thoroughly decent brother? He looks every bit the dashing cavalry officer in his Blues & Royals uniform. I was terrified watching him jumping at the Trials in Windsor Great Park. Just like one of those carefree characters that adorn those silly Barbara Cartland novels the girls at school giggle over before lights out.

I do hope that he doesn’t go to Hong Kong. Stanley Fort sounds like such a dreary place compared to their Hyde Park Barracks, although Hong Kong does sound like an exciting place.

Perhaps I should forget the idea of being an artist and living in a cottage with MarieÂÁThérèse Gullet, and join the army, and ask to be stationed in exotic far flung places...silly me, with my luck I’d end up in Northern Ireland.


I wasn’t arguing, not really. Just straightening out this Jewish kid, see.

“William Shakespeare. The playwright, poet -- what have you, he was Italian--name of Michelangelo Florio Crollalanza. In English English, that’s Shakespeare "Capice!"

“Vincenzo Zambito, if it wasn’t for your Uncle Angelo being my father’s employer, I’d call you an ignorant Sicilian peasant. And what’d you mean by English English, eh!"

“English like they speak in England -- not English like we talk here in America."

“So you going ta tell that English boy in Seventh Grade that -- 'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo’ was written by an Italian. He’ll whoop your ass!"



“You mean that big galluppa with the yellow hair? He ain’t even English, he’s Irish. With a name like Fergus Finn Flynn--you think he’s English "Asshole!"

“Are we playing Pinochle? Deal the cards idiota!"

“He was born in Messina, Italy, to Giovanni Florio, a doctor, and Guglielma Crollalanza, a Sicilian noblewoman."

“I still think the Flynn guy will knock you flat on your ass-- he don’t seem so scared of your Uncle Angelo, or his reputation -- know what I mean!"

“Two hundred fifty points, so 'shoot the moon’ and that’ll be game 'right!'

“Cedric, you’re into me for five dollars an’ fifty cents. You two play snap or something we’re going to see what Fergus Finn Flynn says when he hears that William Shakespeare was an Italian."

“That’s right, we Irish always knew that William Shakespeare was a good Italian Catholic. After he was educated by the Franciscan monks, he wrote a play and called it Tanto traffico per Niente ÂÁ Much Ado about Nothing. Sure every half eejit knows that!" Are you still playing Pinochle? That gambling will be the death of you yet Vincenzo."

###