The House

Finding Cedarwood Road

Over time, our family outgrew our home on Ballygall Parade, so the decision was made to move to a bigger home, even though two of the family were by then working abroad — Eric in the UK and David in the US. Our parents always hoped their sons would return, and they did, even if it was for a short time before they moved out to live with their respective partners in life.

I did a stint abroad too. The day after my Leaving Cert exams, I left for Jersey in the Channel Islands. But when I returned, Dad offered to pay for private courses — secretarial, book-keeping and so on — to keep me closer to home.

I guess our parents felt Finglas was finished for them, and they wanted a little more safety and a “better” address in the biased times of the eighties.

With Dad away so much selling his wares, it was down to Mam and me to keep an eye on the newspapers for houses for sale; this was before the internet existed. He phoned Mam, Kathleen, every evening to make sure we were all keeping well and to fill her in on his travels.

Mam was always eyeing up houses in the surrounding area of Finglas, and longed to move from the small terraced house she had lived in since 1965 to a larger semi-detached or detached house. Once she and Dad were on the same page and the decision to move was agreed, her search went into overload.

One of Mam’s reasons for moving was Dad’s business. Dad’s stock was growing with his business, and they had built three extensions on their house to ensure sufficient space.

Practically every week, stock was carried from his van through the house to his work areas at the back, with us children doing our share of the carrying. During the summer, the house would stink of the stock and packaging, and during the winter, Mam’s carpet would be destroyed with our wet and sometimes mucky shoes. Like a favourite shortcut through a forest, a flattened track had developed across the carpet in the small entrance hall and sitting room. Dust and dirt got everywhere, and her hard work cleaning, dusting and polishing would all go to waste with one delivery.

Now, don’t get me wrong: we appreciated Dad’s work. It kept us all well fed and gave us all an education. So much of his success enabled Bill and me to complete our Leaving Certificate and then go on to college. We sometimes felt my two older brothers got the short end of the stick at times, with Dad, being of the generation he was, getting them jobs with colleagues he knew as soon as they turned sixteen. Both received good trades: Eric a butcher and David a furrier. David cut patterns for a company who sold fur coats, leather clothes and, of course, Dad’s coats, mittens and gloves. The tide had not turned against the fur trade so much in the eighties and nineties, especially not in Ireland.

So, Mam had a simple want — a larger three-bed semi-d. Nothing too fancy, just a separate entrance for those pesky furs and the survival of her carpets.

The Newspaper Advertisement

I spotted a small advertisement in the Houses for Sale section in the Evening Herald. It was the early edition, and my office got the newspaper delivered in time for lunch hour.

“Mam, I saw an ad for a house in the Herald. It might be interesting.” I read out the details to her. “Do you want me to come see it with you?”

It said Ballymun, Cedarwood Road, but we both knew it was nowhere near the rough-and-ready Ballymun everyone read about in the newspapers. By the early eighties, Cedarwood Road and its surrounding area had changed to Glasnevin North; even Ballymun Avenue was now officially Glasnevin Avenue.

“Now, don’t say anything to your father,” Mam said. “We’ll have a look first and then see what he says.”

She was on the phone later that afternoon to see whether we could call to view the house that evening, knowing Dad would be home the next day, having been away all week on his travels.

“A man answered,” Mam told me when she called me back.

“Well, I suppose it had to be a man or a woman,” I replied, looking around to make sure I would not get the sack for taking a personal call during work hours.

The gruff huff I received made it clear she did not need any sarcasm from me.

“Don’t be late for your dinner. We’re going there at seven.”

The fact that CIE, our wonderful national bus service, was not too reliable did not make any difference to Mam; I could not be late.

Once I sat at our kitchen table, Mam put on the kettle for tea.

“A Mister Hewson,” she said.

The name did not click with me — there was no reason it should have.

The First Viewing

As we pulled up outside our potential new home, all I could feel was dread. The garden was plain, with overgrown grass surrounded by tall hedging. The windows and garage door seemed to be in the original single-glaze style, the frames painted white over steel or iron, not the modern PVC. With it being winter, the evening was dark and the house looked uninviting. If Mam liked it, it would cost Dad a fortune to modernise. Our current home had cost a pretty penny only a few years previously, upgrading it with a new heating system, electrics, replastering and those three extensions.

We knocked on the door and waited, both looking at each other and thinking the same thing: this was not what we expected — a bit uninviting, to put it mildly.

When Mr Hewson opened the door, our dread disappeared. His smile alone was welcoming and impressive; his demeanour was that of a gentleman. The hall’s lighting was soft behind him, and he greeted us with warm handshakes. He had an air of a man comfortable in his appearance, and you could see he took care of himself, which reminded me of Dad in a way. I liked his similar dress sense: a shirt and tie when meeting someone new. He had the build of a tall man, though he was not. Once I stood beside him in kitten heels, I noted that I was slightly taller. I am five feet five inches tall without heels.

As he waved in the direction of the back sitting room, I made the mistake of walking into the front room — the parlour, as my Nanny Mullen would call it.

“No, no,” he said, his tone kind. “We’ll have a cuppa in there when you’re finished having a look around.”

Walking out and turning towards the kitchen at the back of the house, we did not notice the frames hanging on the walls at the bannisters and leading up the stairs.

“The Flag”

With Mam busy checking out the sitting room, I entered the kitchen and was hit by… the Irish flag. A white wall led to an orange wall, with the cupboards on the orange wall a shade similar to the green on our national flag. I stood still in shock, to be honest, until Mam came in and bumped into me. We shared a look of disbelief and a need to burst out laughing. Now knowing Bono’s mixed-religion parentage, maybe the décor was an ode to Mr Hewson’s marriage; at that time.

The kitchen was now another upgrade added to Mam’s list, with the front door, windows and probably the garage door already in her head. Next, we were shown the adjoining garage before being taken back into ‘the flag’, as we affectionately call it whenever we chat about it as a family.

The Records on the Stairs

Again, as we walked through the hall, we did not notice the frames to our left lining the wall, maybe due to the shock of the kitchen décor. We made our way up the stairs, passing more frames, which was when I noticed they did not contain family photos but gold and platinum records, with labels saying who each was presented to.

I stopped in my tracks to read them. Mam and Mr Hewson were chatting away in one of the bedrooms, already on first-name terms.

“Certified Sales Multi-Platinum Award, presented to U2…”

I looked at the next one, this time for certified gold sales, again presented to U2. My mind went into search mode: who was from this road and part of the band? U2 had sold out Croke Park the previous summer — a concert I had attended.

I followed the voices to the front bedroom, which contained built-in wardrobes, in Mam’s style. The double bed was set in an archway between each wardrobe, whose doors were of the wooden slatted style. They are still there, as are the laminate wood wardrobes in the back bedroom. The smallest bedroom, at the front of the house, would be mine. It was a bit bigger than my existing bedroom, again containing small built-in wardrobes, more than likely included by the builder.

And the bathroom was upstairs! We know, first-world problems. At last, there would be a toilet and bathroom upstairs. No longer would there be a need to trek downstairs, through the sitting room and kitchen, to relieve oneself. If we ever had visitors and you needed to pee late at night, the embarrassment of that walk to the toilet would finally be over. Even the need to get dressed in the bathroom after a bath would be gone. Fantastic!

“My son is Bono”

When we all returned downstairs, Mr Hewson kindly offered tea or coffee. He explained that he was moving out of the house, slowly but surely, as he now had an apartment in Howth.

“Who owns the record discs on your walls?” I asked.

“Ohh, that’s my son.” He smiled.

“Your son works for U2? I went to their concert in Croke Park last summer.”

“I suppose you could say he works for them. My son is Bono, their lead singer.”

“Seriously!” No doubt my eyes were as big as saucers.

Mr Hewson laughed. Mam looked at me, her confusion clear.

“I’ll explain later, Mam.” I was glad she did not ask who Bono or U2 was.

“I have some autographed postcards, if you want one?”

He headed to the small cupboard under the stairs, rummaging and humming until he found what he was looking for. I still have that postcard in my little memory box. Like many people, I would say, my childhood memory box was a Cadbury’s chocolate biscuit tin.

We chatted for a while, enjoying the heat from the tea — welcome, considering the heating was not on. Mam explained that she needed to speak with Dad first when he arrived back from work down the country. It was agreed that she would call Mr Hewson — or Bob, now that they were on such good terms — to make arrangements for Dad to view the following evening.

Mr Hewson did not say whether there were other viewers interested, but he agreed and let us be on our way, standing at the door and waving as we drove off.

“I like it.”

“Well, what do you think?” I asked, fully expecting Mam to say no.

“I like it.”

“Seriously?” It was becoming my favourite word.

Looking ahead at the road, she said, “Let’s see what your dad says.”

We drove home in silence. Mam liked the house, but was she that desperate for a second entrance?

The road was quiet, and I imagined number one on Mam’s wish list was accommodating Dad’s needs and no longer needing to unload every night. But compared to the improvements completed on our home in Ballygall Parade, this house was like stepping back ten years. We did not think Dad would be excited about it, nor did we believe he would be impressed with it being Bono’s childhood home. Little did we know…