On climbing Croagh Patrick, and honouring a late father's wish... for Sunday Miscellany on RTÉ Radio 1, listen to Reek Sunday, by Bernard Dunleavy above.
My father's first job was as a cashier in Bank of Ireland. There wasn’t officially a level of employment more junior than cashier but – if there had been a tier beneath this entry grade – it was those cashiers who were assigned to what was known as 'relief staff’. As a relief cashier, my father travelled all around the country providing cover wherever there was a vacancy in a branch which was not yet filled.
It was a hardship posting: a sort of Russian Front of the banking world. A transitory existence where the men – and they were only men in those days – put in their time hoping for a final posting of some permanence and perhaps the chance of promotion.
Nobody wanted to stay on relief staff: well, nobody that is, except my father...
Listen to more from Sunday Miscellany here.
