Rory O'Neill AKA Panti

They seemed kind of...

interesting sort of almost cool you know there was one called mrs bloss lynch and she would like drive into the town and park on the high street and didn't give a that she was blocking the whole traffic and i just sort of thought that was fierce you know so and did you live with her for a while or for some no no but mrs blossom she lived in the big house and she was like you know her husband had been colonel bloss lynch

Moo, she used to call him.

And he passed on.

And she lived in this big ramshackle old, you know, the Land of Gentry house on the edge of the lake, Loch Cara.

Well, there's three lakes around there.

And it had like a little boathouse and it had a lawn tennis court.

Well, you know, nobody had played on it in 30 years, but it was some sort of moss stuff.

So, you know, you could still bounce a ball on it.

And I just found that all fascinating.

And she lived with a companion.

And anyway, one summer, some cousin or niece of Blas Lynch's, who was like American teenager, came and stayed with them for the summer.

And I had no help in them picking strawberries or something.

But Mrs. Blas Lynch, you know, she lived in this kind of isolated, big landed gentry house, you know, outside Ballinrobe and outside the part of the next village.

And

So quite isolated.

And as that sort of generation of the Protestant landed gentry families were, she hadn't really engaged with the town much or whatever.

So they really didn't know anybody.

So one of the only people she didn't know was my dad, who was the vet who looked after their few animals.

And she knew that he had kids.