I was born and bred outside Navan. I would curl my hair and suck my thumb until the age of 12. My dad took me out to the field one day, a fresh day, the cattle had been in the fields. When you have cows in a field where there’s good grass, you’ve fresh cow dung, which means it’s runny and hasn’t been dried by the midday sun. He grabbed my hand and thrust my thumb into the cow dung and held it there. When I took it out, the smell of it, the idea of placing that inside my mouth, by God, did it work! The same man taught me how to wipe my bum in the countryside with a dock leaf. These are all little things you get in the countryside.
Dad ran a drapery shop and had a side-business where he had three red carpets.
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