It wasn’t all plain sailing growing up.
Paul Howard was the guest on Ireland Unfiltered with Dion Fanning this week and he spoke about a wide range of topics from Ross O’Carroll-Kelly’s humble beginnings to being accosted in Brown Thomas for a rude word he didn’t utter.
He also told some stories about his childhood and how he was ‘bullied’ for having an English accent when he was growing up.
You can read what he had to say below.
Paul: I remember the ‘Smash H-Block’ and ‘Brits Out’ graffiti all over Dún Laoghaire and I remember the top of the Sallynoggin Hill just next to the Glenageary Roundabout there was a really high wall with six foot high letters ‘Brits Out’, you know. I remember getting a real sense then that this fun holiday place we used to go to was actually quite a hostile environment for even an eight-year-old boy.
Dion: You said it was tough and it was hostile, were you bullied?
Paul: Not bullied, well I suppose it is bullying and I mean you would get songs in the playground, ‘What shall we do with the English bastards? What shall we do with the English bastards? Hang ’em by the balls in Stephen’s Green.’
Dion: But they were singing it about you?
Paul: Oh yeah, they were surrounding me in a circle so I just kind of presumed it was me, you know. ‘Shoot, shoot, shoot the bastard.’
These people are at war, I’m an eight-year-old boy, I can’t carry the can for what the English did in Ireland.
You can watch the interview in full below.
Ireland Unfiltered, brought to you in partnership with Carlsberg Unfiltered, will be available everywhere you get your podcasts and on YouTube every Tuesday.
