It was the summer of 1952 when the Man himself—Éamon de Valera, the taoiseach — arrived by train in my hometown of Ballina, Co Mayo, to give his support to a local Fianna Fáil politician up for election. I was 12 years old.
That afternoon, as I went out to play ball with my friends in Convent Terrace, my mother instructed me, “Don't leave the street.”
However, when the parade from the railway station turned at our street to go into the town center, my friends and I were captured by the excitement and novelty of it all. Parental admonitions went out the door. Soon I, my brother Leo, Manny Rooney, Iggy Doherty, John Nealon, and anyone else playing ball on the lower part of Convent Terrace stopped and followed the brass band and the festivities downtown.
The parade ended up at the intersection of Ballina’s town center. There the politicians and the president took their places on the dais–-a flatbed trailer–-as the local guards provided security
The lads and I were hovering around the outside of the crowd in bare feet, enjoying the music and the buzz until the audio speakers opened up and the political talk began to flow.
A man at the corner cafe called me over. “I’ll give you a thrupenny bit if you yell out to the people on the trailer, ‘What about the price of butter?’” I agreed to shout it three times.
The price of butter was a talking point among the opposition in the election give-and-take. It was also a burning local issue, as the Irish government was subsidizing the cost of butter in Northern Ireland while it cost twice as much in the 26 counties.
I emerged from underneath the trailer and shouted to the taoiseach, "What about the price of butter?" three times as my task demanded.
De Valera gave me a wry smile, and I ran away with a thrupenny bit in my hand. That was my first and last paid foray into politics.
Born and raised in County Mayo, Seamus Clarke now lives in Land ‘o Lakes, Florida.
