Click to Enlarge
Country Boys
by J.P. Diamond
Format: Paperback
Publication date: 13th August 2010
ISBN: 978-1-907179-73-0
Price: €10.00
This short novel describes the lives of several teenagers from a Working-class Irish Catholic background, growing up in rural Northern Ireland during an eleven-month period in the early 1970’s. The strong family ties, work ethic and sense of humour are recurring themes in the book, but the omnipresent threat of the “Troubles” lurks menacingly in the background.
Extract from Country Boys
Friday 14th July 1972.
It was a warm summers evening. Sean Daly and his cousin Patsy had just finished loading a trailer of bales of hay for his Uncle Gerry, Patsy’s daddy. The load had been built five bales high; Gerry didn’t like to build too high as he had done so a couple of years ago, only for the load to come off on the way home. This year he was going to play safe – farming a small plot of land in Northern Ireland was hard enough without making life harder for yourself. Besides – the forecast was good for the next few days and they weren’t in any hurry. Uncle Gerry was driving the tractor, a red Massey Ferguson which he had bought secondhand back in the late 1960’s, and Sean and Patsy were sitting perched up on top of the load as they made their way slowly back to the hayshed a couple or three miles down the road in the townland of Urrismore, about three miles outside Lamagh, in Co Tyrone. There was a cool breeze blowing now. The faraway ringing of the Angelus bell in the local chapel signified that it had just turned 6 o’clock – and it gave an almost soothing relief as they had been working since mid-morning under the warm July sun.
For Sean, this was his favourite part of the day; chewing a piece of newly mown hay and looking up at the clear blue sky. His days work was nearly done and soon he would be having a warm bath and getting his tea. Sean’s father Peter worked for the Electricity Board and wasn’t with them tonight but he’d be off tomorrow.
Sean always liked it when his daddy was with them but he had to be careful with his language as his da was very holy and didn’t like cursing. Sometimes, when you were lifting bales, you could get a jag on your finger or worse, under the fingernail; and Sean found it therapeutic on such occasions to let off steam with a few four-letter words. That tendency had to be curtailed when Peter was with them.
