My Interview with Neil Prendeville (Unedited Version)

Neil's producer reached out to me a few months back after seeing a link for my story that I had posted on a Cork-based Facebook page.Here is the excerpted audio of the interview I did with Neil. It was broadcast on the 20th December and runs for about 20 minutes.

Or if you prefer to listen to the original source then you can find it here: The Neil Prendeville Show – Red FM. Listen from 1:01:30.

Or if you want simplest/most direct link go here: 

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MucG9kcGxheXN0dWRpby5jb20vMjg1MC54bWw/episode/aHR0cHM6Ly9hcGkuc3ByZWFrZXIuY29tL2VwaXNvZGUvNTIyMzYzMDM

Once again, this interview pertains to my recently published essay about my earlier life entitled "Family Farm Survivor" which can be read in full here: Family Farm Survivor by David Lynch (cregane1.blogspot.com)

The first thing to be said about this interview is that it was conducted on the 12th of October 2022 which is why I answered in the affirmative when he asked me if my mother was still alive. I had no idea she was so close to the end. Nor would I have known that she had died at all were it not for the kindness of old friends from Churchtown and the surrounding areas who reached out to let me know of her passing. Thanks guys. Sleep well, Mam. You deserved a lot better than you got.

The next thing that needs to be said is I take my hat off to Mr Prendeville and Red FM itself for going ahead and taking a risk by talking to me. Stories like mine are always going to be controversial and difficult. They're not safe. They're not easy and quite frankly most radio stations simply don't want the hassle of them. They don't want to risk the potential legal exposure, nor do they want to take the risk of pissing off certain sections of their audience by airing transgressive feel-bad stories about sad screwed-up abusive families. Finally, it's just a lot more work for them as these segments have to be carefully reviewed by their legal departments and then edited accordingly before they go to air. So thanks again for taking the risk and putting in the extra effort required to give me a voice, guys - its much appreciated!

As grateful as I am for being afforded the opportunity to speak publicly, I have to say that the interview itself wasn't easy for me at all. On the contrary it was highly stressful, emotional and conflicting. This probably explains why I sound so tongue-tied all the time. Sometimes there is so much to be said and the emotion behind it is so strong that you can barely even get the words out. At the end of the day this will always just be a very traumatic and painful subject for me to talk about. Also I don't believe that the medium of a radio phone in show - which is all about giving quick snappy neat soundbite responses - is necessarily ideal for discussing the complex/messy issues at stake in farming families experiencing internal conflict. Having said all that I'm still proud of the fact that I managed to get through it and get it out there in any way, shape or form at all.

However some of my responses to his questions were simply too controversial/inflammatory/defamatory/explosive to be safely broadcast to the general public. I now present them here as exclusive bonus content for all my loyal followers on this blog:

NEIL: "You at one stage did decide that there was a way out of all this, and I don't mean to be too blunt about this, but you bought a shotgun, is that right?"

DAVID: No, I didn't buy it. My method for acquiring the weapon was far more dubious than that but it wouldn't really serve anyone for me to delve into the exact circumstances of how that happened too deeply here. Suffice to say this moment in my life was just a complete failure both morally and mentally. Losing your mind is a lot like slipping into a dream-state in that when you are being pushed to that extreme, you're honestly not aware of how batshit-insane what you're doing really is until after its all over. All I can say in my defense is that I truly believed both then and now that if I didn't do something drastic to extricate myself from that abusive situation then a terrible tragedy would have occurred in my family. 

NEIL: "You say you acquired it because your thoughts had turned so dark and murderous - your words"

DAVID: I was in intense pain at that point so my thoughts were certainly dark, angry and vengeful. Probably more "injurious" than "murderous" just then but of course the pressure on me was constantly ratcheting up and when you add a gun into the mix and it doesn't really take a Nostradamus to see where that scenario could very easily go. My dad liked to think that he was a master manipulator who could expertly control all the elements in play but in truth he was just a selfish reckless asshole who didn't give a damn about any of us. He had no idea of what he was doing or the deep primal emotions he was unleashing and as a consequence the danger that he was putting us all in. 

The other thing which scared me to death was the fact that I had already spent 20-odd years being spat on/shat on/rejected by my family and NOT reacting to that. The ability to keep calm in the face of endless provocation from them was my specialty. Now that was all gone. I knew in my heart that my family was already lost to me. That it had all been for nothing. That my whole life had just been the ultimate bait-and-switch scam. Nothing but one big lie from start to finish. Now I could feel my icy self-control melting away and being replaced by a blinding white-hot rage which could explode out of me with devastating consequences at any moment. I have never felt that kind of pure primal fear either before or since. Just like the fear of death itself. 

To make matters even worse my family were, as always, treating the whole thing as if it was one big joke! As if my unbearable pain was something funny and trivial to them. Something to be laughed at and viciously ridiculed. Now it was at this point is where the term "my thoughts turned murderous" could start to be applied. Because laughing at anyone who is in pain is cruel. But laughing smugly at your own family member when they are going through the worst pain of their life is intolerable and unforgivable. Its what gets the people who are heartless/arrogant enough to do it killed. Everyone has a breaking point. If you have even the tiniest shred of decency or humanity left in you then you won't ever try to push a member of your own family to theirs.

But good news, being soulless-psycho-clown-freaks who feast and fatten off the AGONY, degradation and destruction of one of their own is not who my family are as people anymore. Or at least let's hope not for their kids' sakes anyway. It is worth noting however that to this day, none of them has ever taken an ounce of responsibility nor even acknowledged how badly they abused me back then. On the contrary they continue to deny it which means that abuse is still very much ongoing so any protestations that they have changed in any way as people are only a nonsense as far as I'm concerned. Their collective refusal to acknowledge the harm they did to me or show even the tiniest amount of remorse for it is also the reason why I can never have any further contact with them. 

NEIL: "Just as a by the way, is it reasonably easy for someone on a farm to buy or acquire a shotgun?"

DAVID: Far too easy. On our farm for example there was sometimes borrowed shotguns or rifles left around - always unsecured and often loaded. Add bored and lonely kids to that equation and you have a recipe for disaster. However, that's more of a health and safety issue than anything else - which admittedly continues to be a HUGE problem on Irish farms. But just to be clear the shotgun I acquired on that occasion was most certainly not borrowed. If it had been then it could simply have been returned without a problem. Alas in this instance that was not possible. 

NEIL: "At any time during your irrational behaviour and the acquiring of a shotgun, did it ever cross your mind that you were going to use it on other people and I'm specifically talking about did you ever have dark thoughts about your family and the gun?"

DAVID: No. Ironically my intention with acquiring the gun and what I planned to use it for was actually a desperate attempt to come up with a way out of the violence that I feared was going to engulf us at any moment. Less rationally I think it was also a way for me to try and escape from the sad reality of the situation which was the simple fact that my own family never loved or wanted me. I wasn't ready to have that much truth just suddenly dropped on me like a boulder. I couldn't handle it. I wasn't strong enough then. Luckily after they found the gun my family at least had enough sense to back the fuck off me for a while and give me the time and space I needed to deal with their final rejection of me although that was probably more down to the fact that they were afraid of what other crazy shit I might do by that point rather than any real sense of concern or compassion.

NEIL: "But you never know when there's a shotgun in the house and tempers are frayed and there's a lot of pressure there. You don't know what could happen in a split-second, right?"

DAVID: Exactly. And that was what I was most afraid of. Because I was sitting on top of a lifetime's worth of pain, frustration and disappointment. Which is like sitting on top of a load of powder-dry TNT. All it would have taken at that point is one spark for the whole thing to go off like a bomb with horrific consequences for all involved. When you are under that kind of immense psychological pressure then it becomes all but impossible to think rationally and see clearly what the right course of action is (which in this instance would have been for me to get the hell out of that house and put as much distance between me and my "family" as physically possible).

NEIL: "So what happened after that episode? You said in your piece that the relentless hate campaign against you came to an end and everything went quiet again"

DAVID: As per usual my father refused to take any responsibility whatsoever for his part in what had happened despite the fact that his manipulative/abusive behaviour had precipitated the whole damn thing to begin with. Instead I was once again solely blamed and scapegoated for everything. There was no meaningful discussion of what had happened or why and absolutely no lessons were learned from it. Of course at this point my dad finally had all the dirt he needed to justify kicking me out for good but unfortunately for him my actions had unintentionally frustrated his plans to get rid of me and also presented him with a quandary: To cover his own arse (always his highest priority!) he needed to keep what had happened quiet at all costs but in order to do that he needed my cooperation. It took him a while to get his head around it but he eventually figured out that he had no other option but to just leave me alone. In truth though it didn't matter what he did anymore at that point because our family was now mortally wounded and doomed to die a slow death. Any pretense of love or trust that we previously had was permanently broken after that. Denial was the glue that had held our family together up till then but some betrayals are so egregious that no amount of denial can cover them up or excuse them. The die was cast - it was just a matter of time now until our family fell apart for good.

End of Part 1.

Part 2 coming soon!

And don't forget to tune into my upcoming interview with Joe Duffy on Liveline - also coming soon!

Richie (Joe Duffy's producer) told me that if the interview goes well I may even have a chance at securing a guest spot on the Late Late as well just as their recent guest David Ryan did. To be honest though I'm not sure if I could handle that much exposure. I was already nervous enough just giving a radio interview from the comfort of my couch at home. If I had to do the same thing on tv in front of cameras with a live studio audience then I don't know for certain how I would react so I would have to think very carefully about that if the opportunity to appear was offered to me.

The ongoing issue of violence on our farms (in all its various forms) is certainly one that needs to be brought to the attention of as wide an audience as possible. For this reason I am currently working on a book about my experiences at Cregane which will be available for download in Amazon Kindle format towards the end of this year.  Family farming may have a very wholesome image but what went on in this house was a grotesque PARODY of family and everything that a real family should be about! I look forward to juxtaposing the fake bullshit happy-clappy image of farming in Ireland with the grim reality of what it is really all about.

Writing or talking about the miserable reality of my earlier life on the farm doesn't exactly do wonders for my mood (in truth I was not in the better of my interview with Neil for days afterward) but it is absolutely necessary for the sake of all the farm kids still out there who are trapped in similar situations. I will not sit by and do nothing while they continue to suffer and I have it within my ability to give help/comfort or otherwise shed light on their situation.

And just in case anyone still thinks that cases like mine are isolated one-offs that we don't really need to worry about consider this: The VAST MAJORITY of Irish farmers DO NOT have a will or succession plan in place despite knowing better than anyone the potentially disastrous consequences that could easily lead to. The simple fact is that every single one of these farms is a potential flashpoint for family conflict and violence. This problem is far more widespread than anyone can imagine and as farmers come under more and more financial pressure in the coming years its only going to get worse. As I learned to my cost having no interest in farming nor expectation of getting the farm is no guarantee against conflict, abuse and mistreatment.