Comments

Fame is the thing — 18 Comments

  1. Parallel universe indeed.

    I can understand parents being proud and all but to be proud of something like that?

    It is sad, but perhaps that is what she was resigned to. Knowing that is the only way in which her son would ever be noted.

    Examples like it in every town in Ireland as well.

  2. But the strange thing was that it wasn’t sad. Not for her anyway. She just lived in a surreal world where crime, drugs and fighting were perfectly normal. She didn’t seem to realise that the rest of us lived different lives.

  3. Grandad,

    I knew a school principal in the North dealing with junior versions of Bernie’s son. He was depressed that half-brothers and sisters would end up having children with each other.

  4. Just her way of dealing with his failings I think. He is her son and she would have hoped for great things for him but as they never materialised she maybe just made a substitution.

    You see and read about it all the time. Especially the immortal quote: “Sure, he’s a good boy deep down. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  5. The ultimate insult in the North of Ireland was, “Sure, even his own ma couldn’t love him”

  6. She was very happy with her life. She was very proud of her family. I don’t think she had any ambitions as such.

    She was quite religious and loved Pope John Paul because he was born in Knock!

  7. 🙂 Brilliant! Thats is the funniest that that I have heard in a long time.

    She sounds like a breath of fresh air. Pity about her son.

  8. Grandad you say Bernie lived in a surreal world….

    Just like Bertie & Co. and sure they are in the papers everyday.

    So why would she see any difference?

  9. Ian, I never met the son. But I grew quite fond of him. He had this endearing quality that everything he did, he did in an arse-wise fashion.

    Who else would walk into a shop where he was well known, and try to hold them up with a water pistol?! Basically he was harmless enough. Just a wee touch of a drug problem.

  10. That is the nail on the head, Grannymar. It reminds me of the old film title – “Where worlds collide” [or some such]

  11. Robert makes a good point. We all want some element of pride in our progeny however misguided. How many people do you know who are incredibly proud of not-so-noteworthy kids. Notoriety is just a little lower on the scale.

    And slightly off topic . . .I had a cleaning lady years ago who used to move things just so I’d know she’d been there. It was soooooo irritating. All the photos would be mushed up and the thing I’d left there so I’d remember where it was – well it was somewhere else. I miss her now!

  12. But she didn’t see him as notorious.

    We really miss her. She was a lovely person, if a bit innocent.

    Mind you, she used to put everything away in the strangest places. It used to take us days to find all the essentials again, like the milk and sugar.

  13. I think it’s a fundamental law of nature that everyone in the world has a different place for things like sugar, which seems utterly insane to anyone else.

  14. That is so true! I remember one day my mother moved the cache of coffee and tea to another press. I almost ransacked the kitchen trying to find out where it was.

    It only lasted 1 jar in the new location before she got fed up with it herself and moved everything back to where it originally was

  15. My mother was an absolute fanatic for everything being ‘in its place’ [including me!!]. Once I moved a knife from one side of a drawer to the other and she accused me of losing it. She claimed she had searched ‘high and low’ for it.

  16. Grandad,

    We had some guys just like Bernie’s son.In fact, when I was a kid we used to say that in our neighborhood you either grew up to be a priest or you got the chair, there was no in between.

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