It was my sister’s warm hand gripping mine so tightly that helped me overcome my fear of crowds that day. The colourful tents were like a picture from my Rupert Bear book and the side-shows with their flapping banners seemed to shout "welcome, but beware". Excitement and wonder were everywhere.

I was eight and my sister was seventeen.

She dragged me through the dense happy throng and all the while she seemed lost in a dream.

"They say he sings better than Caruso and fights better than Dempsey’’ she kept repeating.

"Who is Caruso?” I queried. There was a boy in my class at school called Tom Dempsey but I couldn’t think why she would mention him.

I could see her elbow disappear around the next stall and, like a car in tow, I was dragged along towards the biggest tent in the park. A fat man with a loud speaker kept up a barrage of exhortations about what we are about to see. My sister bought the tickets.

We sat on wooden planks. I felt an air of carnival and dread everywhere. The tent filled up and the crowd, with flushed red faces, seemed to demand excitement for their tickets. The announcer from the middle of the ring promised them their wishes. He asked for contestants to try their boxing skill against Jack Doyle, The Gorgeous Gael.

I saw white bodies bloodied. I saw flesh being pounded. I saw young and not so young being cornered and thrashed. I saw hurting bodies dancing across a ring followed by the referee, like a bloody overseer, like an observing undertaker counting his clients.

My sister was cheering.

I felt sick.

Blood splattered the air. Any newcomers were welcome to indulge and try to stay the magical three rounds and win twenty pounds. No one came near to finishing one round. Blood and teeth were left as reminders of their brave, foolish, idiotic claim for idiotic fame. Moaning bodies were being cared for by St John’s Ambulance men at the back of the tent while hungry hopefuls climbed into the ring to face a brutal beating. Jack Doyle took no prisoners.

And, at the end, he sang.

The man who had broken bones, who had trashed young sixteen year olds, lifted his head and sang. The other side of the Gorgeous Gael emerged from the bloodied ashes.

He sang and the crowd was wooed. He sang of love and joy, of Ireland, of peace, of his mother, of Cobh were he was born. He had the audience cornered as he hammered them with his charm and wit. His voice filled the tent top and the crowd swooned.

I was mesmerised and turned to my sister as if to say “Isn’t this amazing, how can this be the same person?” But she wasn’t there. I asked a woman next to her where she’d gone but was told she hadn’t been in her seat for most of the show.

He had finished his last song as I rushed down to the ring. I thought I had seen her at the entrance to his ‘dressing room’. I rushed towards the door.

He then said he had a special treat this evening for his audience. He introduced his new wife Movita, a film star from Hollywood. Together they sang ‘Love’s Serenade’ and the crowd went wild with love for the Gorgeous Gael and his new woman.

"Isn’t he great?” I said when I reached my sister’s side.

"The Bastard” she replied.

"Why are you crying’ I asked, but she didn’t say. She just grabbed me and off we went again through the night, me being pulled by my arm through the milling crowd towards home.

She never mentioned the Gorgeous Gael again.

Twenty years later I notice a small paragraph in the Dublin newspaper.

"Jack Doyle the Gorgeous Gael laid to rest in Cobh.”

It seems that as a result of his drinking he died a pauper in London. His many fans put together the money to bring the body home to Ireland for burial.

I rang my sister with the news but her daughter told me her mother had gone to Cork for the funeral of an old friend.