At home I wasn’t great on domestic duties although weekend highlights included setting the jelly in the pantry at the back of the kitchen.
I was reared in an activists’ house, as my parents had a very strong sense of justice and instilled that in us. From early on I remember going out helping with meals on wheels every Saturday night. What I learnt from these visits is that people living in a small community have very different lives. I saw real privilege, as well as people who were marginalised in society. My father worked for Rehab as a tutor and for St Vincent de Paul in his spare time.
I went through a very holy phase and was in the Legion of Mary and participated in their home visits programme after school. Part of the job was to look in on somebody who was elderly or alone. I was also in the Girl Guides, and as early as primary school I was organising fundraisers — sales of cakes for some of the numerous crises in Africa. My usual contribution was a dozen fairy cakes which I baked in our kitchen and made a holy mess.
The back garden also played host to another type of fundraiser — the staging of a theatrical production. This was usually to raise money for the African Missions.
I was still quite young and nicknamed the Pest by my siblings and neighbours.
Advertisement
Somewhere in the garden, my father would create a venue for us from an old army tent and locate a stage at one end. I was really too young to participate but I would bawl my eyes out and create a scene if I wasn’t allowed. Eventually they gave in and allowed me a cameo role pushing my pram across the stage.
The bedroom I shared with my sister was covered in flock floral wallpaper with orange curtains and a lime-green carpet. The principal features were a life-size statue of Jesus that I won at a fair in Crookhaven and a built-in wardrobe with a desk for study. I spent a lot of time experimenting with make-up in the mirror and inventing excuses to go over to my friend Ann Condon to get “help with my homework”.
The living room was also flock-wallpapered and awash with ornaments. I remember raiding the house for any I thought wouldn’t be missed. I even took my sister’s jewellery and sold it to raise money for the Black Babies.
My father was a bit of an entrepreneur, and before cinemas were all over the country, he used to tour Tipperary with his 35mm projector showing films. He had three projectors and three teams travelling the county showing Danny Kaye and Hayley Mills films.
I got a sense of injustice from my parents, even though I had a very privileged upbringing. I had ballet, piano and singing classes. My father would take us up to the local boys’ orphanage on Saturday afternoons to give them a free film show. It was the only time they met children from outside the orphanage.I remember Christmas for the lads being pretty frugal. They got no money, just a piece of fruit and a pair of grey socks.
Advertisement
From the age of about 13, I moved into a new phase in my life that was less than holy. I became far more interested in extra-curricular activities than school. The house was by the River Suir and on the river was this amazing little island. It was home to the local rowing club house as well as numerous hops, as dances were then called. It was a den of iniquity where I spent many a blissful Friday night.
I even joined the ladies’ rowing team as an excuse to meet fine-looking fellas.
I remember being devastated when my sister left home to go to Carysfort. I had a bedroom to myself and developed an imaginary friend. I also started to skip my shorthand typing classes to spend more time on the island. By this stage I was also smoking and used to hide the cigarettes up the chimney.
My best friend Ann and I lived in each others’ pockets. We were like a junior Thelma and Louise and got up to all sorts of mischief. She was diagnosed with leukaemia and I was heartbroken. Her death had a profound effect on me.
I had been born into a family of high-achievers and it was taken for granted that I would go to third level. But I never studied and although I knew the exams wouldn’t pass by themselves I was so deflated when I didn’t get the grades.
Advertisement
My teachers were disgusted. After my parents discovered I had skipped shorthand classes neither of them spoke to me for months. Meanwhile the nuns at school said: “Adrianne Roche, your priorities are upside down.” Perhaps they were then but my formative years in Clonmel also instilled in me a very strong sense of justice, which has helped me in the life I live today.
It was a wonderful home to grow up in with memories of faith, fun and charity.
Adi Roche, a former Irish presidential candidate, is founder and executive director of the Chernobyl Children’s Project. Interview by Alanna Gallagher