I WAS AFRAID OF FALLING INTO THE SKY.

For many years my two lassies and their mother, my good lady wife Kathleen, have been encouraging me to write about my early life in Ireland. Procrastination being my middle name I am now at the age of 66 finally getting around to it perhaps spurred on by some health issues in recent years. My story will end as I sit for the Leaving Certificate at Naas Christian Brothers Secondary School in 1963 almost a half century ago  and shortly before my 18^th birthday. This sketch of a childhood growing up in a vanished Ireland is dedicated to my three beloved ladies: Kate, Siobhán and Máire Brìd or Bridie as the latter daughter is familiarly called by friends and family. In 2009 I finally became an American citizen but still retain a passport for the land of my birth. More than half my life has been spent here in Amerikay toiling to make a living. Kate more than did her part both inside and outside the home. Now that we are both retired it seems like as good a time as any to revisit fond memories of the past including the songs we learned growing up. A song written by Thomas Moore we used to belt out at Gonzaga College under the tutelage of Father Sean Hutchinson S.J. comes readily to mind:

“The minstrel boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death ye will find him;
His father's sword he hath girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him;
"Land of Song!" said the warrior bard,
"Tho' all the world betray thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!"

However I must go back to the beginning before recalling my years at a Jesuit preparatory school.

I first saw the light of day on August 2^nd 1945 at the Mater Private Nursing Home on Eccles Street on the north side of the River Liffey in dear old Dublin Town. The Mater Hospital as it is commonly known was to figure prominently in the Kent family story.

Not only did my father Gerald Daniel Kent first encounter my mother Marguerite Kehoe, a registered nurse, there while visiting an injured pal but many years later my sister Geraldine met her future husband John Kehoe(no relation to Marguerite) while she was a nurse and he  a medical student. Coincidentally my mother was a nursing student at the Mater while John Kehoe’s father Michael Kehoe was a doctor in training. This was the hospital where I as a 4 year old would later have a tonsillectomy. I can still remember getting the anesthetic which I believe was ether and smelled like moth balls to me  when the device for putting me to sleep was placed over my nose. Within a day or two of the surgery I was up out of bed and playing with a toy double decker bus in the ward. I remember being admonished by a nun-nurse to be quiet. I probably was a holy terror.  I also remember Marietta biscuits and milk being provided which I must have enjoyed since the memory remains.

My parents Gerald and Marguerite have both gone to their eternal reward. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamacha(May their souls sit at God's right hand). My father’s people lived in Castlelyons, near Fermoy, County Cork for centuries where they were farmers. My grandfather Pierce Kent settled in Dublin after graduating from University College, Dublin  Among his contempories at University were James Joyce, author of Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, and Tom Kettle, a man of varied talents, who both courted Mary Sheehy at one point. Tom Kettle would go on to marry Mary Sheehy. Tom Kettle was a first cousin of my grandfather’s wife Leontia Conolly which would make him a first cousin twice removed to my father and thus related to us too. My grandfather was a first cousin of the martyred patriot Thomas Kent. Thomas was shot by a British firing squad in 1916. Thomas’s brother Daithi Kent was a member of the 1919 Dail and refused to join Fianna Fail and enter the Free State Dail with De Valera in 1932.  Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dilis. May his faithful soul rest at God’s right hand.

  Bust of Thomas Ceannt(Kent) outside Kent Railway Station in Cork City, Ireland.

My mother Marguerite Kehoe was the daughter of John Kehoe from Tomsallagh, Ferns, County Wexford and Agnes Breen from Wexford Town. After graduating from St. Mary’s Convent School in Arklow, County Wicklow, she was accepted into the Mater Hospital School of Nursing where she later met my father for the first time.

Both my parents placed family first and foremost and provided a loving environment for us children and left us with many fond memories. Through ill health and occasional economic difficulties they loved each other dearly and loved the children God gave them. They both loved to laugh and the memory of that laughter will remain with me forever. During the course of the previous blog entries some of my memories of them have been recalled. This present piece of writing has to do with my memories of living on the Rathgar Road, Rathgar, in the city of Dublin from the late 1940s to the early 1950s before we moved to what could be then considered the “country” in Dundrum, County Dublin, in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountain chain.

My sister Anne and I were born while the family was leasing a home at “Rosaire” on the Rathgar Road near the Church of the Three Patrons which was our parish church and where I have the earliest memory of being at Sunday Mass. I have no memory of this abode although Anne does. Geraldine, John and Eddie, our other siblings arrived in the world when we had moved down the road to “Coolavin” at 161 Rathgar Road. We had a kitchen on the ground floor with the other rooms being on the second and third floor. There was another family, Conaty by name, on the ground floor. The garden was part of our leasing arrangement and my father being an avid gardener spent many hours coaxing vegetables out of the soil there. We had two black Scottish terriers for a time. I believe the story was that they ate poison and died although it may be that they were sold. After that it seemed the only pets around were cats although in later years Eddie got a budgie and called him "Tim". Although we were by no means wealthy we could afford to hire a girl to help out with child caring and light domestic duties. I remember the names Ina, Josie, Mona and Avril over a period of several years. I believe my grandmother in Wexford made the initial contact with these girls who all came up from the model county as Wexford is and was termed. Once one of them got married a replacement was needed and that is why we had a succession of these helpers in a relatively short time. I particularly remember Mona who would read the comics section of the Irish Independent to me and started me out on my lifelong fascination with the Wild West with tales of Hopalong Cassidy and Gabby Hayes read by her from the aforesaid publication. She also introduced me to Curly Wee and Gussie Goose who featured in the paper on a daily basis. I remember Josie or Mona taking us on afternoon strolls to nearby Orwell Park along the banks of the River Dodder with I and Anne walking and Geraldine in a pram. My mother would have been home looking after the baby at the time; my brother John. A little later John would be in the pram and Anne, I and Geraldine would be walking while Eddie was the baby left at home getting the full attention of our mother. In the autumn dusk would fall shortly after three o’clock in the afternoon while we were returning home from these outings. Ireland is at the same latitude as Labrador in Canada and just 750 miles south of Iceland. One could see the reflections of the sky and the street lamps in the River Dodder and I distinctly remember that I was afraid of falling into the sky. It seemed a long way down. Another fear at that time was the sound of thunder and lightning while we were in bed at night. We ascribed a personality to the dreaded sounds and called it by the name “Dorndeens”. I’m not sure where we got the name. Perhaps we figured thunder and lightning sounded like “Dorndeens” to our ears back then. The name sounded scary to us. I was also terrorized by some older kids who lived or visited next door and climbed trees dressed as cowboys and aimed their toy revolvers at me. I really thought they were outlaws from the Wild West. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the belief that these young thugs were grandsons of the long fellow himself Eamon De Valera. Was I told this by someone? This is what I have always believed. In later years it would be me blasting away at some scared kid with my trusty cap gun.

Anne, Geraldine and I all started school together at the ages of 5, 4 and 3 as I recall although Anne may have started a year early. We were guided across the street by my mother or the house helper at the time and made the short journey down the road to Saint Louis Convent School. Perhaps Geraldine and I were in “junior infants” or “low babies” as the beginning classes were incongruously called back then with Anne lording over us in “senior infants” or “high babies”. Mrs. Fagan was the teacher I remember instructing us in the rudiments of the Irish language. She would put a chart on the board with colorful farm animals and have us repeat after her: Sin é bo, sin é cearc, sin é capall, sin é laca, sin é asal (respectively: that is a cow, that is a hen, that is a horse, that is a duck, that is a donkey). One day Mrs. Fagan called to see my mother since  she thought I had a mental problem. Apparently when I got excited I would shake my hands wildly about. Perhaps some of the girls in the class were frightened by this. My mother laughed since she knew I was quite sane and put Mrs. Fagan’s mind to rest. I remember the St. Louis nuns ran an ice cream shop which was open during lunch hour and play periods. One could get a halfpenny worth of ice cream between two wafers from the good sisters. The three of us got to take part in the school play one year; The Wedding of Jack and Jill. Anne and Geraldine starred as a pair of dolls. I got the plum role of Wee Willie Winkie.

“Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown,
Tapping at the window and crying through the lock,
Are all the children in their beds, it's past eight o'clock?”

This was my first and last theatrical performance and I made a faux pas in my brief time on the stage. Attired in my pajamas and bearing a candlestick I and my fellow thespians were divided into two lines one line on the left and the other on the right. I was in the line on the left and we were supposed to head towards the front of the stage in two single files with those on the left under orders to exit the stage on the left and those on the right asked to exit on the right. Despite being on the left I apparently decided to exit on the right contrary to the directions given.  The audience got a laugh so no harm was done. Other memories I have of St Louis School include the excitement caused by a seagull landing on a girl’s head in the schoolyard and the sadness felt upon hearing that a fellow pupil had been hit by a bus. Back then most people did not own motor cars but there were enough vehicles on the road including motor cars, busses and Lorries to make life dangerous. In addition to motorized vehicles, horse drawn commercial wagons delivered milk, bread and groceries to household throughout the city of Dublin. One needed to avoid the piles of horse shite while crossing the street. Being shortly after World War II ration books were still in use in my early childhood days. Some foodstuffs remained in short supply in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Black shawls were commonly worn by woman even in Dublin at this time. All the women selling produce in Moore Street wore shawls and were known as "shawlies" if my memory serves me right. One other memory we have of our time in St. Louis Convent school is landing home frequently with our friend Jimmy Carroll in tow. This "Billy Bunter" lookalike lived on Rostrevor Terrace a few doors down from our Grandfather Pierce Kent . We invited him home for the tea which is what we called the evening meal.Jimmy came for tea on a regular basis. Jimmy was a portly kid with coke bottle spectacles as I recollect him. When a piece of bread and butter was put on his plate he would kick up an unholy racket screaming “Fingers! I want fingers!” Initially this led to some consternation.  My mother was quite perplexed at first but eventually ascertained that young Jimmy always had his bread cut by his mother in narrow “fingers” so since she always aimed to please cut Jimmy’s bread as he required in “fingers” and this made us all happy. In fact we began to want “fingers” for ourselves although this was to be just a passing fad.

Other memories of our time at 161 Rathgar Road would be packages of comic books arriving from Australia where my father’s youngest brother David Kent had emigrated. We could scarcely read but did enjoy the pictures. One time he sent some stuffed koala bears which appear in the photograph included herewith. Another of my father’s brothers Uncle Jim, an attorney, lived down the road from us on the Rathgar Road with his wife Eileen nee Brady and their children Jim, Mary, Margot, Leontia, and Joan. All of us cousins would often convene at my grandfather’s home at 12 Rostrevor Terrace off Orwell Road in Rathgar on a Sunday morning after Mass. Sometimes my other Uncles Pierce and Father Edmond S.J. would be there. Uncle David was in Australia somewhere. My Uncle Pierce lived in Kenya with his wife Alice nee Slattery and their children Leontia, Patricia, Nora and Pierce. The girls had all been born in India with Pierce, the youngest being born in East Africa where my Uncle Pierce, a physician, conducted research at the East Africa Tuberculosis clinic. When Uncle Pierce was home from Kenya he would be at my grandfather's house with his children also. As one can glean Pierce is a common family Christian name with four Pierces featuring in this post. Sounds like a good name for a rock group: the Four Pierces. Back in 1847 during the Great Hunger two Pierce Kents emigrated from the same village in Cork where my grandfather was born and ended up fighting on opposite sides in the American civil war.  More often than not it would be Uncle Jim, Uncle Eddie S.J., my father Gerry and my grandfather Pierce and the children of Uncle Jim along with me and those of our siblings who were able to walk at the time. Our mothers would be home taking care of the babies. Miss Ryan, my grandfather’s jovial housekeeper, would make soup for the men who would then retire to the drawing room and smoke a cigar and have a glass of Jamieson Whiskey. They would stand with their backs to the fire warming themselves and exchanging news and views. We kids would be given cool glasses of milk and Kimberly biscuits and my grandfather invariably produced a bag of caramels from Bewleys, a well-known restaurant and confectioner which sadly has ceased to exist other than the hotel business owned by the same company.  Alas this is another loss of a great Dublin institution. Ah well, c’est la vie.

In 1950 my brother Eddie was born. He was the youngest in our family. Requiescat in Pace. Sadly he passed away in 2010. I remember when Eddie landed up in our house after coming home from the Mater in a wicker basket accompanied by our mother. A bottle of carbonated red lemonade with syphon attached and a box of dates arrived along with Eddie. The excitement was great since we had a new brother and some fizzy lemonade to celebrate his arrival. In 1952 just before I turned 7 my parents purchased a brand new house at 12 Wyckham Park in Dundrum, County Dublin. One day, not long before we moved, I was sitting on the grass eating a banana when I must have picked up rheumatic fever. I complained of a sore toe and had a fever. My mother being a nurse felt that something was the matter and called our family physician appropriately named Doctor Kidney who diagnosed rheumatic fever. I was to be bedridden for a while both on the Rathgar Road and in the new abode. We were on our way to a new home and new adventures. Due to my illness I was not fully able to enjoy the excitement of the move to pastures new. A chapter in all of our lives had come to an end. I know Anne and Geraldine too would have cherished the time spent living in Rathgar as I did. Eddie was a baby there and John just a toddler.

The River Dodder, a tributary of the Liffey, at Rathgar. It was here that I "was afraid of falling into the sky"