Supremely awful decisions

I THINK I want to move from Ireland. Until now I haven't been able to post about the recent Supreme Court judgement on statuory rape because it feels like an awful throw back to the bad old days.

It only took a week for the consequences to hit home. Here we are with a man Mr A who admitted knowingly raping a child of 12 (and let us be clear she was not a young woman, she was a child) walking free. I've tried to look at it all, to somehow take it in and I am enraged. The whole thing is too awful to actually contemplate and yet one family is now living with the consequences and I am devastated for that.


Pic by Garrett White / Collins

Last week, the Supreme Court struck down Section 1.1 of the Criminal Law Act, 1935 in its entirety with the effect that that section ceased to have legislative existence when created in 1937. This has meant that there is no statutory offence of unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl under the age of 15.

Seriously; so now we have a situation where a man who has admitted knowingly raping a girl of 12 is free because of this. As a feminist and as a mother this leaves me speechless to say the least.

One of the worst things is the family dealing with the aftermath of Mr A's release. They brought a case to court which must be hard to do, to subject your daughter and family to that for justice. It's a tough decision and a brave one. And after the trauma of all the preceeding events, the family is left with justice working for the offender. What is going on?

We have heard over the last week how alleged rapists can now claim they thought the young woman/child they raped/had sex with were above the age of consent. Jesus where do you begin with that?

Another thing that has pissed me off is the media calling our children young women. I can use that with my daughter but it more about acknowledging the young woman she is turning into, at times, most times she is very much the child, very much. She is 14, what abomination has taken place where an admitted rapist of a 12-year-old walks free and could even receive damages for being unlawfully incarcerated. I was also astounded by some of the comments in Irish Blogs welcoming this, are these people mad?

I remember following the most awful sexual assault cases where the arguments for the alleged rapist included phrases like she was a sexually provocative three-year-old or the case where a rapist broke a woman's back and tried to claim he thought she was enjoying herself. This feels like that, that somehow women/girls are somehow to blame for the violence inflicted on them by a man. Will we ever learn, or should I say will our judges ever learn. (I realise the judge yesterday had her hands tied by the Supreme Court.)

And before anyone begins with the argument of once chatting up someone and not realising their age, wise up. That is not an argument that is just a nonsense excuse. Really it is. As a man you have to be careful of who you chat up, get over it. Oh I nearly forgot there, the courts are protecting those who are inclined to to perv on young girls. You know when someone is young and if there is any doubt run away. As far as I am concerned that is the bottom line.

The whole argument of poor men being duped in nightclubs by a young wan who looks/acts older is nonsense. I did it myself, there was f*ck all to do in Belfast as a teenager in the 1980s, of course I tried, unsuccessfully, to look older. Was I somehow allowing bad things to happen, possibly by my deception? That behaviour is a rite of passage and now our courts have given carte blanche to those who will want to exploit that.

News Links: The Irish Independent, Irish Times (sub required) and RTE.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Supreme Court statutory rape

You've been tangoed

I SPOTTED this via a visitor. If you search google.co.uk for 'you've been tangoed' my blog entry is the fourth in the search.

Alright it doesn't change the world but it gave me a wee thrill (wee being the word). Still I wouldn't have thought that my post would figure but there you go.

(I just thought I would try to post directly from my Flickr account. I have never done it before, not even a test, so it will be interesting to see if it works. I could be back via blogger to tidy it up.)


Originally uploaded by Red Mum.

UPDATE: Well it was good in theory but it needed tweaking. However you could pull the picture to the size you want which is a new thing for me, normally I edit the code to get the size I want. This is how the post looked after I blogged it from Flickr and what you can see is how I want it to look.



FURTHER UPDATE: Actually the pulling of the pic just pixelated it, so I don't like the blog this feature on flickr. Hence another update and more tweaking. Pah.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs

Aarrrrrggggggggg exams

THE Young Wan has her exams this week and thank God it is [only] class exams and not the official ones which take place this time next year. I say [only] not to lessen them or their importance just to highlight the difference between these and the biggies. Before the Junior Cert time happens I am seriously considering auditioning for Big Brother to be away for the guts of the worst of it.

Ah but seriously I have had a job trying to get her to study and we had moments on Sunday, well I say moments, it was more like Mum turning into the Incredible Hulk going bananas.

I spent the weekend telling her to get to her books and there was one stall tactic after another, and it has been this way for weeks.

But I went into her room at one stage on Sunday and she was lying flat on her back, on the floor, book covering her face, head resting on her bed-sofa out for the count. Completely out. I was way to stressed out to even think of taking a picture but it would have been a good one.


Pic borrowed from here.

So I roared 'Young Wan' (well I didn't I of course used her name but I did roar - I'm a mummy hear me roar) and she woke up comically only I was not in the mood for it. As she sprung up, her legs flew up, so did the book and she shouted dazed 'what' before looking around her like she was seeing a heavenly vision. Unfortunately for herself the reality was me and I was far from heavenly-looking.

I do not know which was worse the fact that no studying was being done or the fact that for the rest of the day she looked at me liked I had asked her to kill her granny.

So we have had words, did I say we? I mean I had words. Most of which concerned the fact that I was actually just asking her to try to prepare for her exams, thats my job, get over it.

So now plans are being hatched for next year and how I am going to get her into a studying routine where she will not feel under pressure so much so that she actually does nothing. Yes some people handle pressure that way, by running away.

And I am dreading next year and thats only the Junior Cert. But the Leaving Cert is a worry for two years time, not now, I have enough on my plate as it is.

Fecking hell it is hard enough to do all these State exams for yourself first time around as a youngster without the worry of being a Mum and wishing you could them for your child, particularly when they are as inclined to study as I am to date Kevin Myers.

What can you do? Nothing except encourage them to study, make sure they eat and sleep well and try to make life as easy for them during these periods as possible.

But as a Mummy, here's my last word on exams AAAAaaaaarRRRrrrrrrrrrgGGGgggghHHhhh.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs exams teenagers and exams summer exams

Parallel parking - not

No doubt many drivers in Dublin hate the parking regime that has take over Dublin in recent years, and being a pedestrian I do not share those views, it is clear that the parking restrictions help keep the traffic moving. And thats a good thing.

But every now and again you see someone parking in the worst possible place, ie a bus lane preventing bus loads of people from getting to work.

And today I saw this piece of parking which made me go WHAT! While all the other cars were parked parallel to the road as they should, not this one. So enjoy.

Teenage Dramas - RM column May 11

THE Young Wan has had a pretty miserable time lately after falling out with some of her wee pals.

The incident preceding her isolation was full of the amateur dramatics associated with teen dramas and all began when one friend (a boy) fancied one of the other girls in the group.

To cut a long and boring story short the falling out occurred when my daughter told the girl something the boy said about something unrelated to his crush and he denied it.

Feeling umbrage for Ireland the Young Wan was not speaking to the boy and he was not speaking to her.

At first this was quite funny because the pals would call to the door and this particular wee fella would call too but ignore her.

This went on for weeks before I proceeded to ask the Young Wan to phone him up and talk to him about it and apologise for any misbehaviour on her part.
Only he wouldn’t speak to her at all and left her very upset.

The only thing I could offer her was to say that I didn’t think it gracious that he wouldn’t even talk to her let alone be big enough to accept an apology.

That was about six weeks ago and just before the prank phone calls started.

Because this young chap fell out with her, so did the rest of them. And not content with not speaking to her en-masse, they began to make nuisance phone calls to our house. To begin with they were just hang-ups but they progressed to something more sinister.

On one particular Sunday they phoned a number of times and even left a message when I was on a call and such a charming message it was ‘we all hate you, we hope you die!’.
The Young Wan wanted to take the phone off the hook to avoid the calls and I could see the whole thing was starting to have an awful effect on her with constant complaints of a sore tummy.

So I told her not to take the phone offline but instead to answer it and hand it to me and I would deal with it.

Lo and behold they rang again, I could tell by the awful look on her face, so I took the phone off her.

I informed the pranksters that the Gardai were notified about the prank calls and to keep calling because the more they did the more evidence we would have, besides it was a wet Sunday afternoon what else had I to do but listen to some eejits waste their mobile phone credit making stupid noises on the phone.

The difference in my daughter was massive, she had a big beaming smile on her face for the first time that week. She thought I was great. And I’d like to think I gave her a boost to be brave and move on from these obviously horrid children.

I’ve no doubt they think this is all a bit of fun, but I saw the effects of their fun on her and I was shocked by the ‘we hate you’ statement.

Later that evening whilst out walking the dog the Young Wan encountered the boy who made the nasty comments walking with the boy who originally fell out with her and his parents.

She went up to them saying hello and the parents spoke back asking about her and me. She then said: “We’ve been getting these awful prank phonecalls and we had to phone the Gardai. One even said they hated me and hoped I die, isn’t that awful?’

The parents agreed that it was indeed and who would do such a terrible thing. She then said bye to everyone and came back in looking like a different wee girl.
Children can be absolutely horrible to each other and I can easily see just how much this so-called pranking (I’d call it bullying, intimidation and harrassement) can drive a child to do something drastic.

They have phoned since and she said in a faux-American accent ‘I’m sorry there is no one to take your call, we are far too busy to deal with assholes’.

In this instance I have to say there was no correction for bad language.

Thankfully now the Young Wan doesn’t want to be friends with these people again, they are no longer her type and I am happy for that. But I do feel for her having to go through it in the first place.

I would not be a teenager again for anything.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo May 11

Helping your teen cope with exam pressure - RM column May 4

THE SUN is starting to shine, there is a warmth in the air, so it can only mean exam time again.

Luckily the Young Wan has a year to go before the start of her first ever official exams but her summer class tests are coming up and as far as I can see no studying has been done yet at all.

She is under that commonly held notion that the night before cramming will be enough at this stage of her academic career.. And maybe it would if the scholar in question had paid ultra attention in classes during the year and did the best homework in the world.

I doubt somehow this to be the case.

The first thing we, and I mean we if I leave it to herself it will not happen, need to do is draw up a study timetable. I have asked for this to be done for weeks and weeks and there is still no sign of it.

The Leaving Cert and Junior Cert to some degree are probably one of the more stressful times in your teen’s young life so far and as parents we can do so much to alleviate this stress.

I know people who have dreams, or should I say nightmares, of being back in that exam time when they are having a particularly stressful period in their grown-up life.

The stress of these exams can be bad enough without feeling unprepared, never mind the stress of knowing you should be studying but aren’t.

Paths in life can be decided by the outcome of exams. And while poor results is far from the end of the world, there are so many more options open to you if you are prepared.

So revision is the key and sometimes revision is not always as easy as having done the work in the first place.

One of the biggest problems I can see in our household is the studying of the subjects that she likes and is good at.

Despite explaining to herself that she would probably be better off spending time on the subjects that she finds tougher, the reliable favourites are the ones she likes.

Among the ways parents can help their child is to help them organise their workspace and their notes. Encourage them to study for an hour and then take a 10 minute break.

Rest is also very important during this time so get them to bed early as much as you can.

For subjects like English where they have to learn poems and quotations, help them dictate them on a tape so they can play them back while sleeping. I don’t know if this works but it would be worth a try.

Parents can also be invaluable by offering to help test their child’s knowledge and there are countless other resources which can also help test your child such as the internet, libraries, friends, revision guides and past papers.

I suppose the bottom line to tell your teenager facing exams is do not worry and just try your best. Doing their best, what more could a parent ask for?


Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo May 4

Teen Expectations - RM column April 27

THE Young Wan and I had cause to laugh recently following a post made by another blogger Irish Typepad on what a young person should be able to do by particular ages.

For example by the age of 7 a child should, in theory, be able to make their own sandwich, sounds fair enough but considering what the Young Wan makes at 14, I can imagine it being not the most appetising.

Though I should explain the Young Wan’s sandwich making has more to do with the fact that she doesn’t want to make the sandwich in the first place because she believes mine are nicer. I am probably being played like the largest violin with that and the bad sandwich making has more to do with laziness more than anything else.

Other gems include changing a bed by 10 (what happens when they are 14 and seemingly incapable of ever making a bed), or cook a meal by 13 (the Young Wan’s reaction to that suggestion was ‘I couldn’t cook a meal to save my life’) or sew a button by the age of 14.

As I have said any inability or reluctance to accomplish these milestones have more to do with laziness than competence.

The Young Wan will step over stuff in her doorway and it has become a leisure pursuit for me to watch and count to see how long these items remain. And I can tell you they never bother her at all, just me. But I know that is typical for most teens.

We just do too much for them. Even at times I think I expect too much, and then I realise that is a Mummy-guilt thing more than anything else. I had jobs to do growing up and so does she.

And while I am laughing at this, I should be laughing at myself, because as the mother I have somehow unwittingly allowed this to happen.

I always thought that I have given her chores, given her responsibility for things within the house that I was living by this mantra.

But we have slipped somewhere because right now I seem to be picking up after her more than ever. And it is driving me nuts.

Most stuff done by the Young Wan around our home is prompted. I have insisted on weekends that if she is up and about and there are dishes to be put away or done be put away or done before I get up.

At the moment we are about five times out of ten likely to see that.

But she does pull her weight in other ways, probably because they suit her but that is kinda okay as long as the other stuff gets done too.

She is a fantastic and second to none gopher, you know gopher this, gopher for that. And she also does the laundry, though that’s becoming sketchy at the moment.

We have to use a launderette living in one of Dublin flatland’s areas and after discovering during one expedition to the wash clothes that the Young Wan had provided skant offerings I sent her down the next day so she would have a fresh uniform going to school.

Since then it has become her job every weekend. She knows or should know about what to dry and not to dry and she should certainly remember to bring what hasn’t been dried back home.

Yet a significant proportion of what I wear was left in the launderette over the Bank holiday weekend.

My first basic mistake was thinking that if this was her job she would realise what it entails, how dumping clothes into the laundry because she cannot be bothered to put them away is needless work and how leaving clean clothes lying all over a messy floor just adds to an already heavy load.

Did she hell. What she has discovered is that a normal two-hour job in the launderette can be stretched to three, three and a half hours, with the extra time spent hanging about with her pals.

So there’s a lot of things the Young Wan can do and a lot that leaves much to be desired, a bit like the rest of us eh?

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo April 27

Keep your kids internet safe - RM column April 20

I have been very lax about posting the Echo columns so here's a couple from the last nunber of weeks, I haven't scanned them hence the delay so apologies in case you have been waiting ;)

Red Mum Column April 20

CONSIDERING the fact that an estimated 6,000 people sign up to the internet community site Bebo every day in Ireland. Also consider the Microsoft equivalent MySpace has grown from 4.9m visitors in 2005 to more than 67m currently, so it is worth exploring what your teenager is doing on the internet.

Many parents haven’t a clue where to begin to find out or indeed what they can do about it, but there is a lot you can do.

Parents must be more aware of the information their children are imparting on the internet And we need to hammer home to our children that certain behaviours are just not safe, such as posting pictures of yourself on the internet.

I suppose some people could put this down to hysterical Mummy but I have said before that I love the internet and I am grown up enough to realise the dangers and take the necessary precautions such as NEVER giving out phone numbers and the like.

It is frightening the amount of personal information our teenagers are giving away from phone numbers to information on where they’ll be at any given time, what they look like, what they like, take one look around Bebo and see for yourself.

While the vast majority of what goes on in Bebo or MySpace and the like is totally harmless, fun and sometimes informative, there are occasions where this is not the case.

I read recently about an incident where a 17-year-old female Bebo member from a small town up North has been linked to by a man in his mid-20s who told her that he had seen her about the town and suggested they should meet up. Now if that is not frightening, what is?

So let us imagine that you bought the apple of your eye a PC or a laptop for Christmas. Did you buy it and that was it?

Or did you install some of the Internet Nanny programmes where you can set what they can and cannot view on the internet?

Internet Nanny programmes allow you to set with a password the kind of sites that can be viewed on the internet.

And come on remember what it was like being a teenager. For most teenagers the draw of the more shall I say savoury side of the internet is great. Of course it is and even if your teen isn’t interested in that at all, their friends might be and peer pressure is very tough to handle.

Besides it is actually easy to stumble across the dodgier sites on the internet.

A scary statistic from Netsmartz.org showed that one in five children have received a sexual solicitation online.

Now without scaremongering this is an American site and in Ireland we do not have the level of internet participation as in American so the statistics I have quoted are somewhat watered down here. However they do give food for thought.

You can also check what your child has been looking at by checking the computer’s internet history. Once you are in the internet press the CTRL button and at the same time press the H button.

This will give you an idea of where your teenagers have been surfing. Of course they may be a step ahead and have already removed the history.

So if you are worried check out some of the programmes that you can install easily which will prevent access to particular sites.

And talk to your child about the dangers of the Internet; everyday is Halloween on the internet, people are often not what they appear.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo April 20

Australian PM leaving the Dail

I SNAPPED this about 30 minutes ago as Howard and the entourage were leaving the Dail.



Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs John Howard

Watchin the Eurovision

I WAS up in a local pub on Saturday evening and there were two TV screens, one had the Derry v Cork match while the other was showing the Eurovision Song Contest.



I spotted a scene that has become for me one of those pictures that got away. All I had with me was my camera phone, and its not very good at all. But this is what I managed to capture, there were about seven men, all in a row and all attentively watching, not the match, but the Eurovision.

As bad quality as the picture is, you get the idea, it made me laugh anyway. I so would have loved a good quality shot of all the men's backs, looking up watching the contest. Ah well. I bet if their wives asked ‘did you see the Eurovision? They would deny it. But I saw youse lads. I saw you.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs Eurovision Dublin Ireland

Socks

I HAVE a socks post which I will do over the weekend but it involves the outrageous amounts of unpaired socks in this house.

But here's a sneaky preview showing me, Nanny and the Young Wan relaxed for the evening and not a pair between us.



[I should say we are all in relax mood and have changed into non-work/school clothes and just grabbed socks and this is the result.]

I have more on socks coming over the weekend.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs socks

You've been Tangoed

This is great, it's Tango's version of the cool Sony Bravia add with the super balls, very good indeed. (Thanks to the Publicity Bureau.)





Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs tango Sony bravia

Drumroll please...

TA DA, get your peepers around this, the room taken during mid-work then nearly-finished, the final pic will be posted tomorrow once it is light.

And what a day...

Half-way home.

Nearly there...


The Before picture, well actually taken after the before picture though this is much worse.

The Young Wan played a blinder, now at 10.30pm her room is nearly finished, my room is nearly finished (she is in there now hanging up some errant articles, we did a supermarket shop, we did the laundry and her room is cleared out, YAHOOOOO.) She's wasmpottering about putting away laundry for an hour before jumping into the shower.

Tomorrow after meeting Nanny, making her a lovely breakfast and going to work, I will be ensuring at some point to stop into a music shop to buy Ville Valo's His Infernal Majesty for her good and hard work today. Don't know who they are but they are apparently her 'current' most favourite band in the world, ever...

(I probably should have posted the bedroom pics in black and white to save blushes, if that could have helped.) OH and did you even realise the red thing in the middle of the pic was a single sofa-bed?

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs messy bedrooms teenagers

Nanny's coming, get tidied quick

IT'S Mothers' Day in the States, we had ours here back in March and at the time I was posting about the bedroom and how the only thing I asked for was a tidy and clean room, I got it a week later. Now it is as bad as ever and Nanny is coming to visit tomorrow.

So why am I posting now when I should be acleaning and atidying? Well the bathroom's done, its tiny but still its done, the halls are done, okay okay they are small too but they are cleared out, brushed and scrubbed.

So there is my room, which because the bathroom is in my bedroom, it is like another room for the Young Wan to do her deeds in. And of course there is her room (did you hear the drumroll there?).

She made what looked like a reasonable start yesterday until I saw where she had hidden and shoved away stuff. So I cleared all her shelves, all the hidey-holes and now there is a pile on the floor. Now the old clothes, too-small clothes, all sorts have to be sorted.

And I have pictures. But I should stress in fairness to the Young Wan this is the madness before the final product, you know when you clear out stuff and somewhere an hour into the work things look 50 million times worse.



So here is the room as it looks (not how it looked before the work - it wasn't this bad before, have I stressed that enough) and more pics to come later on. (But thats not to say it hasn't been before.)This particular pic is for all those people who swing by here looking for pictures of messy teenage bedrooms.

Wish us luck.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs messy bedrooms teenagers

Waiting for the bus to start the weekend

PEOPLE waiting for the bus home after work on Friday evening, they were all full as they passed.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs flickr commuting

Spotted on Googlevideo Blog

I SPOTTED this on the Googlevideo blog and wondered where Ran Island is... Typos are nasty.





Would you look at these mad people, mad I tell you. And of course all the action takes place in the Aran Islands.



UPDATE: (5 mins after posting)
Damn the lads at TCAL also spotted this, yesterday.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs Googlevideo Googlevideoblog

Sinister threats on Bebo following murder of teen

SLUGGER's Belfast Gonzo reports on quite sinister going-ons on Bebo in relation to the awful and tragic murder 15-year-old Michael McIlveen in Ballymena.

There are links to the people's bebo home pages in the Slugger post which will chill you.

I did mention cyber-bullying in my previous posts on Bebo and how easy the site can facilitate this, a fact that seems to be played down a lot by some of the other sites who linked to my posts extolling it's virtues.

The links provided by Slugger are plain frightening and so full of hate and demonstrate Bebo at its worst.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs Slugger O'Toole Bebo

Grant McLennan from The Go-Betweens passes

I WAS sad to learn today about the death of Grant McLennan from The Go-Betweens, one of the bands that I have loved since being a teenager in Belfast in the 1980s.



The first album of theirs I bought was Liberty Bell and the Black Diamond Express and I taped it and listened to it to death on my walkman. Somewhere along the line I lent the albums (as I bought more by this stage) to someone and never got them back.



Then a couple of years ago they digitally remastered the catalogue of music and relaunched them and I picked up some CDs then including the great Liberty Bell and 16 Lovers Lane.

They played support to REM in Dublin in the late 1980s but I was away in the States for the summer and missed it. I think it was the next year when I was back in the States and they played a farewell gig in Hoboken, New Jersey, where I was staying and missed the concert by a week.

Then in the 1990s I caught Robert Forster in the then Mean Fiddler and he was great but I never managed to see Grant McLennan or the band itself.

Now I'll have to content myself with the back albums. Robert Forster has announced the band is no more which is apt I think.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs The Go-Betweens Grant McLennan

Morning photo moments

I SAW two photo moments on my way to work this morning, one involving an ingenious use of bus seats and the other following a robbery in my local post office.





There was a queue outside the front of the post office which would have made a better shot, but I wasn't sure how friendly people were particularly when one guy at the top of the queue kept shouting at me 'are you from the papers?' Despite saying no I wasn't, he rambled on 'tell them how we are being treated' and 'get Bertie up here'.

So I snapped my snap and went on to catch another bus, a working one this time.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs

Podge and Rodge classic quotes

I RECEIVED this on email this morning, for all you Podge and Rodge fans.



In honour of the end of the First Season of the Podge and Rodge show here are some top quotes ........ Careful now

You’re as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit……..

He thinks manual labour is a Spanish musician……….

As funny as a burning orphanage………

He's so camp, he shites tent pegs…………

I'm as sick as a plane to Lourdes……….

She had a face on her that would drive rats from a barn……..

Sweatin' like a pedophile in a Barney suit……….

I'd crawl a million miles across broken glass to kiss the exhaust of the van that took her dirty knickers to the laundry. ?????

A mickey the size of a double-value can of Right Guard……….

Jaysus, she could breastfeed a crèche…………

Mother Teresa wouldn’t kiss her………..

A sniper wouldn't take her out………..

Jaysus, ya wouldn't ride her into battle……..

If I'd a bag of bruised willies I wouldn't give her one………

She has a face on her like a bulldog that's just licked piss off a nettle…….

She wouldn't get a kick in a stampede………

If I'd a garden full of Mickey’s I wouldn't let her look over the wall…….

She grabs that pole like Brian Kennedy in a mickey factory……

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs Podge and Rodge

Revisionism according to teens

I HAD a laugh on the bus today with a group of three young fellas going to play tennis in Donnybrook. Firstly they bought their tennis ball in a pound shop (I should say euro shop but it doesn’t have the same ring to it) and proceeded to see how much it bounced on the top deck of the bus. When we got to Parnell Square this was the actual conversation.



Teen 1: That’s the Garden of Remembrance where all the soldiers are buried.
Teen 2: Are they?
Teen 1: Yeah. That’s why they call it the Garden of Remembrance.
Teen 3: I thought it was for the Unknown Soldier.
T1: Nah there’s a statue for him across from the library (in Phibsboro).
T2: That’s Michael Collins you muppet.
T1: It’s not, it is the Unknown Soldier.
T2+3 (together): It’s Michael Collins.

(As far as I can remember it is actually a monument to the Unknown Soldier – must check that but it is not Michael Collins.)

At this stage we were passing the Ambassador.



Teen 1: Do you remember when that used to be a cinema?
Teen 2: Nah when was that?
Teen 1: Ah years and years ago. Did you know there used to be a cinema in Phibsboro.

(Even though I was already earwigging on this conversation, my interest pricked here, could it be the former ice-rink which now houses Des Kelly carpets? It seemed the likely choice.)

Teen 1: The cinema used to be at Doyle’s Corner where the Boh pub is.
Teen 2: Really how long ago?
Teen 1: Ah in the Dickie Rock days.

I nearly snorted out loud at this, Spit on Me Dickie will be delighted that not only is he a sex-symbol but he is now officially an era too.

Technorati tags: redmum Irishblogs Dickie Rock teenagers