Milk

''The most enjoyable part of my life in Athlone was when, aged about seven, I was taken on as helper by the (to me) enormous Mr Molloy, our milkman, who delivered milk in his donkey cart to his customers at a decidedly leisurely pace every morning. The poor donkey, heavily laden, could not be blamed for taking its time... Mr Molloy, who was a quiet, redfaced moustached nan - he had been a rowing man in his youth but had badly 'gone to seed' - would take a ritual mid-morning pint. I minded the donkey. After I had 'served my time' and learned how to drive, to regulate the tap and to fill the measure (once or twice according to the customer's needs with always the small extra drop for luck or for the cat) it became Mr Molloy's practice to dismount slowly and solemnly outside the pub, enter a sweet shop, and bring me out a small twist of brown paper, filled with a pennyworth of sweets. We never said anything to one another. I knew real happiness for the first time in my life when he would hand me the reins of the donkey. I had absolute freedom and responsibility to drive the cart back to Molloy's farm at Ballymahon [Clonbrusk on the Ballymahon Road]. I was a Roman charioteer in full flight ... Mrs Molloy, a kind and gentle English lady, hearing us thundering down the hill on our way to the farm would caution me of the danger of a fall and the consequence of injury to myself. But I enjoyed standing up in the centre of the cart, aflame with the excitement, the clinking of the harness, and the iron clatter of the wheels on the road. Mrs Molloy probably rendered all of us in the family a very special service, for she always insisted that I take a can of milk home for my mother to make rice puddings and porridge and use for the tea. It became the only worthwhile feature of the otherwise bread-and-rhubarb jam diet of our class.''                                                                                                                                                                         From 'Against the Tide' by Noel Browne.

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My dad, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Molloy, had succeeded his father as a milkman on the East side of town. He added to his duties in Browne-like fashion by occasionally dispensing contraceptive advice to women whom he described as ''bled white by childbirth''. He often spoke of how the poorest people would always have the money waiting in a jar by the door. But many among the middle class would go the 'have it for you Monday' route, then, once a big debt had built up, leave him having to accept a 'settlement' on their terms. 

He eventually decided to pack in direct selling and sign up to the new Snowcream dairy in Moate. He also decided to put an end to his home being a kind of flop house for all the ne'er-do-wells in Athlone, ditch the motorbike, take a wife and start a family - a decision he was never entirely sure about, though an alternative explanation to his about turn is that his new wife, though gentle like his mother, laid down certain terms which were never breached. Either way, it worked.

He had the first milking parlour around Athlone, it could handle six cows at a time. He had 28 cows and 80 acres of land, half of it good. Prices were strong, a farmer knew where he stood and could make plans. He and she were able to build a new house, a bungalow with all mod cons. They worked hard to get there. Both were honest and kind, smart and funny. Both were popular and respected. Life was good.

Then, at the age of seven, junior made a mistake which crashed everything. I opened the wrong door in Cornamaddy NS.  Behind it was the most powerful man in Athlone, who was in the act of sexually abusing an older boy. Unlike the boy, I might have got away with it, were it not for a passing teacher who pulled the door shut and me out of there. A lengthy shaking was my first punishment. 

Canon James Prunty was the Administrator of St. Mary's Parish, as I understand it the bishop's man in the most populous/wealthiest parish in the diocese. Like every other kid in my class, I was sent to him for what was called 'First Confession'. I was also handed over to him at his request by the school on two occasions after that. I have no memory at all of what happened the first day, just the initial proud excitement at having been chosen. I remember a lot of what happened the second day though, starting with the cold dread at having been chosen a second time.

I had turned eight by then. He drove me to a boarding school which was not yet open after the summer holidays. A younger man was waiting there, drinking tea or coffee and reading at a communal table. He was uncommunicative then and very brutal afterwards. I had felt close to death and believed that only the late intervention of Prunty saved me. He might have intervened for the more pragmatic reason that at least six hours had passed since he had picked me up and people would probably be out looking for me (they were). 

He eventually let me out at Tommy Butlers' house ("not yet ... not yet"), facing back the way he'd come. I got home, feeling oddly elated because I knew that I was alive. I went in the back door of the old house, which was never locked. Nobody was at home, but the fire was lighting. I took advantage by burning some of my damaged clothes and getting the story straight in my head, so as not to upset my parents. 

Fate (or the priest's curse Prunty had promised me) soon hit us. All of our cows were lost to disease. My dad was heartbroken, but he kept it to himself and the pressure possibly led to his getting cancer. The last thing he needed was a dysfunctional, angry kid. But he got that as well.

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Prunty became one of the 6% of investigated priests and brothers to receive a custodial sentence when he was sent to a pretend prison in the Curragh, where he served 9 months. His trial was shady in the extreme, dominated by male senior counsel. It was held in camera, for no justifiable reason, at Tullamore District Court. Charges were mysteriously dropped and there was only one prosecution witness. My belief is that most of the convicted priests (certainly Brendan Smyth and William Carney) were involved to some extent in child sex trafficking and very powerful men were being protected - and continue to be protected - behind the charade of justice being served. 

I was working my way back into life at the time of Prunty's incarceration. My annual income probably never made five figures, but I managed to keep everything going and had some good plans. Then I made another bad mistake and said 'yes' to land speculators buying my 14 acres. Lawyers sniffed an opening and things got out of control.

Meanwhile, my parents got old and it became my responsibility to look after them. It was a rewarding experience and not very difficult due to their general good health. Their late life happiness was only troubled by worry about what the football crowd was doing to me, but I kept it to myself as best I could. Both of them lived to good ages but perished in a hospital system which reserves the right to withdraw its care from selected elderly. I wish they had died natural deaths at home, but I'd probably be in prison as a result. My mother came in for particularly rough treatment in a Covid ward. The cruelty shocked me when I found out. It always comes down to cruelty with these secretive power groups, that is how they express their importance.

Most people are good and yearn for integrity and decency to the point that they will believe it is there when it demonstrably is not. It is the disconnect between our innocent trust in shows of probity and the reality of what people are capable of when they are placed above the law that provides the fertile ground for evil to do its thing.

While the scumbags who tore apart my childhood no longer have any emotional hold on me, understanding their motivations and methods has been invaluable in preparing me for the task of taking on the barristers, another priest class, and their particular brand of corruption. I don't want for courage, but I lack the ability to bring anyone along with me. I am trying to learn from last year's epic hunger strikes, when four wonderful people took on a government and national media which treated them with contempt. They didn't win, but they didn't lose either. 

I am only still standing after nine years because the law - not justice alone - is on my and my company's side. The lawyers can suppress all of our evidence, make our witnesses disappear, make a series of threats against me (most recently to render me bankrupt), they can do whatever they want without restriction but they cannot make what they are doing legal. My recent application to the High Court is a simple one. It is for the 'settlement' to be struck out because the plaintiff has refused to obey the order to settle and because the order binding me to the settlement is a sham (because the registrar refused to obey a previous order to amend it). It is an unanswerable application, so I suspect the barristers will use some tricks to try to get it dismissed before it gets started. But if they are to continue to stand by Garda Dully at every turn, including tomorrow, they will have to argue for the general right of insiders to defy High Court orders when it suits them. Will they really go there?  

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Like Noel Browne and my granddad, seven year old me and my dad didn't have anything much to say to each other, but we got along alright. I used to enjoy watching him milk the cows, waiting especially for the magical moment when the first collecting glass spread out white from top to bottom. The radio rattled incomprehensibly from a cowshed which was known as the Parliament, not for its bullshit but for the serious political debate which went on there. Chief among the debaters were the Fitzpatricks, three (or was it four?) brothers who lived in a grinding poverty which was only interrupted by their being interned by the traitorous Dev during the Emergency. My dad used to sigh and ask, ''What were they fighting for?'' And now, all still together but in an unmarked grave, the question echoes on.

The last of the Fitzpatricks, Sean, is the only one I remember. He would walk in to the old house carrying a can, an impervious expression on his face. My childish fascination was with his soldier's gait, which I didn't associate with age and glasses. My mother would fill his can with milk, sometimes giving him a box of eggs. And he'd go on his way, and my mother to the well or some other thing. Nothing ever stopped, and nothing much got going. We were close to God then.