My brothers were years older than me – I was my mum’s last hurrah, as she would say with a big grin on her face. God had sent me to her as a gift – I was all hers. She talked about God a lot, she set great store by Him and His son, the Christ who had died on the cross to take away the sins of the world. When she died, they just didn’t know what to do with me, this female left in their predominantly male world, but they loved me all the same and would do anything to protect me, I knew that. And I’ll never stop loving any of them, as bad as they are. They love me, and they care for me. And, at this time in my young life, that is enough.

I suspect my mum knew more than she let on about her husband’s and sons’ activities and it must have been very hard for her to hear so much that was bad about them, and still believe in them. She was a decent woman in her own way – God fearing, and with a strong belief in the afterlife. She put up with the men in her life because she had to. She was a mother after all, and these were her little boys. But deep inside she had to have condoned what they were.

I remember smiling at my eldest brother Danny that day, knowing he would always be there for me. Danny, despite his blond hair, was my dad’s double, like the spit out of his mouth, as the old fucking shawlies – as my nana called them – would say. He and my other brothers Davey, Noel and Jamsie had each received Confession, made a good act of contrition, so they could take Communion at their mother’s funeral without fear or favour – my father had made sure of that. Hypocritical, I know, but it was for her more than for him, and I loved that he had done that for her. He had loved my mother with a vengeance.

Years later, when I remembered seeing him cutting a man’s fingers off, I would also see him as he was on this day. The two sides of Daniel Bailey.

I watched his face contort with emotion as his brother Peter Bailey and his wife Ria entered the church with their remaining children. He gritted his teeth, and I saw in his eyes that it was hard for him to forget his brother’s part in this terrible day.

My Auntie Ria, Peter’s wife, had always been good friends with my mother – they were very close, and she looked unbearably sad.