By then, my cousins had moved away, having married and started families of their own. Years later, when I was well into my twenties, I heard that the Convent had closed down. The Convent was seen as a sinister place, and my cousins were afraid of it. Naturally, this threat was enough to nip any misbehaviour in the bud. On the odd occasion that my cousins were naughty, Aunt B – a formidable woman when crossed – would shout, “If you don’t behave yourselves, the nuns will come and get you” or words to that effect – the nuns being those from the Convent on the hill. All I really understood at the time was that ‘bad people’ were sent there, girls who had committed sins or disgraced their families.

Naturally, when you’re young, all sorts of rumours swirl around, especially when a place seems so mysterious and foreboding. The Convent included an orphanage, an asylum, possibly even a prison – we never knew for sure. Heightening this ominous atmosphere was a Convent – a large gothic monstrosity, both physically and spiritually, aptly situated further up the hill.

Luckily, we rarely visited in winter but even in summer, when the days were long and the sun was bright, it was a strange, shadowy place – a stark contrast to the warmth of the family within. My lovely grandfather disliked the house quite strongly and rarely set foot in it. The kitchen and back rooms were dark and oppressive, with virtually no natural light all day. There was no back garden – all you could see from the rear of the house was the cliff face, literally within touching distance of the building. Their house was in an unusual location – built into the side of a steep hill, so precipitous and sheer that it was practically a cliff. Aunt B and her husband, K, had two daughters – both slightly older than me, but close enough in age for us to play together quite happily. Sometimes we stayed at his house in Cork, but more often than not, we ended up with my mum’s older sister, B, in the city’s suburbs. Back in the 1970s, when I was a young girl, my mother and I would travel to Ireland every summer to visit my grandfather and his family.

Small things like these book review