Home For The Races
The arrival home of Mam’s relations from England for the Galway Races was the high point of our summer. They usually stayed at the home place at Raford out in the country but they would visit us and sometimes stay the night. All the anxiety and tension of life went out the door when they came in and it was a time of enjoyment. There were crowds of them from Birmingham and London. We watched it all from the distance of childhood with fascination and much pleasure. They might go off to the Merlin Bar where Dad worked part-time and come home for a session that filled the house with the dense blue fog of cigarettes, bottles of porter, loud conversation, laughter and music. In the early mornings I’d get up before everyone else and immerse myself in the aftertaste of the night’s pleasure – drinking the dregs of empty bottles and smoking the butts that overflowed in ashtrays. Breakfast could wait. People would appear and the place got cleared and the fry fried, its aroma mingling with the sce...
