#anyway i digress. my pa kevan was really cool and my dad looked up to him a lot!

[grahamkennedy]

what do you think gerry was like as a kid? I don't imagine 60s ireland was kind to him

I think, the way Carla talks about it at least, and I imagine he spoke a lot to her about Ireland, that it was good and bad. I think he loved the countryside. He got along well enough with his 9 siblings, especially his sisters. His mother was strict and a little scary, his father was a little more loose and very humourous. And he got along better with his father, who had the habit of jumping up to tap street signs when they went down the main street and quoting radio plays out of context at dinner until he got dagger eyes from his wife (this is 100% projecting, this is exactly what my grandparents were like).

He knew there was something different about him from a young age and with Catholicism so all encompassing I definitely feel that would've really made him feel ill at ease, but even though he wasn't a manly man, he was precocious and theatrical enough that he got along well with the other boys and no one cottoned on to his queerness except him.

He definitely got in trouble a lot, but he didn't suffer some of the abuse other young boys received. There's a great Dylan Moran quote (know me for long enough and you'll understand I basically worship the ground that man walks on) about the fact he perhaps thought some of his classmates were getting abused, but he thought he was spared because he was just too loud and unruly and a lot of the covert violence, especially sexual violence, in Catholic Ireland was perpetrated against victims who were easier to keep quiet. I think that was definitely Gerry's experience as well.

I think he left rural Ireland for Dublin before he had the chance to finish high school, and one day he saw a flyer advertising work for cruise ship entertainers and never looked back. He does cruise work mostly, and spends his downtime in continental Europe, until he meets Carla and that is that.