things Jewish. I would take it as a great compliment if I turned out to be Jewish. Iâd be very flattered.
So thatâs a possibility.
I donât know, but romantically I hope itâs true.
How far back can you trace your motherâs ancestors?
They just sort of turned up at one point.
How did your parents meet?
Well, they grew up on the same street.
In the northern part of Dublin?
Yeah. A working-class area, a district called Cowtown. Cowper Street. Thatâs where the cattle market was. The farmers would come up from the country and bring the cattle into the city. The Dubs, as they were known, the inner-city people, would sit there with their nose turned up at the smell of cow dung, slagging off the muckers, the culchies, as the farmers were known, theyâd think they were better.
What was your fatherâs first job?
He was taken out of school at fourteen. The Christian brothers who taught him begged my grandmother not to take him out, because he was the beststudent they had had in years, but he was put into civil service at fifteen, which was a safe, pensionable job. He stayed in that job until he retired. Fear was a big part of his life, fear of what might happen, what could go wrong, that was one of his dynamics. And fear, as you know, is the opposite to faith. And Iâm sure he got that from his father, who had TB, or the Depression of the thirties, or whatever. TB was a source of shame years ago in Ireland. It was a poverty disease. And his father had it. Obviously a lot of people used to have it. They used to lose weight. And people wouldnât admit to TB. So they used to weigh them at work. And my father told me that his father used to put lead in his shoes, so that when he was weighed, he didnât give away the fact that he was dying of TB, so he could keep his job. Itâs just the most disgraceful picture of where I guess Dublin and a lot of other places around Europe were, back then. But I think his aversion to risk probably came from that sense of jeopardy he grew up in.
Was he from a big family?
He had an older brother, two younger brothers, and a sister. Tommy, Leslie, Charlie, and Evelyn: the greatest people you could ever meet. Played cricket, listened to the opera. Working-class people who all broke the mold.
Did he have to support his younger brothers and sister?
Yes. Thatâs true, but he was a Catholic, my mother was a Protestant . . . or a Jew. [laughs] That was a big deal back in those days, because they werenât really allowed to be married.
So they had to hide?
No, they didnât have to hide, but their marriage was disputed in some quarters and not recognized in others.
But, obviously, the area was Catholic. Why did a Protestant family like your motherâs live there?
I donât know. There was a small Protestant community in the middle of this Catholic area. Both my mother and my father didnât take religion seriously, they saw the absurdity of the fuss made over their union, though my mother used to bring us to chapel on Sundays and my father would wait outside. I have to accept that one of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.
Do you still have aunts or uncles who are living on your motherâs side?
Yes I do. All my motherâs sisters and brothers are alive. And all three of my fatherâs brothers.
Did they look after you when your mother died?
Yes. There were two in particular: my aunt Ruth was very close to my mother, and Barbara was very close with my father.
Did they give you the warmth and support of . . .
[interrupting] No, I wasnât available to it; I wasnât really open to it. I was just an obnoxious teenager. Barbara was quite a romantic figure. She read books. She often interceded with my father on my behalf. And Ruth was a more practical character: the no-nonsense of the Rankins.
So they defended you if