I had just started my first summer job in McGinley’s Central supermarket, which was across the road from our home in Carrick. My mother already worked there part-time. She’d put in a good word with the owner Nora McGinley. This was a store widely known for stocking everything from ‘a needle to an anchor’, although I can’t vouch for selling many anchors.
Downstairs was the grocery department. Upstairs there was hardware, a shoe department, kitchenware and the office, wo-manned on a part-time basis by Mary McNelis.
Joe Gallagher, or Joe Golly, as he was better known, managed the shop, while Nora ran the public bar next door.  I’d spend my day stacking the shelves, packing the spuds out back and cracking jokes with the locals, and on the odd occasion help out stocking the bar.
One of the perks of the job was a homemade dinner.  I had always been a fussy eater. At home, I would only eat baked beans and mashed potatoes, My poor mother would try and make me eat vegetables to no avail. Once I accused her of putting onions in the ice-cream. Well, you never know, Irish mammies could be very sneaky.
Now at 16, I was growing up, Norah McGinley’s beef casserole was about to change everything.
Dinner was dished up in a small narrow kitchen, between the bar and shop. Chief cook and bottle washer Brid ‘Connie’ Haughey cooked for all the staff, in shifts, and then there were cups of tea during the day for the strays Nora sent her way. Nora herself was in and out, puffing on a cigarette, giving out about some poor bugger who was getting cranky in the bar after being served too many whiskies.
On one occasion, Nora’s brother Patrick dropped in for dinner. The dining table was small, room for one at either end and one in the middle, wedged into a narrow galley. Patrick, who was a quiet unassuming gentleman, took a seat at the top of the table as  Brid dished up a portion of hot stew to both of us.
In silence, before his first bite, Pat proceeded to remove his false teeth. First the bottom set, then the top set, which he deftly balanced on top. He placed the stacked, dripping gnashers on the narrow table between his plate and mine. He then went about eating his dinner, chin to nose on every chew. I sat there in attempted respectful silence, trying to hold it together, but made the mistake of looking around at Brid. I could see her shoulders shaking, she was already in convulsions. She had witnessed this before and knew it was coming. She was enjoying watching my pale-faced reaction to the unfolding scene.  I’m not sure if it was the heightened tension, but for the first time in my life, food tasted amazing.
Nora’s beef casserole which Brid dished up was most Irish mammy’s signature dish. It was slow cooked, thick with beef pieces, flavoured  with melted onion and rich sweet carrots. It had spent hours in the oven the evening before and now the side of new Irish spuds were both dry and soaked full of flavour. It was the typical Irish Sunday dinner, but for me, whose culinary adventure had never ventured beyond the ’57 varieties’ of Heinz, it was a revelation.
I spent that afternoon, in penance, sitting on my backside in the back store, packing spuds into half-stone plastic bags. The radio was my only company. Back in 1978, Irish radio was miserable. The chance of hearing any decent music was pretty scant. I hummed along, like a worker on a chain-gang, Two hours in, a large mass of plastic wrapped potato mound was evidence that I had been redeemed. My pride in my afternoon’s work, was short-lived though. As I stacked the bags in the vegetable section. Hugh Lawrence, paper under his arm and Player’s Blue hanging from his mouth, was looking down at me with a quiet muffled laugh. ‘They’re seed potatoes’ he said. I looked up, confused. ‘What’? He looked again, wondering what kind of eejit he was dealing with. ‘They’re seed potatoes’ he said more forcefully, as he smiled broadly. ‘They’re not for eating’  I took a closer at what I spent the afternoon lovingly bagging, and for the first time noticed their knobbly, overgrown, sprouting eyes pressed tight against their plastic wrap. They looked up at me, teasing and laughing, like only Irish spuds can.
My mother Marie and Nora were good friends. Both enjoyed smoking heavily. Nora’s son Seamus and myself were good friends as we were the only boys from the town in the same class at school. Marie worked at the small wooden counter, serving a constant flow of customers. Joe Golly busied himself around the shop. He had a great ability to manage and the success of McGinley’s store was largely down to him. Joe also had a love for things new. When I worked at the ‘meat counter’, the word ‘Deli’ hadn’t yet reached rural Ireland, he’d encourage me to taste different cheese, cold meats or the all new Yoplait yoghurt. I loved them all and started to appreciate different tastes. Joe also dragged me along to the ‘Tech’ one day. Local business had been invited to a demonstration of a new computer, the Apple II. There was no touch screen or fancy interface. It was a green screened fancy typewriter. Joe was more excited about it than I was, although we didn’t purchase. Mary, who ran the office above the shop, would have to continue her interface with the big red books by ballpoint pen for now.
One day in the shop, I received the ‘talk’ from my mother. Yes, right there in front of paying customers I had the one and only conversation from either of my parents about the facts, or not, of life. Nora, who often breezed in the front door, only to go straight out the back door, had just burst in. She stopped on this occasion for a chat with my mother. There had been something on the Late Late show which had riled the nation, probably something about sex as Gay Byrne was want to do. Nora was scowling about young ones and their antics. My mother was cutting a block of Neapolitan ice-cream and serving in crisp wafers. It was a rare hot summer’s day and there was a run on all things frozen. She was always the favourite with the kids as her slices were quite generous. I was stacking ‘ladies products’ on the long shelf in front of the ice-cream fridge.  Nora went on, puffing in between. ‘Them young ones today’ she continued. My mother lifted her head from the ice block, looking over at me said, ‘Ah, the young ones today know more about sex than we do’, ‘Isn’t that right Ciaran?’. And there it was, an assumption that I knew it all and there was no need to elaborate. There wasn’t and she never did, thankfully.
I loved working on the till. Barcodes hadn’t found their true use yet and the slow ring up on cash register, then pack method, allowed time for some banter. Old women, wrapped in silk scarves, and armoured with straw shopping baskets, loved to stop for a wee chat. I had one or two favourites, who I loved to tease. On one occasion, it landed me in trouble. There had been a special offer on a bottle of shampoo, CURLING TONGS FREE stamped clearly on the bottle, although the mention of the additional  requirement of 20 wrappers and £35 was hidden in the smallprint. I had teased my friend Una that they were free with one single bottle and proceeded up stairs to get a pair, which I duly gave to her. Don’t ask why it took until she was toddling up the back lane, tongs tight underarm,  before it struck me that this might not be the smartest thing I’d ever done. I had to call on my mother to speak to Una on her next shopping trip, to resolve the situation. I guess the ‘facts of life’ weren’t all about the birds and bees.
Carrick was a small town which still managed to support six pubs along it’s short main street. All six were within one hundred yards from our front door, so there was little excuse to remain sober. I had my first pint in Maloney’s, which was on the corner of the Teelin Rd. Maloney’s was a small bar, frequented by many travellers from all over the world. They had a small hotel upstairs. Graham Greene, an English novelist regarded by some as one of the great writers of the 20th century. was among his guests. John, a small quiet publican, was renowned for his collection of Bols, an alcoholic drink that came in all colours. He had bottles from all over the world, sent by some of his regulars in glass doored display cabinets. I can’t say I was ever tempted to taste his blue Bols, but I did enjoy a pint of his finest Harp. On one busy night, I was in the company of the usual suspects, Seamus Haughey, David Cunningham and Francie ‘Boobles’ Doogan. I had asked John for a pint and watched eagerly as he ignored the beer tap and began to look under the counter. He seemed to have lost something important. Then, in a move Tommy Cooper would have been proud of, a pint of lager appeared under a tea towel, ‘just like that’. He continued to tell me that me that one of the ‘foreigners’ had ordered it, but didn’t want it. I’m unsure how long it had hidden beneath the counter but I took one look at my compadres and we ordered Smitchicks instead.
McGinley’s was central and managed to remain busy down through the years. Nora spent her day behind the narrow, dark wood-paneled public bar engaging with the regulars who passed their days in low-lit shadows. An atmosphere soaked in cigarette ash and whiskey fumes.
Nora enjoyed the banter with her locals, but had a talent for balancing her love for them with an equal measure of total disdain. She’d often scowl at them for wasting their days away in her bar, as she poured another drink. The regulars knew her only too well and took no heed.  The far end of the bar was usually propped up by Danny Neil. Danny was one of the town’s true characters. A quiet man, when he was sober, who had lived a life, and enjoyed regaling his colourful past to those around him. Danny was a craggy, wise, funny wee man, who when hunched over his half of whisky, told life as it was.
I worked in the bar on occasions, restocking the bottled beers and tonic waters. This day, I was on my knees behind the counter, meticulously wiping each bottle and ensuring, like soldiers on parade, they faced forward, awaiting inspection from the Sergeant Major.
Nora, one arm balancing a cup of tea on the bar, as she puffed on her Carroll’s red, ran her eye over my work and sent me off to the back store again for another crate of Cavan Cola.
At the front of the bar, there was a large window onto the main street. It acted as a portal to the outside world for the regulars. Nora had been keeping a close eye, this day, on the activities outside.
‘Look’ she says, ‘There’s Sean McNelis, the best educated man in the parish, taking his turf home himself’.  By then, he’d passed for the second time on his tractor with an empty trailer and come back laden with dry turf. ‘The best educated man, all the qualifications going’ she continued, ‘while you lazy lot sit about in here’. By now Danny was giggling, Shane McGowan like, through missing teeth. ‘What are you laughing at Nora barked. Danny lifted his half glass to his mouth and stopped. ‘He betobe taking them home by degrees’ Danny sniggered, as he treated himself to a large gulp of Jameson.The men round the bar laughed and went back to their thoughts.
My summer job in McGinley’s Central store is still one of my happiest memories. It helped pay my way through college and unexpectedly my culinary tastes were changed forever. It was also the last time I lived at home. The area was full of wonderful characters, people who’d spent their whole lives eeking out a living, by the sea, in the shadow of Sliabh Liag. It was a town of ordinary people with extraordinary character.