DUN LAOGHAIRE

I am writing this sitting outside Shoe Lane café Dun Laoghaire in the warm afternoon sunshine. Across the road is the Catholic parish church, St Michaels. The original church was a modest building built in 1835. Its enlargement in a Neo Gothic style was completed in 1879. Eighty six years later, in 1963 the church was destroyed by fire. All that remained was the tower and spire which now stand disconnected from the replacement church which was completed in 1973. They make an incongruous couple.

The ‘new’ church is a rather inelegant block of a building, the stone exterior interspersed with narrow stained glass windows. It is far prettier inside than out. But the spire still reaches high into the blue sky, looking like it might puncture a passing frothy white cloud; an image which makes me think of a Teddy’s 99 – another Dun Laoghaire institution.

My mother was a Dun Laoghaire woman. She grew up near the town and went to school in the Dominican Convent which occupied the site where Bloomfields Shopping Centre now stands. She married my father in the old St Michael’s Church in February 1960. Well, that’s what they said – there’s no evidence, as not one photo exists of the wedding which took place at 7am; early weddings were common back then and gave rise to the ‘reception’ being called ‘the wedding breakfast.’

Where I am sitting outside Shoe Lane is across the road from the church, the café being located on the outside of the Dun Laoghaire Shopping Centre, another very inelegant building which opened in 1976. I was 14 then and the centre became my generations ‘Dundrum’, a place to hang out and meet friends. It was a magnet for us, especially after school on a Friday afternoon when we would gather in groups to sit over one cup of coffee (when coffee was either black or white) in the café on the ground floor (might it have been Graham O Sullivans?) while we chatted and flirted with boys.

We would eventually be invited to leave and we went home for tea, only to return to Dun Laoghaire that night to hang out in the infamous Dunelles Pub which was in the basement of the centre. Dunelles had live music and a very relaxed door policy. There was no ‘prinking’ back then and so we arrived sober and much like the coffee in the afternoon, we generally bought one drink (Barcardi and Coke please) and made it last the night.

As I sit in the sunshine, sipping my iced Latte and sharing my slice of lemon cake with a couple of starlings, the memories of the summer of 1979 come tumbling down.

That summer, as we began to contemplate our Debs in the autumn, these weekend visits to Dunelles took on an extra importance as we all needed to meet a suitable guy to accompany us on our big night.

Summer 1979 was marked nationally by a postal strike that lasted four months, 200,000 people took to the streets to demand changes to the tax system and protesters battled to save the Wood Quay site from development. Brendan Shine was at No 1 asking “if we wanted our old lobby washed down?” I don’t think that was a euphemism but I still have no idea what he was on about. I was more interested in Gloria Gaynor realising she could survive and Debbie Harry’s heart of glass.

In the midst of all this unrest I was doing my Leaving Cert and preparing to enter the real world now that my education was over. 1979 was the summer I had waited for, for years. This would be the summer I would bid farewell to the terrifying nuns, to my green uniform and more importantly, this was the summer that I would embrace a grown up social life and meet lots of boys.

The first taste of the promise that summer held came on a sunny Saturday in May. My mother, feeling I needed a break from study, insisted I accompany her to the Annual Dun Laoghaire Garden Party. In the sun we shared a bottle of wine.... for the first time. A couple of hours later as we both giggled our way up this very street I am now sitting on, Marine Road, two guys passed us on the opposite side of the street. One was very tall and had long leather clad legs which immediately caught my attention. Once they passed by, I decided to risk a second glance and as I turned around, so did he. Eyes met and we both laughed. And I fell in love, the way you do when you are 17.

Being six feet tall, I knew that I was going to have a problem finding a boy to take to my Debs. So I knew that I had to track down Sexy Long Legs and secure his company for my big night in November.

Finally exams were finished and we raced out of our convent school and into our futures which we seemed to think we would find in Dunelles pub. The best spot in this dark cavern was a booth which had a view of the stairs. There me and the girls would play the ‘whose legs are those’ as they descended into the murky half light. And it didn’t take long for those familiar Sexy Long Legs to make a confident swaggering descent. He knew everyone, except me.

Meanwhile Aer Lingus’s first female pilot got her wings, boat people refugees arrived from Vietnam and the country got ready to welcome the Pope. But my main preoccupation was my Debs and the fact that the clock was ticking. I had to get to know Sexy Long Legs enough to ask him to accompany me before someone else did.

Nights in Dunelles dissolved into each other and then in late July it happened. I was standing at the very bus stop that is just to my left, waiting for the last 46a home when he joined the queue. Trying to act cool but feeling very hot under the collar I boarded the bus and he sat on the seat in front of me and offered me a Rothmans. Through a cloud of smoke, I abandoned small talk and got right to the point. “Would you fancy coming to my Debs in November” I gushed at him. “Yeah, why not” he answered, “that will be three Debs Balls this autumn.” It wasn’t quite the answer I was looking for.

Next night in Dunelles I couldn’t wait to see my date again. In he arrived and as he breezed past, the only change was that he now said “Hi Barbara”. Slowly the realisation dawned that my asking him to my Debs had not conferred any changed status on our relationship. In fact, I was just last in a queue of three dates he would be accompanying on their big nights too.

But me and the girls had found the social life we craved and we had met lots of boys. Summer rumbled on with nights ending with either a visit to The Ritz on Patrick’s Street for a bag of chips or a walk to The Forum Cinema in Glasthule where the only late night movie ever on was ‘Pink Floyd Live In Pompeii’. We endured the heavy metal for the thrill of being surrounded in the dark by the unfamiliar musky aroma of male bodies.

As August died, The Boomtown Rats were declaring they don’t like Mondays and in town, a new punk band called U2 were playing in McGonagles.

Summer faded into autumn and I continued to try desperately to capture the heart of Sexy Long Legs. Finally on a warm September day he asked me if I wanted to go for a walk down the Pier. By the lighthouse we shared my first joint and afterwards lay on the grass in Moran’s Park watching the clouds and then we kissed. The sheer boldness of that day was thrilling in a way I still can’t articulate.

The enormous, ugly Lexicon library now squats on what used to be Moran’s Park with its dark recesses, neat lawns, mysterious deep black pool and where the birdsong was interspersed by the gentle twang of lawn bowls. It was a great place to lie in the grass and savour first love and the last summer of true freedom – that delicious gap between the world of education and that of work.

‘Sexy long legs’ did accompany me to my Debs and looked even finer than he did in his leather trousers... and he did become my first boyfriend.

So much of my story is here in Dun Laoghaire, as is my mothers and indeed my daughters stories are here too.

I drain my coffee and think of how grateful I am for this beautiful day, the stunning spire of the church where my parents married and my teenage memories that are dancing all around me.

Ironically, many years later I ended up living with my family up the road from ‘Sexy Long Legs’ and his. We saw each other occasionally in the local shop. Sadly, he didn’t make it to his 60s and passed away almost ten years ago.

I realise that I have so much to be thankful for. I give the last of the lemon cake to the starlings and another memory hits me. This lovely quirky café where they have more kinds of coffee than I could ever dreamed of back in 1979, occupies the space that back then were the Public Toilets on Marine Road. This fact makes me smile and as I do, the starlings are having a punch up over the water bowl by the door.