Explore "The Soldier's Song" by Alan Monaghan on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Mr & Mrs Richard D'Arcy politely / request the company of / STEPHEN RYAN ESQ. / On the occasion of the 21st birthday / of their daughter, Mary / at the King's Ballroom, Dawson Street on: / Tuesday 4 August 1914 at 8.00 p.m. / RSVP: RYEVALE HOUSE, LEIXLIP.
The kids in the street were fighting again. They were always squabbling over something, but this time it was serious. He heard scuffling and shouting, and the high-pitched voices rising to a crescendo – then a distinct slap, and the wail of a child crying. As he bent to look out through the lace curtain, he saw some of them darting into the gloomy hallway of the tenement building across the street. A welter of skinny legs and heads shaved for nits. Running to mammy, he thought, smiling to himself, though they'd probably all get a clip round the ear for their trouble. That was the hardest lesson they'd learn; that she didn't care what side they were on.