“Me (on the left), Margaret Kilconnors and Peter Wynne. It was 1971 and I think we were all eighteen, just starting out in life after school, which for Peter and me was Synge Street; I don’t know about Margaret. Margaret and I had met earlier that year on a train. We caught each other’s eye as she passed along the aisle and we got talking. I think this was our first time out together. The major event in Ireland at the time was the outbreak of violence; 1971 was the year of internment and people were dying every day. Just four years earlier, we had all been wearing flowers in our hair for peace and love and everyone was either “California Dreaming” and wanting to go to San Francisco, or thinking of London and “Waterloo Sunset”.
‘Margaret and I only had a couple of dates, as unfortunately I had just discovered pubs. But over the years our paths have crossed on many occasions and we can have friendly banter about our brief liaison long, long ago, just as the shadow of the Troubles began to fall.”
(1971)
Submitted by John Moran