Everyones
childhood is near enough the same, ghetto or mansion. Imagination allows you to be whoever you want to be and be where ever
you want to be.
Smells and sounds form a very strong visual picture of the past. The
smell of coffee is a young child making his way to the gates of Loretto infant School in Hill Street, the smell of sweets
being made at the Lemons factory in Drumcondra is the hot summers in Dublin collecting caterpillers along the tolka river.
Yellow submarine was the back doors of the Kennedy's Bakery van opening.
I can still here my sister screaming at me, to get away from the van. When the van stopped at the junction beside the playground,
I opened the doors. Inside was every cake desired by any young starving fucker. As I stood there in awe, the van took
off, doors wide open and the cakes disappearing into the distance,up Hill Street, up Temple Street and away. Someone had to
be playing the song, how else would it relate to the time and incident
And the there was 'Help' and by jazus did i need it.
You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack, you
may ask yourself, well, how did I get here.
This aint no
party, this aint no disco.
It's funny how one song means something totally differant to another person, Ultrovox
had a big hit in 81 with Vienna. I remember sitting in prison, pining for freedom, pining for gear and just screaming from
deep inside my gut " This means nothing to me". Fuck the gear, fuck the mugs game.
I believe that children are our future.
Ghost writer.
I have always been aware of a presence from the time I
hit the first key for this book. Many times I stopped to look over my shoulder, on occasion i have been known to look
over my shoulder and whisper into the next world "fuck off".
In the journey of this book, I have found myself saying
more often, that's strange!.
Even in building this site. Before I published it, I decided
to check out 'Distant Babylon' Ireland search.
To my surprise?
It had two link sites, one a review in The Northside People, the other directly
under was a page of weekly reflection by Frank Doyle SJ.
Gods people are in exile in 'Distant Babylon'
They see no brightness in their future. In his vision the prophet is sat down by God in the valley of
dry bones.
I'm not a fucking prophet, but i did tell all of you six years
ago and not one of you listened.
You don't have to sit down with God to see the distruction, the distruction
is "man made".
Who's who.
Who's who
in bringing 'Distant Babylon' to you?
Sister Eylish Coe. She came into our
community just after we had pulled away from what we were doing.
She took over our old 'War Office' and turned it into a resource
centre.
The drug dealers and their families lined up to tell her the horror
stories of how we/I beat them up, shot them and ran them from their homes.
Sister Eylish was terrified and horrified, she was dealing with the
devil himself.
I met her and presented her with the manuscript. I said to her, that's
me, that's us. Dont take my side, use the information to gain a clearer picture of how messed up this community is!
Over the next few weeks we sat down and had tea and talked about the
problems within the community.
Then the local Dublin City Council area office called her and the other
nuns in and told them not to be entertaining subversives.
She liked the book and seen the value in it and passed
it on to Cathy Molly.
Cathy Molly Centre for Faith
& Justice
Dublin Ireland
I dont
know a lot about Cathy Molloy except she worked damed hard on this book. Like me she hides behind the barn door when credit
is being handed out. Like me she would probably say ' ah sure I was doing nothing else anyway, this would be said over
a mountain of paperwork. But there is only so much room behind the barn door to hide. There is only room for me, that is,
if the countless number of unsung heros move back a bit to let me in to hide.
Susan Waine
Who blows the theory out of the water. You can judge this book by it's cover!
Don Doyle. Who stole the manuscript
after a drinking session and gave it to sober people the next day.
