Introduction My first blog

Growning up in a small rural community on the south west coast of Ireland has its perks but also has its disadvantages, surroned by rolling hills and patch work fields hid the deep sense of been isolated from the rest of the world. In fact up until i was about 10 we did not own a tv, we made our own entertainment, and in a family of 12 siblings it was never hard to entertain ourselves. we had our very own Jerry Springer live in the sitting room our mother was our Jerry who had to show serious restraint from actually killing one of us. She had to constantly break up our fights over toys, clothes and sometimes who we had to share the bath with.

We lived in an average 5 bedroom bungalow which was built on a 40 acre farm. There was always a feeling of  love and warmth, and always feels great to go back to, it gave us a great sense of belonging, and security, that inspired all of us to do well with ourselves. we had many placees to hide, many places to explore, and many trees to climb and build our own outside bedroom, the worst part of that was there was many twigs to be picked when we did something wrong.

We had a strict catholic up bringing, we had mass to go to on a sunday, confession on a saturday and the roseary to be said on a nightly basis, sometimes two if we were unlucky enough to call to our grandparents house. but in the midst of all this we had a fantastic childhood, we laughed alot, we cried alot, and each and everyone of us are close today. My parents deserve the credit for that, we got the odd slap when we were out of line, the word NO was word thats was used on a daily basis, and for that each of us are better for it, My faters favourite saying was a family that prays together stays together, and he was right, all twelve of us live within a 40 mile radius of eachother, and in these times of hard econmic termoil it is down to that fact that none of us had to immigrate for long periods, my youngest sister travelled to Australia for a year and a bit as a working holiday, but returned home once her visa expired.

My father was a hard working man, ( i say was because he retired February 2014, not because he has passed away) he was up at 6am each morning to milk the cows aftter which he would then go and work in the construstion industry for another eight or nine hours, he would then come home eat his dinner and milk the cows again, all because he wanted us to study hard in school and not have to slog long hours in the day to make ends meet.

During the school holidays was a different story however, we were up at the break of dawn to do all the hard jobs before we even got to play, aging having a big family makes this easy, as there was eight boys and four girls, the boys would be outside cutting the lawns, clipping the hedges, weeding the garden, spraing the potatoes, and milking the cows. the girls had to do the house work which i think was fair as the girls never wanted to work outside and get dirty, with the exception of my third eldest sister, she was a bit of a tom boy growing up.

Thats not me been sexest its just the reality of the situation, the boys had turf to turn and silage to cut, calf houses to clean out and hay to bring home for the winter months. In return we got a well cooked meal each evening and clean clothes to change into, as we got older we actually got some money for a few pints at the weekend.

My mother is a typical Irish mammy, she is mad about her eight boys, she always said she has no favourite, but she has eight, we get the royal treatment any time we go home for a visit, she gets mad if we turn up unexpected, as she wont have some food prepared for us, if we had a red carpet in hour house the girls woud be made clean it for the boys to walk on. Any of my sisters are now the same with their children, they love their boys and the girls are almost like second class citizens until it comes to Daddy, then comes almost like a revenge type assault on us boys.

What you have just read is a snippet of my life, i am not an author or a professional writer, just an ordinary Joe, and as long as god gives me the hands to type with and the mind to put it all in to words i will divulge bit by bit stories from my life. Some people will have no interest in reading it and some people will, i promise a few hair raiseing moments, and a few shocks along the way, it is a journey i will start off with by my self, but hopefully by the end of it i will have a few followers and readers. The best way to describe what is about to happen to you is that right now you are going to enter a time capsule and be transported back in time and follow the life of young  irish boy to present day stil a young 30 year old man in an Ireland that is changeing rapidly before our eyes... Are You Interested??