How Marian Finucane nearly blighted my childhood




Marian Finucane (the famous RTE broadcaster, who died early this year of 2020) nearly blighted my childhood. She was born the month I was due to make my First Holy Communion; and my teacher, Mrs Finucane, absented herself from the school for several weeks, during that critical time, in order to have the baby.

The Talent Contest

The first consequence of this was that the class fell into the hands of a young substitute teacher. It started off  quite well. She said, "What we are going to do today, is: we are going to have a talent competition in the class. And the prize will go, not to the pupil the teacher thinks is best, but to the one who most entertains the class."

A plan immediately formed in my head. I guessed that all the other contestants would do the dull, childish, songs and verses we learned in school. So, I would do something lively and shocking that would wake them up and give them a real laugh.

The contest began. Child after child stepped up in front of the class and performed their school stuff. I waited and waited, until I thought the time was right. Then I made my way, with pounding heart, from the back row, up along the passage between the desks. Reaching the top, I waited briefly for my presence to be recognised, then I declaimed:
Mrs Molloy, sure she got drunk;
She fell in the fire and burnt her rump. 
There was (or seemed to me) thunderous applause as I made my way back down  to my seat. Teacher had hardly noticed my presence until I had gone, and then she said, "Is that all?"

Is that all? Haven't you noticed how I brought the house down with one line?

Any more contestants? Noel Finucane, the real teacher's son, rose from his spot at the top right hand desk and stood confidently facing the class. He sang "The Wild Raparee." (If my childhood memory is reliable after 70 years).

Maybe you have heard the Clancy Brothers singing the Outlawed Raparee, and think that Noel Finucane's was a lively Irish ballad. But the year was 1950, a dozen years before the Clancies appeared on the scene, and "The Wild Raparee" was performed as a slow, sentimental ballad. Noel had a beautiful voice and a great presence, and his performance was superior to anything you could expect from this age-group, but this slow song was not at all entertaining to the audience of seven year olds. After one verse, he had lost his audience's attention, and the substitute teacher was on her feet, shushing the class. But he launched into a second verse, and, incredibly, though he had totally lost his audience, a third and, would you believe it, a fourth!

Finally, all the contestants were finished, and the teacher announced. "Thank you all for competing. You were all very good, but, obviously, one contestant was a clear winner, and that was:  Noel Finucane, with  "The Wild Raparee."

This was a total betrayal! Of course Noel's performance was the best going by musical, teacherly and performance standards. But teacher had said it would not be judged on these standards, but on whoever most entertained the class, and Noel had bored the pants off the class, while I was the one who made them laugh!

My dad was partly to blame for this failure of mine, for he had passed on to me only two short lines of what was no doubt a longer comic song. Dad was very concerned always that we kids would not go too close to the fire. He often quoted the old saying "Keep falling distance from Fire and Water," and declaimed the "Mrs Molloy" lines to remind us of the fire danger. Had he declaimed more of the song, my contribution might have been long enough to get the recognition it deserved!

Bandy Lynchee and Confession

The second consequence of Mrs Finucane's pregnancy leave, is that our preparation for First Confession fell into the hands of Bandy Lynchee ("Bean de Loingsigh," meaning "Mrs Lynch"), the austere and very tall head teacher.

All the children, in turn, had to kneel before Bandy Lynchee, and confess their sins as they would to the priest in Confession. This was to ensure that they would do it properly when the day came. Now, one thing I had learned from Mrs Finucane is that my sins were between me and God. The priest in the confessional would be only a conduit pipe, and I was not obliged to confess to anyone else. So, when my turn came to kneel before Bandy Lynchee, I refused to tell her my sins.

As punishment, I was sent into Miss Feeney's class and compelled to sit beside a girl, in a class of girls. (Miss Feeney always refused to teach boys, so she was given a class entirely of  girls). It was a shameful thing to have to  sit beside a girl in a class of girls.

Examination of Conscience

Of course, the precursor to Confession was Examination of Conscience.

Here, I found a number of problems.

The first was simple enough: it had to do with Obedience. (Three of the great moral values were Truth, Honesty and Obedience). We were obliged to be obedient to parents, teachers and priests, and any disobedience was a sin, mortal or venial depending on the seriousness. 

Now a child was subject, also, to street rules. A parental order stated that we must not enter any neighbour's garden or house without express parental permission. However,  there was a street rule that "Whoever cants a ball must retrieve it." This over-ruled the parental order, because balls had to be retrieved.

Was it a sin to disobey a parent and enter a neighbour's garden to retrieve a ball, (or, indeed, even more seriously, go on the railway land to retrieve one). No doubt it was a  venial sin. However, to be forgiven, you had to have a firm purpose of amendment, that is, not to commit that sin again. But how could you have a purpose of amendment, when you also knew that the street rule would always come first? (Nor was there any moral instruction that street rules were to be  observed). 

Tell-Tale Tattling

Another issue of  conscience that had to be resolved was the matter of tattling.

"A lie is always sinful," we were told, "And nothing can excuse it." But there was a street rule prohibiting tattling.

This came to a serious head this very year, in the matter of the Dancing Classes.

When Irish Dancing Classes came to Saint Peter's School, I was too young to join, but my two brothers were enrolled. Their initial enthusiasm soon waned, but my desire to join the classes remained  strong. 

When the numbers fell off, the class of Saint Peter's was amalgamated with other classes, and the lessons moved to a room in the Macushla Ballroom. This year, when my seventh birthday arrived, I demanded the right to go to the dancing classes. Roger tried desperately to discourage me, telling me they were dreadful tyrannical experiences, but I would not be put off, so, one  Saturday morning, I set off with Roger and Jerry for the dancing classes.

Two buses were necessary to get to the Macushla Ballroom. One bus took us into O'Connell Street, and the second bus would take us from O'Connell Bridge to Amiens Street where the ballroom was located. However, you could save the second bus-fare for sweets, and walk the length of Talbot Street instead; so this is what we did.

Arriving at the Macushla Ballroom, Roger said we would play Jack Stones on the steps outside the front door until it would be time to go in. We observed other dancing pupils going in by the side entrance, but, still, Roger said it was not time yet, so we continued playing Jack Stones. We played Jack Stones for a long time. Eventually, we saw the dancing pupils  coming out again, and Roger said it was too late to go in, so we went home. On the bus, I was severely warned not to tattle. If asked how the dancing went, I was to answer, in my usual fashion, that it went "fine." However, my ambition of joining the dancing class was being defeated by his dishonest behaviour, and "fine" in this instance would be a lie!

I decided to seek my mother's advice on the morality of tattling verses truth. In response, she told me this story:
"I was born," she said, "in 1915, that is, in the middle of World War 1. When I was three, the War of Independence broke out, and my older brothers were in the IRA and often on the Run. There were certain safe-houses where they went. Now, if I was asked by a police-man or soldier where my brothers were, and I told them, they would be captured and shot. So, it was more important that I did not tattle than that I would tell the truth."
In short, mam suggested that the moral thing for me to do was to tell the truth about my own activity and leave it to my brothers to speak for themselves. So I told her I had not been to any dancing class but had played Jack Stones on the steps outside the Ballroom. The end result is that none of us ever went to dancing classes again.

The Confirmation Clash

Another clash soon occurred, where Roger scored a significant victory over me.

The year Roger made his Communion had been his year. The next year, when Jerry made his had been Jerry's year. This year was supposed to be my year, but Roger turned a nasty trick. I was to make my Communion in May, but Roger made his Confirmation in March and stole my year from me. He dressed up in his Confirmation suit and went around all the houses collecting money, and, as he boasted, emptying their coffers before my opportunity would arrive.

One evening, as we sat around the tea-table, the question of Confirmation Names came up. Roger's name was already known, and Jerry said what name he would choose. Then I was asked, and I said I would take "Stinky." My mother said "Don't be like that," but I stuck to my guns. (However, when my year came I took "Kevin," inspired by Kevin Breen next door, who was a gallant lad).

The Doctrine of the Assumption

Holy Communion was about sacramentally receiving the Body of Christ, but when Communion Day came, the priest went off on another tack (probably not noticed by anybody but me). He said,

This year is a special year for Our Lady. Later this year the Pope will give a special gift to Our Lady: he will announce that the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven is a Doctrine of Faith. I hope you will all realise, receiving your First Holy Communion on this special year of Our Lady that you are special children of Mary. Will you remember in twenty years time that you are special children of Mary and remain devoted to her?
This was problematic for me. I was a child who took religion and all my instructions very seriously, but the Assumption of Our Lady as a Doctrine of Faith was off the wall! (Not to Carl Jung, as I read in later life, but I did not have his counsel on this day of my First  Holy Communion). I had discussed this matter some years previously, yes, with my mam, of course. See: Conversations with Mother

Having explained, in our nightly conversations, the Atmosphere, the Stratosphere, the Planets, Stars and Outer Space, I asked where Heaven fitted in. Mother explained that long ago, people did not know about the Stratosphere and Outer Space and thought that Heaven was in the Sky, and Hell under ground. But she said, Heaven is probably not a place but a state, that the dead are probably all around us, behind a screen. What about the Assumption of Our Lady? This could be viewed as a Metaphor for passing from the physical state to the spirit world.

But now, on my First Holy Communion Day, the priest is saying that the Assumption is Real and not a Metaphor, but a matter requiring belief. Unbelievable!

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