Growing up in Ireland

Nora

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Dublin

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Growing up in Ireland

Nora grew up in Ireland, but lives in Norway now. Her Irish family is very important to her and she flies back regularly to see them.

Before you listen

Write down as many English family words as you can on a piece of paper. For example: mother, father, …

I was born in … Dublin and I grew up in a very comfortable, middle-class suburb in the north (of) the city, which was populated by civil servants, bank managers er, police sergeants er, schoolteachers. My father was a doctor, my mother was a nurse. I grew up in a very happy family, there were 9 children because at that time people did have a lot of children. I have five brothers and four sisters erm … and we’re all very close still. Erm, all of us went to university. My poor father had to pay for all of us – there was no free university in those days – and all of us have good jobs, er well married.

One brother went to America for a number of years for some experience after he graduated, and then set up his own business in England, actually. And then brought the business back to Ireland when his family was growing up, so we’re all back at home, in Ireland, now. Apart from me, of course, who never really meant to emigrate, but that was er … the fate. Cupid hit me with an arrow, I met a Norwegian when I was abroad … and I came to Norway.

Erm … I have very many er, nieces and nephews as you can imagine, with nine siblings who all married. They didn’t all have nine children each! Things have changed er … but I still have something like 28 nieces and nephews in Ireland.

Part 1: Nora’s family

Now do Part 1: Getting the gist.

Before you listen

Make a list of religious words on a piece of paper. Listen and tick the ones Nora uses.

When I was growing up, Ireland had only been independent from er, Britain or England for not very many years. It was still a young republic and the Catholic Church had a great influence on people both before independence and after independence.

So er … most of the population were very religious. I went to a convent school, there were prayers before classes every day, we had to go to Mass every Sunday. There were very many priests and nuns around the place. Indeed, in my family there were priests and nuns as well.

But I think people have begun to … to think for themselves maybe now and not to believe everything that they’re told. The-, you have an expression: an “a la carte Catholic” – you choose from the menu the bits you like. You do what you feel is right for you. And you don’t always listen to what the nuns and priests say any more because they have been proved perhaps to be a little bit wrong and er, recent events that (have) shown that some of them were not as holy as they pretended to be perhaps, so people have become a little bit disillusioned. I think now there’s another problem and that is that the very good, the very many good priests and nuns, the kind and helpful and charitable ones are no longer there and … They did have a function to sort of … hold the community together.

Part 2: The role of the Catholic Church

Now do Part 2: Getting the gist.

Growing up in Ireland