Sweet 16 and released from our convent school for the holidays. Dervla’s parents were Irish, and this tenuous connection somehow legitimised our plan to go to Ireland and hitch our way around the country. In those days Ireland seemed, in the home counties and to our parents, to be a safe place protected from the worst excesses of humanity. I think my own parents were probably glad to see the back of me, as long as no one accused them of wilful neglect. They were busy, preoccupied with younger siblings. And perhaps it was a safer time.

So we went, Dervla and I, packing our newly acquired rucksacks, too small to carry much. We didn’t have many clothes anyway – no cut-price tees and shorts then. Desperate to lose weight, unhappy with our puppy fat, we wanted to be waif-like as was in vogue. On the ferry we looked at ourselves in the toilet mirrors. When we came back, we would be thinner. And then we clambered upstairs to the dark night and the sea, away from the plates of chips sliding off tables, the stench of vomit.

We wore short dresses so that we could get our legs brown, lace-up school shoes for walking and underneath, navy-blue gym knickers which we’d both had since the age of eleven, our mothers buying for growth and uniform requirements. The things never wore out and seemed endlessly expansive, still looking romperish even after years of wear. My dress was a shirt stitched to a skirt cut from a dress my mother had bought for me that I’d never wanted. It had been expensive, a prim dress and jacket needing to be dry cleaned. I hated it from the start. Yet my mother had been in good faith. Retrospectively, this was sad, the degree of misunderstanding between us.

The following year, after A levels and with the long summer break waiting to be filled, we worked in the local Sainsbury’s to earn money for clothes and adventures. From eight in the morning until six at night, long days in blue nylon uniforms, slinging produce through the till: leaking joints of meat, washing powders, dog food, sliced loaves.  Each item had to be rung up first, the bill scrutinised by the shoppers who knew we weren’t regulars, eagle eyed for errors. When it was over, like some terrible purgatory, we headed for London, specifically Kensington and the tiny shop that was Biba, stuffed with girls and clothes in its dark basement, and we bought frocks, two pounds ten shillings each, short as you like. But that year we didn’t have any money, just enough for the ferry and three weeks hostelling. Our parents subbed us because it would have cost more to take us with them on the respective family holidays.

And how we loved it. A spell of the most extraordinary weather, day after day of sun. We weren’t ready for it in our funny home-made dresses and clumpy shoes. But across the land we went from Dun Laoghaire to Sligo and back, walking and hitching and staying in hostels. Eating at roadside caffs in grey inland towns, climbing, once, into a clapped-out car full of priests. Come on in girls, they said, you can sit on our knees, and we did, laughing, delighted, unafraid as the rackety vehicle careered along the roads giving off exhaust as it went.

We had never stayed in youth hostels before. Our abiding image was stuck in the 1930s – hearty and disciplined, but friendly. We discovered that hostels varied and felt very small and new, unsure of what to expect. Clare Island was lawless and alarming – we were the only ones who went to bed. There were lights on the sea all night and drunken shouts from the beach. No one seemed to be in charge. It was the Feile na Mara, the lighting of the towers, but the wild night, doors open into the dark, frightened us.

In Tipperary, after a long dusty ride on a farmer’s trailer, a vision of poppies and castles. Killarney was busy; lots of what we termed ‘regular tourists’ with cars, and piped music coming from every shop doorway. Heading for Sligo, we wanted an authentic experience. Further north the weather became overcast and cool. On Sunday morning,  we watched from the hostel window as a steady stream of people walked up the hill to church – for us a most extraordinary sight. Head-scarved and in their Sunday best, they seemed from another time. It made us thoughtful. We had read James Joyce.

Sometimes, we stayed in hostels full of Americans, early risers to a woman. ‘Doing’ Ireland was their project. We sat on our bunks, enthralled as they outlined plans, overwhelmed by their thoroughness and energy. The German women terrified us. They would strip off in the washroom and soap their breasts energetically. We were intimidated by the sight of so much flesh. They went to bed disturbingly early, switched out the light, grumbled a stream of sleepy epithets at our fumbling for toothbrushes in the dark.

We had one wristwatch between us which gave up in the second week. One morning, convinced it was eight o’clock, we got up, even though the rest of the dormitory was snoring. How lazy, we thought, virtuously striding out to the town for supplies, ravenously hungry after arriving late the previous night without food. Not a shop was open of course – Ireland we said, mañana, how typical – our conditioning kicking in. Returning to the hostel, since there was nothing else to do, we discovered our mistake. The others were just getting up, whispering disapprovingly about ‘those annoying girls’.

We swept floors and peeled potatoes in the hostels where rules were followed. We didn’t mind. The protocol was part of a rite of passage for us. We despised the very thought of conventional accommodation, the Bed & Breakfasts or hotels visited with our parents.

In Connemara we met Christian, a flaxen-haired silversmith from Denmark who said he liked the English because they were quiet. Younger than most of the hostellers, our innocence shiny and green, we discussed the politics of hitching. Christian said it was harder for men, they had to wait longer and it was important to look clean. We acknowledged not experiencing such difficulties. Lorries lined up to have us hop in, the drivers liking a bit of company. We’d have preferred to get lifts in private cars as they were comfortable and less noisy but the lorry drivers, in greater numbers and with sizeable heft at the roadside, eclipsed the more tentative approach of motorists who became discouraged and drove on.

We explored the peninsulas in search of a beach, those long fingers of land reaching out into the sea. Endless they seemed, our lifts often going out of their way to deliver us. There you are girls they’d say, dropping us off on the fringe of a pale strand with no one in sight, the sea having retreated for miles into the distance. And thinking of the hostel back in the town marked out for a bed, we would start on our return long before the afternoon had ended, hoping to be picked up soon.

Because back then, in those remote areas, there was nobody – just a grass-scented road lined with hedges of bell-like pink and purple fuchsias buffeted in the wind. We would squat on the dusty verges, tired after walking, enjoying our vagrancy. This is freedom, we thought.

For it was a time of first times. First time away from home, first time in another country, first time for hitching (something we knew our parents had never done, giving the enterprise an added frisson). I was still amazed that mine had capitulated with so little protest. But they were tranquilised by the reassurance, as they saw it, of Dervla’s parents being Irish, good Catholics all. The conviction that Ireland was safe. Two years later, The Troubles took off in earnest and, although brewing, no one knew then what it would be like.

It was our own road movie. We were on the threshold of adulthood, full of expectation and incipient femaleness. In a different summer we would hitch across Europe and have to deal with men groping our knees, rather than patting them like the priests. But that year, our heads were full of salt air and purple flowers, the territory of youth, unwise and unencumbered.

Denise McSheehy is a poet and short story writer. She is the author of two poetry collections, the most recent ’The Plate Spinner’ is published by Oversteps Books. She lives in Devon and is currently working on a collection of short stories. www.overstepsbooks.com

Illustration via Unsplash.