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4th Estate
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2018
Copyright © Darragh Martin 2018
Photograph of girl on cover © Plainpicture
Cover design by Jack Smyth
Darragh Martin asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780008295394
Ebook Edition © August 2018 ISBN: 9780008295417
Version: 2018-08-31
For Aoife, Gillian, Caroline and Brendan
Contents
V. The Revolutions of Rosie Doyle
VII. The Tricks of John Paul Doyle
Series I:
(1979–1980)
1
Holy Water Bottle (1979)
It was September 1979 when Pope John Paul II brought sex to Ireland. Granny Doyle understood his secret message immediately. An unholy trinity of evils knocked on Ireland’s door (divorce! abortion! contraception!) so an army of bright-eyed young things with Miraculous Medals was required. Phoenix Park was already crammed with kids listening to the Pope’s speech – chubby legs dangling around the necks of daddys; tired heads drooping against mammys – but Granny Doyle knew that none of these sticky-handed Séans or yawning Eamons would be up for the task. No, the lad who would rise from the ranks of priests and bishops to assume the ultimate position in the Vatican would have to come from a new generation; the Popemobile had scarcely shut its doors before the race was on to conceive the first Irish Pope.
First in line was Granny Doyle, armed with a tiny bottle of papal-blessed holy water. The distance between Granny Doyle’s upheld bottle and the drops flying from the Pope’s aspergillum was no obstacle; this was not a day for doubt. Helicopters whirred above. The Popemobile cruised through the streets. A new papal cross stretched towards the sky, confident as any skyscraper, brilliantly white in the sun’s surprise rays. All of Dublin packed into Phoenix Park in the early hours, equipped with folding chairs and flasks of tea. Joy fizzed through the air before the Pope even spoke. When he did, it was a wonder half a million people didn’t levitate immediately from the pride. The Pope loved Ireland, the Pope loved the Irish, the Irish loved the Pope; this was a day when a drop of precious holy water could catapult across a million unworthy heads and plop into its destined receptacle.
Granny Doyle replaced the pale blue lid on the bottle and turned to her daughter-in-law.
‘Sprinkle a bit of this on the bed tonight, there’s a good girl.’
A version of this sentence had been delivered to Granny Doyle on her wedding night, by some fool of a priest who was walking proof of why Ireland had yet to produce a pope. Father Whatever had given her defective goods, clearly, for no miracle emerged from the tangled sheets of 7 Dunluce Crescent that night
