takes us upstairs and kneels with us while we say our prayers.We say the Our Father, three Hail Marys, God bless the Pope. God bless Mam, God bless  our  dead  sister  and  brothers,  God  bless  Ireland,  God  bless  De Valera, and God bless anyone who gives Dad a job. He says, Go to sleep, boys, because holy God is watching you and He always knows if you’re not good. I think my father is like the Holy Trinity with three people in him, the one in the morning with the paper, the one at night with the sto- ries  and  the  prayers, and  then  the  one  who  does  the  bad  thing  and comes home with the smell of whiskey and wants us to die for Ireland. I feel sad over the bad thing but I can’t back away from him because the one in the morning is my real father and if I were in America I could say, I love you, Dad, the way they do in the films, but you can’t say that in Limerick for fear you might be laughed at.You’re allowed to say you love God and babies and horses that win but anything else is a softness in the head. Day and night we’re tormented in that kitchen with people emptying their buckets. Mam says it’s not the River Shannon that will kill us but the stink from that lavatory outside our door. It’s bad enough in the winter when everything flows over and seeps under our door but worse in the warm weather when there are flies and bluebottles and rats. There is a stable next to the lavatory where they keep the big horse from Gabbett’s coal yard. His name is Finn the Horse and we all love him but the stable man from the coal yard doesn’t take proper care of the stable and the stink travels to our house.The stink from the lavatory and the stable attracts rats and we have to chase them with our new dog, Lucky. He loves to corner the rats and then we smash them to bits with rocks or sticks or stab them with the hay fork in the stable.The horse himself is frightened by the rats and we have to be careful when he rears up. He knows we’re not rats because we bring him apples when we rob an orchard out the country. Sometimes the rats escape and run into our house and into the coal hole under the stairs where it’s pitch dark and you can’t see them. Even when we bring in a candle we can’t find them because they dig holes everywhere and we don’t know where to look. If we have a fire we can boil water and pour it slowly in from the kettle spot and that will drive them out of the hole between our legs and out the door again unless 210