grandmother in the bed heaving and gasping with the labor pains, pray- ing to St. Gerard Majella, patron saint of expectant mothers. There is Nurse O’Halloran, the midwife, all dressed up in her finery. It’s New Year’s Eve and Mrs. O’Halloran is anxious for this child to be born so that she can rush off to the parties and celebrations. She tells my grand- mother:Will you push, will you, push. Jesus, Mary and holy St. Joseph, if you don’t hurry with this child it won’t be born till the New Year and what good is that to me with me new dress? Never mind St. Gerard Majella.What can a man do for a woman at a time like this even if he is a saint? St. Gerard Majella my arse. My grandmother switches her prayers to St.Ann,patron saint of dif- ficult  labor.  But  the  child  won’t  come.  Nurse  O’Halloran  tells  my grandmother, Pray to St. Jude, patron saint of desperate cases. St.  Jude,  patron  of  desperate  cases,  help  me.  I’m  desperate.  She grunts  and  pushes  and  the  infant’s  head  appears, only  the  head, my mother, and it’s the stroke of midnight, the New Year. Limerick City erupts  with  whistles,  horns,  sirens,  brass  bands,  people  calling  and singing,  Happy  New Year.  Should  auld  acquaintance  be  forgot,  and church  bells  all  over  ring  out  the  Angelus  and  Nurse  O’Halloran weeps  for the waste of a dress, that child still in there and me in me finery.Will you come out, child, will you? Grandma gives a great push and the child is in the world, a lovely girl with black curly hair and sad blue eyes. Ah,Lord above,says Nurse O’Halloran,this child is a time straddler, born with her head in the New Year and her arse in the Old or was it her head in the Old Year and her arse in the New. You’ll have to write to the Pope, missus, to find out what year this child was born in and I’ll save this dress for next year. And the child was named Angela for the Angelus which rang the midnight hour, the New Year, the minute of her coming and because she was a little angel anyway. Love her as in childhood Though feeble, old and grey. For you’ll never miss a mother’s love Till she’s buried beneath the clay. At the St.Vincent de Paul School, Angela learned to read, write, and calculate and by her ninth year her schooling was done. She tried 14