One in five girls too large for Communion dresses / My First Communion

I well remember the day I made my First Holy Communion. I was rigged out in a little grey suit with short trousers, aunt-knitted socks with the texture of marbles under my feet, and patent leather shoes that cut into the rest of them. I was taken up to Ross's on Grafton Street for a photo shoot, the results of which I possess to this day.

My old pair borrowed a car for the occasion – a Mini that belonged to another aunt who was in America with a showband.  For some reason – a tea break at Leyland or something – water swilled around the footwells of the car, and I had to keep my patent leather shoes to either side to avoid the puddles.

Then, as the car had been left lying in my evil grandmother’s front garden in Crumlin, we had to get out and push it now and again -  suit, socks, patent leather shoes and all.

Other than that, it was a good day. I managed to avoid mortal sin by making sure the host (a biscuit that we were told contained God) did not touch my teeth, and it all went smoothly enough.

Then it was time for the good part - off to the relatives to get some money for Corgi cars and other such coveted goods.  By the time we and the Mini, which got into its stride as the day went on, had visited all the relatives, I had the grand tally of six pounds in my inside pocket.

Six pounds was a lot, as the old man was only on about 20-odd quid a week at the time.  Quite a handsome profit, in fact.   I was well impressed with this God thing and was already looking forward to my Confirmation.

Anyway, when I got home I put my six quid into a drawer in the living room.  Now and again I opened the drawer and marvelled at it.  A James Bond Aston Martin, a two-tone Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, a London Transport bus with “Outspan” adverts on the side were pencilled into the budget. No Corgi was safe.

One day, however, I opened the drawer and found the money was gone. My brother was too young for thieving at the time (he was four) so the finger of suspicion pointed squarely at my parents. They were “minding it” for me, I was told. 

Apparently, there were needs more urgent in the young Gombeen Man household than Corgis – cigarettes and ESB bills, for instance. Whenever I challenged them on it thereafter, I was told I had “got it back by now”. Presumably by instalments.

I got over the trauma eventually (?) but still brought it up in conversation for years after - right up until well after my Confirmation, when I was more careful.   My parents are both dead now – natural forces rest them – and all is forgiven. 

But what about today’s kids?  I just heard on the radio that one-in-five seven-year-old girls are too large to fit into “standard sized” communion dresses. That is shocking. Seven years old, and already on the way to a lifetime of obesity.

Nowadays, of course, they are whisked away from the churchyard by helicopter in their Christian Dior Communion dresses (that's sooo Celtic-Tiger era) to get Ronaldo-esque sums of money from their relatives.  Sums of money that, even allowing for inflation, leave my six quid in the ha'penny place.

Perhaps - like Sergeant Pluck in Flann O'Brien's Third Policeman, who stole citizens' bicycles to save them from the perils of molecular degeneration - the most responsible thing the little dears' parents could do is rob them of their Communion money.

Otherwise, you just know they are going to spend it on sweets.

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