Silly Old Twit

Try to imagine the scene. It wont do any good but try all the same. Imagine your poor , really poor. Maybe you were brought up in an Irish orphanage , or maybe your parents were , but either way life has not been good to you. Think of all the things that make life as you know it and now imagine that you never had them. It still wont do any good but keep trying. If you have children , children who had a normal life in a normal home try to imagine what it’s like to only have one wish for your kids and that that they had never been born. Try to imagine your kids at maybe eight years of age being addicted to heroin. Try to imagine it. It’s got to do with low self esteem. Imagine you and your kids never had any. Think what it must be like to only want death for your children , because the alternative is a lot worse. But most of all , and this is the really important bit , try to imagine that it doesn’t matter what you feel or think because either way you just don’t have a voice. Nobody is listening. Try very had to think what your worst nightmare might be , and I don’t mean something like having you kids die or something like that. That happens all the time and people adapt , they get over it or they cope. I mean think of a real nightmare , the sort that doesn’t end , the sort there’s no escape from. Throw away all your possessions , leave your home , put your kids on the street , do it all ….but your still nowhere near to understanding. You still haven’t got a clue.

So don’t tell me that you know who the enemy is. You don’t even know whats going on. And don’t try to second guess me. Don’t tell me what I’m thinking because , believe me , you just don’t know. Don’t try to understand , there’s conceit in that. Just accept that you don’t know , that it’s not in your gift to know. Don’t look sympathetic and then start telling me things. Say nothing. Don’t tell me it’s not raining just because you got an umberalla. And don’t think. Because if you think you’ll get it wrong.

How many valium tablets does it take to kill a child? It’s not as easy to work that one out as you might think. It’s not like in the movies with Betty Davis or something like that. The body rejects tablets if taken in too large a dose. The chances are they would just vomit them all up and still not be dead. And then where would you be?

The first thing you notice are the big iron gates. Just like an orphanage. Or your idea of an orphanage. You feel physically sick just seeing them but you don’t have any controll. It’s the way things are and it’s always been like this. You walk past the high grey wall with a row of windows on your right. Institution windows. Or your idea of institution windows. You get to the front door , a big over-sized door , like the door of an institution. By this time your shaking , you want to go away , it’s like living a nightmare all over again but you keep walking. The first thing that hits you is the smell. The sort of smell you get in hospitals and old folks homes. If they dropped you blindfold from a helicopter you would still know that this was not a normal place. You take a few steps into the lobby. Holy pictures and crucifixes. And then you come face to face with them.
And the truth is that you don’t want to see them , you don’t want to see their faces. You feel disgust. Anger too. But most of all disgust. By this time the sweat is poring down your back and you feel queasy , the smell , the holy pictures , the whole place , you just don’t want to be there.
” I’m here to see my wife”………..and then the questions begin. You have to answerer the questions. You don’t have a choice. It’s not an optional extra. It’s always the same questions and they know the answers because you’ve done this a hundred times but you still have to answer. They can tell your not comfortable. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Nobody is fooling nobody as they say. The insincere smiles. , the unwanted familiarity …..they use your christian name. The name you let your friends use. ….it’s clever that. It has to do with power.

After she was cremated. Maybe a month or so after somebody (meaning well) gave my daughter the book. It broke her heart. It still does to this day. The pain , how can you describe that sort of pain? Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy , “Gardening the Soul“. A book of spiritual contemplation. She gave a full page to my wife , my daughters mother , and lied. Dirty lies. And when told of the pain it had caused?…blood from a stone..
Stanislaus Kennedy. Spokesperson for Focus Ireland/Stanhope Green Sheltered Housing/Irish Sisters of Charity/Member of the Council of State/spokesperson Immigration Council of Ireland , a government appointee. After the best part of forty years , industrial schools and orphanages she still claims she knew nothing. In another time and another place , in Poland , they swore ( the crematorium towers clear , visible on the horizon) they didn’t know what was going on. How do you think it feels , sitting in the penny dinner hall (crucifixes and holy pictures) knowing your there because your mother was a broken person leaving you broken too. Stanislaus Kennedy , member of The Council of State , you’ve never met her but you know the name. You remember , you remember your mother using that name , you remember the pain in her face. And your sitting in the dinner hall with a cup of tea before you. It has that smell too , like prisons and orphanages , the nun , the helper who gave you the tea just a little too familiar.

Bernard Roy Duggan. London , Shepard’s Bush , the nineteen seventies. A young man ( a dear friend) he looked like a pop star , beautiful and young he stood out in the crowd. Like a magnet he drew others to him. But late at night I used to hear him in the next room. The howls , the animal howls from the next room. A damaged young man. Sometimes , late at night he would come into my room , sit on the bed and put his face in his hands and cry like a child. I’ve never seen so much pain in one human being. Bernard Roy Duggan , an orphan raised by the Sitters of Charities , died of his own hand. No one , not a soul to mourn him. Bernard Roy Duggan.

When I was about eight years of age my mother brought me and my big sister up to the school ( Haddington Road). My sister wanted to go to the technical school. The nuns wanted her to go to the college. They said she had brains , natural aptitude , that my mother should send her to the college. I remember it like it was yesterday , holding my mother’s hand and the nuns using all the persuasion they could muster to make her see the advantages of a college education. I remember looking up at my mother when one of the nuns , having exhausted all the arguments had looked at my mother and said , “She’ll meet a better class of person”. ….’the only time in my life that I heard my mother curse.

Jack B. Yeates , “The Liffey Swim”. If you stand just where the artist stood when making the sketch for this picture and take a few paces to your left then cross the road you’ll see it right in front of you. The church , the side entrance with the door that opens on to the dinner room….. Lucy Gaffney , The Merchants Quay Project/NPAR/blah blah blah/Stanislaus Kennedy. Sharing the same committees , the same agenda. You can tell them by the company they keep. Appointed by the same government ministers. The same arrogance. The Immigration Council of Ireland. The talking down. And in the background the dinner rooms. The ‘penny’ dinners. Don’t tell me , don’t tell me anything. Don’t try and second guess me. Don’t try to understand. Just listen. Like rape , it’s all to do with power. Don’t look for explanations.

There is a video to be found on the Internet. A man. A Japanese man is seen , on his knees and begging for his life. Begging. A group of men behind him and one of them is holding a copy of the Koran. They let him beg just long enough for him to look less than manly and then they cut his throat. As I walk into the city most days I cross Baggot Street Bridge , turn left and pass on the right hand side of the street a building ,The Irish Sisters of Charity with a notice outside to let you know that you can have a guided tour (with tea and biscuits throw in) , but I’ve never set foot in the place. I don’t have to , my wife worked in the laundry there , cleaning their dirt.

And as I’ve said , don’t tell me anything. Apart from everything were not even friends , I don’t even know you. And this is not a conversation. This is not some idle chat. Stanislaus Kennedy and Lucy Gaffney , what’s in a name? The truth is it doesn’t matter. Those black and white films I used to watch as a child in the local flee pit where the good guys always won in the end. Just fairy tales for kids.
No , I don’t want to know your opinion. I just want you to go away.