Looking back on it, I know now that I was an obnoxious teenager: a cuckoo in the next.

It wasn’t my parents’ fault. They did their best. They had a strong work ethic, a belief in the central importance of family, and a deep faith in the Church. I was lazy and self-centred.

Their sense of Irishness was central to their being; heightened I think by their years in Birmingham in the late fifties and sixties.

There’s nothing like exile to concentrate the mind on who and what you are. It’s a lesson I have come to learn myself.

Mass on Sunday was the week’s foundation stone. My dad, born in Limerick in the late 1920s, constantly reminded us that attending Mass was a hard-won privilege. People had given their lives so we could practice our faith in freedom.

Faith of our Fathers was his favourite hymn. “Faith of our Fathers, living still in spite of dungeon, fire and sword. Oh, how our hearts beat high with joy whene’er we hear that glorious word.”

Although he was the classic fear an tí, my mother was the real head of the household. Scrimping and saving to invest in our education and making sure we had everything we needed to thrive.

As with many Irish mothers who put others first, it came at the expense of her own health and, in some ways, personal happiness.

For her generation, happiness came from doing things for others; not like today when it’s all about doing things for ourselves.

Alongside his religion, dad had a passion for the Irish language – regular classes were another high point in his week – and, even........

© The Irish News