We have ways of making you talk

- So how was school?

- Fine.

- How was teacher?

- Fine.

- Did you go to the yard?

- Yes.

- How did you get on?

- Fine.

- Do you know what Daddy's job is?

- No.

- Do you want to know?

- No.

- Well I'll tell you. Daddy interviews people for a living. He asks questions. He probes. He puts people at their ease and then moves in for the kill. He's a professional interrogator. He prises out long and interesting answers. He has ways of making people talk. He is in the communications industry. His life is about questions. What do you think of that?

- Want to go to the toilet.

- Daddy is a journalist. Only go if your bursting. A journalist.

- Did you kill the princess?

- No. Don't believe all that stuff you get from the media.

- Why are you a journalist?

- Seemed like a good idea when Daddy was unemployed. Now, what did you do in the yard today?

- Nothing.

- Nothing?

- Chasing.

- Played chasing. That's not nothing. That's good. It's great to play games. It's the start of learning about sport. Chasing is great. - Why?

- It's good and healthy and, umm, it teaches you about fair play and getting quotes from All-Ireland finalists.

- What other games do I play?

- Well you know you go swimming on Sundays and you go to gymnastics on Saturdays.

- Why?

- Well Mammy and Daddy figure that when you get older and move on in those sports the effects of the growth retardation drugs that the gymnastics people will give you will be cancelled out by the human growth hormones the swimming people will give you. Mammy and Daddy ain't going to raise no freaks see.

- Daddy, are you a freak?

- You know when your Daddy was a boy there was no such thing as gymnastics. Just hopping. Your granny won an Olympic medal for hopping. Straight 10s she got. She could hop beautifully on either foot. She hopped minor and under-21 for the county. She hopped up the Sugarloaf once as an election stunt.

- My teacher says you're a freak.

- Swimming has changed, too, of course. If I tell you something about swimming, will you keep it to yourself?

- Mammy says you're not allowed talk about swimming anymore. What about camogie. Can I play camogie?

- Well yes. Camogie is just to keep your head straight. Tell them you don't drink. Five is too young for that crack.

- Ciara had a chestnut.

- A chestnut! Ah, conkers. The sport of goldenshafted boyhood autumns. Your father was a great conkers player in his day, you know. Conkers is great fun. Conkers was one of the games mentioned in Bishop Croke's letter to the GAA. He was very sad there was no more conkers, handygrips or toesucking being practised in Irish villages. Will I tell you about conkers?

- I want to do my homework now Daddy.

- Hush, hush. We'd go up to the park in the autumn and we'd throw sticks up into the trees so the conkers would fall down. Can you imagine the fun we had?

- Would the conkers hit you when they fell down?

- Sometimes. Yes. It wasn't all fun. Sometimes the stick would come down and hit you on the head. It was good enough, though. So long as the flasher didn't come along.

- The flasher?

- Anyway, with our cold little hands, we'd try and take the chestnuts out of the spikey flesh they were in. Very hard. But we knew there was good fun ahead.

- Can I do my homework now.

- Then do you know what we would do?

- Eat them?

- No, sweet child, we'd put holes in them.

- Why?

- So we could play conkers. Ahhh! The best way for a child to learn hand-to-eye co-ordination.

- How did you put the holes in them Daddy?

- It wasn't easy. You had to get a compass in one hand and hold the chestnut in the palm of the other hand and press the point of the compass through. Often it would slip and the compass would stick right into the fleshy bit of your palm, just under the thumb there. Very sore. Sometimes the wounds would get infected and full of gangrene or on other occasions the compass would slip right through and out the back of your hand.

- Then what?

- Well then the compass was useless unless you wanted to draw circles on your hand.

- With the chestnuts? What with the chestnuts?

- When the hole was complete we'd take off our shoelaces and thread them through the hole in the chestnut so that the chestnut was hanging at the bottom of the lace when you held it up.

- Is that it? Like earrings?

- No. Of course not, of course not. Then another boy or sometimes a girl would come along and you'd hold your chestnut out and they'd swing their chestnut as hard as they could and try to break your chestnut.

- Would they break it?

- Usually they would break two or three of your knuckles first.

- Would you cry?

- Yes. Daddy would cry. There's no shame in crying.

- Would the other boys give you a hug?

- No they'd laugh and Daddy would have to ask them if they wanted a mill.

- What's a mill Daddy?

- A fight.

- How did the fight end?

- When Daddy said.

- Said what?

- I submit.

- I summit. Then what.

- They'd take Daddy's marbles.

- What about your shoelaces?

- They'd tie them to the school railings.

- So you could find them?

- So Daddy couldn't escape from them.

- Daddy?

- Yes?

- Can I have a Tammagochi?

- Sure you can. Sure. When did teacher tell you that Daddy was a freak?

- Daddy. I summit.