The Secret Barbarian Nation of Children

 

Beneath the mundane world you and I inhabit lies the secret barbarian nation of children, who follow a separate tradition of solemn rituals, contests and codes of honour, like a Viking horde living underfoot and unnoticed. Our histories record the deeds of adults, but all those adults began as children, and it was in this nation that every future general first learned to lead, every potential scientist first turned over logs to delight in the tiny nightmares underneath, and every budding explorer first took a dare to enter the haunted woods.

What we dismissively call “play” is children stretching and pushing their bodies through the boot-camp training they need to survive, and just as tiger cubs practice pouncing and foals running, they act out being heroes and warriors, maidens and mothers. Foals, though, can stand within hours of being born; human children require a decade or more to grow up, the longest of any species, and those years spent playing are the secret to our success.

They were also the birthright of every child, whether in the Amazon or the Arctic, whether in the Stone Age or the 1950s. Twenty-six hundred years ago Zechariah said that “the streets will be full of boys and girls playing,” and writers recorded almost identical scenes in every culture and era ever recorded – until historically yesterday.

“The whole village was our playground when we were young,” said Bill Bergin, in a sentiment echoed by almost every elderly person I talked to. They made up their own games, ran barefoot through fields, climbed trees and peeked into birds’ nests, picked wildflowers and looked under logs, and tramped paths in pursuit of pirates or dragons. They jumped streams, swam to islands in a river, became kings and queens of their new domain. They built boxing rings, lit camp-fires, turned scrap wood into child-sized cars and raced them down hills. In winter they poured water over frosted hills to make ice-slides. They needed no television nor phones nor adult supervision, but spent every moment immersed in the feral joy of childhood. (Some Time to Kill, 16)

Even city children roamed far and freely, for crime and cars were rare, and horses and children are sensible enough to avoid each other. My neighbour Christy Conville remembers Dublin children swinging from ropes tied to lamp-posts, and when one came undone the lamp-lighter – whose job was to turn them on one by one – generously climbed his step-ladder and tied them back again. When it rained the roads became rivers, and they made boats and raced them toward the drains. In what is now Dublin’s most dangerous neighbourhood, Maureen Boyd remembered armies of children swimming in the canals, diving off the bridges into the then-clean water. (Dublin Voices, 153)

“When the farmers brought their crops to market, they parked their empty carts and the children were immediately all over them,” Paddie Crosbie said. “They made ideal see-saws, and the children played on them for hours until the farmers returned and they all ran.” (Your Dinner’s Poured Out, 43) On warm summer days horse-drawn carts sprayed water to cool the streets, he remembered, and mobs of children ran alongside under the spray all through the city. (Your Dinner’s Poured Out, 30)

“The street was where it all, or most of it, happened for me,” Patrick Boland said. “Traffic was never a problem – the occasional vehicle, usually horse-drawn, could be heard coming a long way off. My recollections are mostly of summertime, when I could play from early morning when I was rushed out to the street clean and shiny, until late at night when I was dragged into the house filthy dirty... Meal times meant nothing, only that they were an interruption to our games.”

Of course they sometimes into mischief; Paddy Crosbie remembered when a man asked him to mind his horse-and-cart while he went into the pub. Crosbie made the mistake of play-shaking the reins, and the horse dutifully took off down the road. 

On another occasion one of his childhood friends didn’t come home for dinner, and within hours the entire city was on high alert, with everyone panicking about a missing child. It turned out his friend had fallen asleep in a hay-cart, and the farmer had driven back to the country that evening before he noticed his stowaway. (Your Dinner’s Poured Out, 102, 153)

Children’s mischief, like adult mischief, needs a respectable outlet, and some children today get that in Halloween, albeit through an adult buying a costume and leading them by the hand. In those days, though, the children went from house to house themselves, sometimes making their own costumes or dancing around bonfires in the fields – and not just on Halloween. That date is just the last remnant of a whole calendar of holidays in which children went door to door begging for treats in costumes; John Curren remembers children doing this on Wren Day (the day after Christmas), on New Year’s Eve and St. Bridget’s Night (Feb. 2), so every few weeks through the winter children showed up at their neighbours’ doors. (Tides of Change, 34)

Boys played hurling – a national sport of Ireland, like hockey with a ball and no ice – with a rolled-up sock and curved sticks gathered from the trees. They played handball between the brick walls of alleys, Sean Cleary remembered, sometimes managing three or four balls at a time like a juggler. They played football – what Americans call soccer – in the street with a ball made from crumpled newspapers “and scattered like Houdini when the bobby [policeman] came around the corner,” Betty McDermot said. “The police had little to do then.”

Sports varied widely from one place to another; in Armagh, Gerry Rafferty remembered, it was “bullets” -- throwing a small metal ball for about three miles in the least number of throws -- and local kids became famous not only for being the best throwers, but the best finders of lost balls. They played marbles with chalkies and glassies and aggies and stonies, he said, and his playmates were locally renowned under names like Hurricane Higgins and Demon Bill. (And the Band Played On, 7)

In Belfast “there were so many children ... of the same age that a group very quickly formed when any were seen playing outside,” Marianne Elliott said. (Hearthlands, 82) They played battle in, battle out, jack jack show the light, spin the top, marbles, hoop the hoop, hop scotch, conkers, kick the can, scut the whip, box the fox, Hop and Cock-a-Rooshy, French, Dab, Folly, and Hole and Tar, jack-stones or scragga. “With games and occupations that spanned the four seasons, we never had a thought for such phrases as ‘I’m bored.’” McDermot said. “We hadn’t enough hours in the day for all we wanted to do.” (No Shoes in Summer, 162)