I walk into the orangery and I find my daughter sitting at the upright piano. I realize that's the most middle-class sentence I've ever written, but it's also a fact?
“Honor!” I go. “There you are! Your mother says you’ve to come and watch the Easter Rising commemoration with us.”
She looks at me like I’ve offered her pâté and given her cat food. She’s there, “Er – why?”
“Yeah, no,” I go, “she says she wants us to celebrate our Irishness together – as a family? That’s an actual quote.”
Honor goes, “Grandad says we’d have been better off, both economically and morally, if we’d remained port of Britain.”
“Look, I’ve know we’ve been brought up to believe that,” I go, “but Sorcha says that today we have to be proud to be Irish. And from the way she said it, it doesn’t sound like we’ve a lot of choice.”
“Well,” she goes, “I can’t indulge the woman and her fantasies of family life this morning. I’m busy.”
She storts playing a tune. Honor is naturally gifted on the piano. She’d want to be – we’ve spent about 12 grand on lessons for her.
“What are you up to?” I go, because they do say that you should always take an interest in what your kids are doing.
She sighs like she’s already bored of me.
“If you must know,” she goes, “I’m writing a musical.”
I laugh. I’m there, “A musical?”
"It's for school. We're doing a modern-day version of West Side Story and I'm writing it."
I notice a school copybook on the piano stool beside her. I pick it up. I’m there, “Do you mind if I have a look? I’m just showing an interest here – the whole caring-parent routine.”
She goes, “Whatever.”
So I open it up. On the first page, it's like, "South Side Story is a musical set in Dublin's prosperous southern suburbs and explores the bitter gang rivalry between the children from Educate As One, a multi-denominational school in Sandycove, and Gaelscoil Naomh Eithne, a Catholic National School in Glasthule. In particular, it focuses on the love story between Tony, a boy from a devout pluralist background, who has been brought up to respect all religions with the same ambivalence, and Maria, a girl who believes that only Catholics who speak fluent Irish can get into Heaven."
I’m there, “Honor, did you write this?”
She goes, “Yeah – so?”
“So?” I go. “I’m saying it’s focking brilliant.”
“Do you think?”
Positive feedback is another thing that children need. I should teach this stuff in a class.
I’m there, “When are you putting this musical on?”
She’s like, “In May.”
“Well, I’ll definitely be there to see it. Provided it doesn’t clash with the rugby. Seriously, Honor, you’ve got a genuine talent.”
“Will you run lines with me? This particular scene I’m writing – I need to hear it out loud.”
“Of course,” I go, sitting down next to her. “Anything to get out of watching that whole 1915 thing. Where do you want to stort?”
She takes the copybook from me, opens it out and puts it up on the music stand. “Here,” she goes. “Act one, scene five. I’ll be Maria and you be Tony.”
“Okay,” I go, “tell me a little bit about my character.”
“What?”
“Because I was thinking he’s probably a bit of a ladies man – but then, at the same time, a lovable chormer? I think I can actually bring something to this role.”
“Look, just read it in your normal voice, Dad.”
I was actually going to read it in my normal voice.
“It’s night time,” Honor goes – at the same time, tinkling the old ivories. “A suggestion of buildings. A fire escape, climbing to the rear window of an unseen aportment. Tony looks up at Maria’s window, wishing for her. She appears on the fire stairs.”
“Maria!” I go. “Oh, Maria!”
“Ssshhh! My parents will hear you!”
“I don’t care who hears me! Come down here!”
“No! You’re a heathen and your father is on the board of governors of a school that hates Catholics!”
“We don’t hate Catholics, Maria! We’re just really smug people who happen to be committed to pluralism and diversity and disagree with the denominational nature of the existing Irish education system!”
"You sacrifice donkeys on Dalkey Island!"
“We don’t sacrifice donkeys! That’s just what you’ve been taught! What we do is we learn about the rites, ceremonies, celebrations, beliefs, values and key figures of all the major world religions, including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism, while also giving equal weight and attention to Atheism, Agnosticism and Humanism!”
“Exactly! You treat religion as a subject of academic interest rather than a matter of faith!”
“Oh, Maria, I wish you could see that our ways and your ways aren’t so different! We follow an Ethical Education Curriculum, in which we’re taught the importance of moral and spiritual values, as well as justice and equality!”
“But you don’t believe in one supreme being as the source of all moral authority!”
“I don’t believe in God, Maria – no! But I believe in you!”
“It’s not enough! You have to believe in God! And, also, you have to believe that the Catholic Church has a vital role to play in the Irish education system, especially at primary school level! And you have to speak Irish!”
“If that’s what I have to do, Maria – then that’s what I shall do!”
Honor suddenly ramps up the music. She turns to me and goes, “I’ll sing these next lines from Tony, okay?”
I’m like, “Yeah, no, cool.”
She goes, "Maria! I've just met a girl named Maria! And suddenly agnosticism, has lost all its exoticism, for me! Maria! A God-fearing girl named Maria! And suddenly I wish, that I could speak Irish – mo chroí! Maria! Say it loud and there's music playing! To win her heart, I'll soon be praying! Maria! I'll never stop saying… Maria!"
I’m literally in tears at the end. I haven’t been this proud of my daughter since she cheated in the egg and spoon race in Montessori.
“Honor,” I go, “I think all of the parents are going to love it!”
ILLUSTRATION: ALAN CLARKE