I was twelve years old and had just got out of school for my Summer Holidays and already my future was looking pretty bleak. Three months of hang sangwich making was to be followed by a six-year stretch in a carbolic-smelling convent.

Thankfully, secondary school was still months away. But in the meantime, a clatter of farmers needed feeding out in the hay fields– so I buttered another leaning tower of white batch in my Granny’s kitchen.

To this day, country kitchens still haunt me. You’d open a biscuit tin and instead of finding pink fluffy Mikados inside, there’d be a stack of memoriam cards unfolding like dying butterflies. Tea-time conversations were even less inspirational. My father’s family could talk endlessly about ‘last night’s drop of rain’ or who’s ‘getting their feet washed’ at tomorrow night’s mass service.

I sliced my last white tower into triangles, deciding there’s no way I’m going to spend my summer holidays feeding farmers. I’d rather go work in the bog than have to listen to another red-necked update on how my child-bearing shanks were developing.

My brother Paudge worked in the bog and was being paid three pounds twenty a day! And according to my friend Lorraine (who worked in the bog too) John-Jo was a great boss to have. He could drink a bog hole dry, which meant he spent more time doing business in the ditch than he did in the field.

Horsin’ round a bog field sounded good to me but not to my brother– he preferred I hang out in the kitchen. ‘Tomboys’ were taboo and a sure sign of worse things to come– like bra burning, lesbianism and mad cow.

We struck a bargain. The bog man’s number in exchange for a kiss from Lorraine. Paudge gave me John-Jo’s number and told me to shout down the phone because “the man’s as deaf as a door post”. I really liked the sound of this boss.

The next morning, I pulled on my wellies and hopped into the boot of John-Jo’s overcrowded orange Avenger. Paudge was still in the kitchen rubbing Sudocrem into the burst chilblains in his feet. John-Jo blew the horn again, calling my brother every name under the sun– but he wasn’t leaving without him because young, agile bog workers were hard to come by.

The exhaust pipe bounced off the potholes as we sat with our legs hanging out of the boot. John-Jo told us to keep quiet until his crawling rust box drove by the tiny Garda station at the edge of the village. After that, John-Jo heard nothing. Somebody pulled his hearing aid out and hid it.

By the time we got to Bragan Bog, everybody had eaten their jam sandwiches and were as high as kites. John-Joe lost his patience trying to get us to line up like greyhounds on a racing track.
I asked him if I could have the row of turf next to Lorraine so she could show me what to do. He granted my request on the condition that I warn him if I heard a helicopter flying close by. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about but agreed anyway.

Not long after, there were cries from the bottom of the field “Helicopter! John-Jo there’s a helicopter!” Of course John-Jo couldn’t hear them so one of the skinnier lads leapt over the mounds of dry turf and ran to warn him there was a helicopter flying above.

Seeing the lad pointing up to the sky, John-Jo scarpered down the field like a frightened maxi rabbit. We all laughed as he disappeared through a ditch and into the next field for cover. Lorraine giggled and lay down on a mound of turf to rest.

I looked up into the sky but couldn’t see any helicopter. There was no helicopter. It was just a ploy to get rid of John-Jo. Lorraine and I lay on the turf chatting while the others had a turf fight. When John-Jo finally emerged from the ditch, we got back to work.

We cried helicopter a few times that day sending John-Jo running for cover. Later that afternoon, we heard a dull engine in the far distance and the whole bog stood still. When the British helicopter came into view, we all dropped the turf we were holding and ran down the field shouting “Helicopter!”

We didn’t see John-Joe after that until it was time to go home.

At the end of that week, Paudge got his kiss and I got sixteen pounds. Seems that was the going rate for harbouring a boss wanted in connection with a recent bomb attack. Certainly explained his hearing problem.

Pictured above is Dan Redmond in Confraternity uniform in 1944.