Over fifty years later, The Whistle has left an indelible mark on my soul and my persona. Anyone who knows me will tell you Lockie is rarely late for an appointment, and if he is, there is usually a very good reason.

I had just started Infants (Babies) Class across the town at the Convent when I first encountered the regimen of DF's whistle. DF was my father, Donogh Francis O'Loghlin and The Whistle ....... well, more about DF and The Whistle later.

At the tender age of four, my first port of call in our classic education system was to the Sisters of Mercy and the angelic yet demonic face and personality of Sister Terezita (aka Terrorzita). It didn't take her long to 'straighten the cap' on the lad from Church Street.

It was two years before I made it across town to the Christian Brothers, a school opened by Brother Edmund Ignatius Rice himself in 1824 at the request of Rev. Peter O'Loghlin. This was the same school where John Philip Holland, the inventor of the modern submarine was educated. The refrain of the day was: "Eggs and rashers for the Monastery Dashers ... Hay and Oats for the Convent Goats".

The convent was located just behind the Catholic Church, newly consecrated by the Bishop of Galway himself, Dr. Michael Browne, a man whose idiosyncrasies would be better described in a Dan Brown novel. We lived at the other end of town (you could run it in ten minutes - and we often did), where that other Church was, hence, it was called Church Street. It never bothered anyone, nor should it have, that it was the street where the Protestant Church was located. St. Andrew's was a beautiful Church that nowadays is a House of Music (Teach Ceoil) that was donated by Dean Talbot to the local Comhaltas Branch. It was however rumoured that one night my Uncle, Rory O'Connor (aka The King of Doolin) allowed the donkey he had sold to the famous Matchmaker, Willie Daly, to graze on the Protestant Church grounds. The donkey died the next day and it was said the reason was that the donkey had eaten Protestant grass. Of course everybody, except Willie, knew that the donkey was on his last legs, before he ever went through the gates of St. Andrews. Uncle Rory reluctantly gave Willie his five pounds back and they drank to Neidin the donkey at Murty McMahon's wondering had Neidin 'taken the soup' and crossed over to the other side before joining those Ghost Riders in the Sky.

I digress, oh yes, The Whistle. D.F. was a man that loved order above all else. He had been in the army, had won major awards as a marksman and had visions of serving side by side with General Sean McEoin (The Blacksmith of Ballinalee). He actually never forgave my Grandfather for willing him the family business, a General Draper & Outfitters shop in Ennistymon, County Clare. But being a man that followed orders he took on the family business and in addition always involved himself in politics as a true blue Fine Gaeler to the very end.