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The Sign of The Cross - A Native Son
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I have a memory of a train arriving in Enniscorthy station in the early
morning. My mother and my aunt were coming back from Lourdes. I must have
been five or six, which would make the year l960 or l96l. I remember getting
on the train and finding that the blinds were drawn on the windows. My mother
and my aunt had just been sleeping; they were tired. They had travelled
overland to Lourdes.
"Overland": that was one of the new words that suddenly became commonplace
as the story of the journey was told. "Basilica", "Courier", "Down through
France". There was no fizzy orange to be had in France, and the heat was
terrible in the bus, and everybody was dying of thirst. A bottle of orange
juice cost a lot of money, but still it was worth it. It was so hot in France.
Postcards came of torchlit processions, or of Saint Bernadette, or of the
statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. There were large plastic bottles of Lourdes
water with shoulder straps, or smaller bottles in the shape of Our Lady of
Lourdes with a blue screw-cap top. These were my first intimations of the
world outside Ireland. My parents and aunts and uncles went to Lourdes,
sometimes venturing over the border to San Sebastian in Spain. One aunt,
my father's sister, went on pilgrimages to Rome and Santiago de Compostela.
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