Would you give away this adorable baby?
When I was a few months old, while my father was away in England, my (unmarried) mother put me up for adoption. As the story goes, I was in the process of being adopted by a doctor and his wife when my father arrived back and intervened, something I held against him ever after.
A would-be boy soprano?
Despite this ignominious start, I was a joyful child who loved to sing and, at six years old, was a choir member at St Kevin’s church on Harcourt Street, Dublin. After hearing Aled Jones sing ‘Walking in the air’, I was determined to be a boy soprano, but my dreams were dashed by blatant sexism. Identifying as a boy didn’t wash in the 1960s
Would you employ this woman?
More than a decade later, I was almost 18, in my first year of college and on midterm break. The family was broke, and our house was on the verge of bank repossession. Back then, students unable to find holiday work during midterm break were allowed to collect unemployment benefits, so I applied. Following an interview, my application was refused because my Punk appearance made me unemployable.
Outraged, I wrote to Proinsias De Rossa, my local Sinn Fein (political) representative, putting a cancelled stamp on the envelope. I was broke after all. He contacted me to say I owed him tenpence for the stamp and, impressed with my audacity, he intervened with the Department of (un)Employment, so I got my dole.
Before you attempt to separate truth from fiction, dear reader, I will confess to being a consummate liar who has fibbed to doctors, lawyers, judges, police persons, and especially the taxman, all without being discovered—or maybe I'm not!
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