The Three Good Fridays

© 2020 William Morrison. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/18/2020

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8209-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8210-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-8208-7 (e)

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 Where it all began.

Chapter 2 Happy School Years

Chapter 3 An Ordinary Family

Chapter 4 The Adult Years: Work and Play

Chapter 5 Bord Fáilte Highlights

Chapter 6 More Family

Chapter 7 And Yet More Family: Who is Mona?

Chapter 8 Contribution by author Bill Hern

Chapter 9 Reflections

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to my parents, Tom and Margaret, and my sisters, Mary and Jane, for being the family who made me the person I am.

Thanks to all my friends for fully accepting Mona as honorary Irish and to Mona’s family in Trinidad for equally accepting me into theirs.

Thanks to my nephew Seán Walsh for relating the who’s Mona incident, which sparked the latent idea of recalling some memories into action.

Thanks to another nephew Kieran Walsh, who provided invaluable IT advice and assistance, without which this wee scéal would not have seen the light of day.

Thanks to Bill Hern, who most generously volunteered the Mona chapter.

Thanks to Hera Bennett, my support liaison contact at AuthorHouse UK, and the many in-house colleagues who helped along the way. Not forgetting her colleague Ned, who kept at me to act on my initial approach, which was merely for information.

With apologies to the many friends and family who have shared so many moments and experiences that could/should have been included but unfortunately didn’t make the cut! Míle Buíochas to all.

CHAPTER 1

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN.

I was born 10 April 1936 in Dublin, on a Good Friday and a significant day for me. Another significant Good Friday occurred on 10 April 1998, when the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement was signed in Belfast, bringing to an end more than thirty years of turmoil and strife. The latest significant event was on 10 April 2020, another Good Friday, when I endured, rather than celebrated, my eighty-fourth birthday in less than splendid isolation under government direction, cocooned in my own home despite my own good health as a result of the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. At least I didn’t have to blow out eighty-four candles to a family audience—grateful for small mercies.

I grew up in the small seaside village of Blackrock, County Dublin, a few miles south of Dublin city. The 1930s and 1940s were the times of the Emergency, as the Second World War was known in neutral Ireland at the time. It was an era of ration books, gas masks, the LDF (Local Defence Force), the LSF (Local Security Force), and ARPs (Air Raid Precautions), all manned by local volunteers while doing their regular day jobs.

The North Strand bombings took place in May 1941, causing twenty-seven civilian deaths and numerous injuries, destroying twenty-five houses, and damaging