Eamonn O’MALLEY

Eamonn, I can't believe you're gone.We grew up together, next door neighbours but so much more than that. Throughout the 60's and 70's we saw each other every day. "Can Eamonn come out to play?" I would ask Rosaleen, his mother, who would throw sumptuous birthd.ay parties and would always declare 'The food is not for ornament' We would stuff ourselves with eclairs and Kimberley biscuits, Raspberry Aids and the finest of Cadbury chocolates and rush off into the O'Malley garden to play football or even better yet football on Calderwood Road...or wherever the traffic was light. The traffic was always light, the coalman delivered with a horse-drawn cart. We were free until teatime, always on the streets, always ready to join a football match or start one and up for any "messing"...which was really not much as in those years we were obliviously innocent and our crimes were limited to 'Robbing orchards' id est stealing the apples from our nearest neighbours' gardens. The fags and cider would come much later. What I remember most is that when one would turn up the other was immediately available. "Yeah let's go" we'd say, though neither of us having the foggiest idea of where we'd go or what we'd do but we shared everything. Whatever pennies or shillings we had would be spent in Geraghty's sweet shop or the Rim(i?)ni Chipper. Later in Gallagher's Bar where they served the under-aged...but that's another story. At the grand old age of 10 or 11 we were thrown into different Secondary Schools but our complicity -as our innocence - was still intact. Eamonn was always the smarter one the more street-aware. His aptitudes and confidence were a credit to his family and their nurturing.Eamonn, I have missed you since the early 80's, I did call you Ernie but you had always been my closest childhood friend.Last time I had heard about you is that you had gone to Germany, I had come to France and am still here. You have no idea how many times I have wondered about your life and what you had become yet I was sure that you were doing well. What a surprise to learn that you ended in Tipperary!Eamonn, I cannot say goodbye as you will always be part of me. Ed