Boxing the Fox

Growing up as a free-range kid in late ‘60s/early ‘70s south Dublin was fantastic. In the long school holidays, Mums kicked their kids out the front door after breakfast with the words ‘don’t be late for your tea’. It was a win-win arrangement. We were free to roam and get up to mischief while our Mums got priceless peace & quiet. Getting into scrapes, with other kids or with the scenery, taught us instant life lessons which we seldom mentioned at home. It’s how everyone grew up.

My brother was 10 years older than me, so at 17 he was allowed stay out in the wee small hours on the pretext of night fishing. Sometimes he actually caught some fish! Himself and his buddies would go down to Booterstown strand on Dublin Bay at low tide, dig for worms, then sit & smoke by the railway line. They’d set out their night lines on the strand before the tide came in, returning in the mornings to inspect their catch. I pestered him to let me come along. He asked his mates who looked at this scrawny kid then said “ok, he can dig for worms”. But once I’d produced a bucketful of lugworms I was sent home. No night-lines or smokes for me but I was thrilled. It felt like being in an Enid Blyton ‘Famous Five’ adventure.

Later, I joined up with other lads in the neighbourhood and we started exploring our kingdom. Behind our houses were the playing fields of the Christian Brothers seminary at St.Helens, surrounded by huge oak and chestnut trees – a climbing paradise. On Wednesday afternoons the ‘novice’ Brothers played hurling & gaelic football on fields which, for the rest of the week, were grazed by a herd of Friesian dairy cows. All just 4 miles from Dublin’s city centre! There was an outdoor swimming pool behind what is now the Raddison St.Helens Hotel. In the summers we’d pop in for illicit swims while the Brothers did their ecclesiastical studies in St.Helens house. In the autumn we played hide & seek, cowboys & indians and gathered the biggest conkers we could find under the huge chestnut trees.

During the long school holidays I would catch up with schoolmates who lived nearby, taking the 7A bus to Blackrock or Dun Laoghaire baths. Jumping off the high board in Blackrock was a serious thrill, but the highlight was the hot bag of chips afterwards. Teddy’s ice cream was good too, but nothing beat hot salty, vinegar’d chips when you were shivering with the cold. Summer also heralded the annual go-cart races – a soapbox derby for our home-made carts, hurriedly assembled from discarded pram wheels & suspensions collected from far & wide. As we got older & braver, regular raids were mounted on the orchards at Stone House on the old Stillorgan Road, with junior gang members posted at the gates to keep watch. In certain parts of Dublin this was known as ‘boxing the fox’. The apples were luscious, but what we really relished was the chase if rumbled by the owners.