This Boy’s Voice by John Creedon: modest but perceptive narrative forms a lyrical account of a 1970s Irish adolescence

Résumé détaillé

The broadcaster’s second memoir focuses on the universal experiences that shaped his gregarious but sensitive character ...

Young John Creedon met a roomful of Manchester United stars at Old Trafford, had a pint with Björn Ulvaeus from Abba and appeared on screen walking past Sean Connery as an extra in The First Great Train Robbery.

Even so, the RTÉ broadcaster’s second memoir is not recommended to anyone mainly looking for celebrity anecdotes. All these encounters are at best lightly sketched in his lyrical, episodic, quietly intelligent account of a 1970s Irish adolescence.

Instead, Creedon focuses on the more universal experiences that shaped his gregarious but sensitive character. This Boy’s Voice picks up where its predecessor This Boy’s Heart (2024) left off, with the 11-year-old son of Cork city grocers being sent away to a Killarney seminary. “Can I have a go?” was the lonely daydreamer’s mantra, an attitude that guaranteed him plenty of colourful escapades.

They include dodging shillelagh-swinging hooligans at Cork Hibs matches, double-dating Canadian girls while officially touring Ireland with the local defence forces, and spinning disco records for drunken sailors slipping on vomit in nightclubs.

Creedon illustrates the truculent humour of his homeplace by recalling a Shakespeare production at Cork’s Opera House where the line, “I am Hamlet of the Danes,” prompted one audience member to respond, “You are in your hole! You’re a teacher above in Mayfield!”

His nostalgic narrative evokes an era when almost everyone smoked, authority figures might “warm the palms of your two paws” and a 19-year-old UCC dropout like himself could buy a house with a suitcase full of borrowed cash.

Most impressively, Creedon nails the messy compromises teenagers have to make between wanting parental approval and needing personal freedom. Deeply hurt when Mam expressed no pride over his Inter Cert success and Dad forgot his 18th birthday, he left home in a rage before mutual forgiveness bridged the generation gap.

[ This Boy’s Heart by John Creedon: a rich and sophisticated evocation of a remarkable…

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