The Real Band of Brothers by Max Arthur

Author:Max Arthur [Arthur, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Spain & Portugal, Military
ISBN: 9780007342853
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2009-08-20T04:00:00+00:00

BOB DOYLE

Born 12 February 1916 in Dublin

I was one of a family of five—two brothers and two sisters. I was the second youngest to my sister Eileen. It was the time of the ‘Troubles’ and we were living in the North King Street area.

Soon after the youngest child, Eileen, was born, my mother, whose father was from a mixed marriage—Protestant father and Catholic mother—was found to be incapable of looking after her children and confined as a religious lunatic to Dublin’s Grangegorman asylum. My father, Peter Doyle, was a fireman—he shovelled coal into hoppers on ships. While he was away at sea, my eldest sister, Josie, who was about nine, looked after us and tried to run the home when my mother was in the asylum. She was the only one who had a bit of sense.

Soon we came under the attention of nuns in nearby Eccles Street, whom I thought to be the Sisters of Charity. My aunt came one day and brought us up to the convent. They took us into their care, and that was the last we were to see of any relative for nine years.

At the age of five, me and my sister Eileen, aged two, were placed with the Byrne family; my brothers Christie and Peter were sent to some place in Cork. Only Josie stayed at home.

During the mushroom season, I would get up at six to beat the other kids and run round the fields in my bare feet for the mushrooms, pissing on my feet to keep them warm in the early morning dew. A local farmer would pay me fourpence a day to frighten the crows off the wheat. With a cocoa tin pierced at the bottom, you’d put a bit of carbide, used for bicycle lamps at the time, spit on top of it, and, with the lid pressed on, put a lighted match at the bottom—then stand clear for the bang. It certainly frightened the crows!

I was twelve when, out of the blue, Mother Superior told me that myself and Eileen were going to Dublin to my parents. My mother was now back home. We were in 30 Stafford Street, now Wolfe Tone Street. My parents, brothers and sister were strangers whom I could not recollect ever having seen before.

Life was miserable at home for us, the two youngest. My mother would make us go to regular early Mass, which we hated, and, while we could only afford condensed milk and meat bits from Moore Street, she would give money to the priests at Dominick Street chapel for Masses to be said ‘for the repose of the poor souls in purgatory’. At one stage the priest told her that her duty was to her children, and she should keep the money and feed them. Everything pawnable went into Brereton’s pawn office in Capel Street on Mondays, even a new pair of sheets.

My mother would give me a penny to go over to the Whitefriar Street chapel to light a candle and pray to a certain saint to get me a job.

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