In preparation for St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow Twitter is lighting up with ‘#GrowingupIrish’. I began to think of the memories and phrases that I recall whilst growing up in the 70’s and 80’s in Ireland as one of five siblings.
Easter time for me will forever be associated with filling my Trocaire box for the little black babies. It was a competition in my school class to see who could fill it the most. Certain pupils would come back after Easter holidays with not one but two Trocaire boxes filled to the brim.
It used to break my heart as it took all I had to barely fill mine. I would have been fumbling and foosterin (fidgeting) whilst bringing it up to my teacher with my head lowered in shame as it was usually just about half full. I recall having to hire myself out for errands in order to get people to put extra into it. Ironing and grass cutting were my preferred chores.
‘Me aul sa go sha ‘was an often used and affectionate saying that I often heard. It kinda of means ‘my love’. When the phone was being used too much, we would often hear either one of our parents’ bellow from the dining room ‘Get off the phone do ya think I’m made of money?’
‘I’ll be up to 90’ was a great term used by many Mammies in consternation to denote how busy they were. It is possibly one of my favorite phrases
That’s all for now
Stay fab
Adele
