Apr 28 2010
It’s a long way from Cabra to China
This is myself and my daughter Ailish on the Great Wall in China. Ailish lives nine hours train journey south of Beijing and travelled overnight on a sleeper train to meet me. What a great experience to meet up with her after a one year absence. I asked one Chinese man if he had ever heard of Cabra West and strangely enough he hadn’t. He said I was the first Cabra West man he ever met. He found it hard to understand how poor some of the families were in Cabra when Iwas growing up in the 50’s and 60’s as he thought we were all millionaires in the western world. As I stood looking out over the Great Wall and into the wilderness beyond I couldn’t help but think of the hills along the railway on Carnlough Road and the wild fields up along the canal and the Cabra baths. I discovered that the Chinese people actually have quite a lot in common with us Cabrarians in their struggle to overcome social poverty and hoards of gangs invading their territory like the Finglas lads trying to take over the Cabra baths and the gang wars on Cardiffsbridge. There was one fella on the Great Wall that looked very like a fella that works in the Chinese take-away in Phibsboro. He denied it of course but I don’t know…