In a more confident culture, people like these would claim their youth. In North America people, however powerful they become, are happy to go to reunions to recapture the innocence of youth. But I think middle-aged Irish people feel they are much more innocent now than they were then.
Prior to this quotation, Ms. O’Faolain reflects upon their childhood friends and acquaintances. She comments on the fact that—though they may still keep in touch—they all have changed so much since their school-year days that they may as well be entirely different people. In this way, this quotation helps to capture the youth culture of Ireland in the 1970s. School was a time for shirking responsibilities, whilst adulthood was a time for seriousness and change. As a result, this quotation captures the way youth culture in 1970s Ireland was characterized by a carefree, rather infantile mentality. Rather, adulthood was a concern for the “real world,” after graduation. And so, because of this, individuals the author graduated with changed so drastically after graduation that they may as well have been entirely different people.
Lives were ruined at that time, thousands and thousands of them quite casually, by the rules the patriarch made for young women. They were hotly-pursued, and half-longed to yield, but they were not able to defend themselves against pregnancy, and they were destroyed if they got pregnant. I got the fare back to Ireland through one of those tragic pregnancies.
In this chapter, O’Faolain addresses the sexist and patriarchal regimes that reigned during her youth in 1970s Ireland. In this particular quotation, the author speaks about a young woman she knew who fell pregnant while in London but was too frightened to travel home to Ireland to tell her parents and so paid for Nuala to do so. The author uses this quote and this example to show how women were ostracized for unplanned pregnancies or pregnancies out of wedlock, and yet, the men responsible for the pregnancies were never held accountable. She also points out that women’s sexual rights were severely hindered during this time due to patriarchal policies and close-minded legal and social restrictions.
Maybe he, like me, knew on some level that we were lessened by each encounter. But it seemed like such a good idea that we should know each other. Maybe he, like me, was pressing on out of a mixture of insecurity and vanity. And out of the desire not to give up—to keep trying things—to go on living and learning. Again, as with Harry, the relationship was too embedded in an old culture to be invigorated by women’s movement thinking. That old culture had come crashing down, but we were wandering among its ruins, picking through its fragments.
In this lengthy quotation, narrator Nuala O’Faolain recalls her relationship with Irishman Clem. Here, she explains that she and Clem were drawn to each other because they were comfortable with each other, but not necessarily in love. She explains that each time they met, they realized more and more that they were not suited for each other. And yet, their relationship was comfortable and familiar, which made it appealing. She also explains that they were drawn closer together by mutual feelings of insecurity and vanity—which contributed to their familiarity with each other. Finally, O’Faolain explains that, ultimately, their relationship could never have succeeded because Clem was unable to accept the transition that came with increased women’s rights. In short, the aftermath of the female revolution had strained their ability to form a relationship, as women’s new role in society was still being negotiated—something Clem could not handle.
You can take it for granted that whoever stole her bag doesn’t have an address book. Doesn’t keep a diary. Doesn’t have a cheque book. Owning these things, like owning a house makes us seem to the young criminals a quite different species. To them, they and their peers, who own nothing but clothes and videos, are the real people. We are the aliens.
In this passage, author O’Faolain comments on the social divide that makes upper- and lower-class individuals seem so fundamentally different. In a previous passage, O’Faolain recalls a time when one of her elderly friends’ handbag was stolen by a young burglar. She then suggests that we should not be so quick to judge these young thieves, as they likely grew up their entire lives with very little—nothing but clothes and videos, she suggests. In this way, O’Faolain is contemplating the reasons why young individuals—often men—commit petty theft. She suggests that individuals who steal live in an entirely different world, where nothing is guaranteed and wants (clothes, food, shelter) are the same as needs. In this way, she suggests that perhaps we should be more compassionate towards young, impoverished individuals and also contemplates that they might steal because they view upper-class citizens with possessions and money as being completely alien and separate from them.
