A Different Class: Oisín McKenna on moving up to the middle

At eight years old, I start watching Coronation Street. It makes me feel very sophisticated. My parents, working-class ex-Dubliners, watch every soap opera, every night. We live in Drogheda, the biggest town in that isn’t classed as a city: an injustice, given that its rival, , is widely considered a city despite being smaller and worse. Dundalk is famous for its shopping centre. Drogheda is famous for displaying the leathered head of Saint Oliver Plunkett in the town’s biggest church. I go to an all-boys school. I have two acquaintances. We’re not friends, exactly, but we stand together at lunch. What we talk about is soaps. On Coronation Street, Sarah-Louise is 13 and pregnant. We speculate over what’s going to happen next. A classmate notices our conversations