Paddy

All this palaver only for that silly woman to have to kowtow to the DUP! There's commentary everywhere. I am going to talk about my own memories.

Dad was a fierce catholic from Glasgow. He trained to be a priest. I never heard him get involved in sectarian arguments, and I knew nothing of them myself, except for my father joking that had I been born one day later he'd have disowned me. My birthday is the 11th July. The nearest he came might have been something about Ian Paisley, and I had no doubt that the horrible old creature would not fare well if my father ever got near him. It wasn't anger so much as a strange smile my dad used to get. I've seen him beat a man's head into the bonnet of a car before, blood splashes all over the metal and windscreen, I knew to respect that smile.

Growing up in a small west country town, along came a man called Paddy, related to someone in the neighbourhood. I had met Irish people before, was proud of my Irish ancestry. Paddy's accent was different, sharp and very fast, melodic but not as musical. One day he was in our local park showing off his orange regalia, and he draped it on me, chuckling. 'Your father would be furious to see you got up like that,' he said. He tried to kiss me at some point and I ran away, not only because I knew adults were not supposed to do that, but also because I knew it wasn't about me. He wanted to get at Dad.

Paddy was nobody much. Met people from both sides of the border, some became good friends some didn't, same as everywhere. I only remembered him yesterday, when May ruined herself.