Julie Jay: My son has discovered magic — all thoughts and prayers appreciated

Despite my apathy for illusion, a wand has somehow magicked its way into our home and made my car keys disappear

There’s no need for Keith Barry to be sweating yet, because this tiny magician’s current bedtime is 8pm, meaning his capacity to gig at night is slim. Picture: iStock 

When I was growing up in the 1980s, it was not uncommon for parents to make early predictions about their children’s futures through their choice of birthday presents. If they felt quietly confident a good Leaving Cert might be on the cards, they purchased their five-year-old a science set. 

However, if, like my in-laws, they felt their son was showing the signs of becoming a professional entertainer, the magic set was the obvious gift of choice.

I couldn’t help thinking back to what was a simpler time — with parents deciding their kids’ futures before their Holy Communion — when my own five-year-old came into possession of a magic set complete with cape, wand, and a collapsible pack of cards.

I’ve never been much of a person for magic, having been subjected to Paul Daniels for far too many Saturdays of my youth, but I am slow to complain about this, because I know having the channels in rural Ireland of the ’90s was a bit of a flex.

There was a moment in time, growing up, when we were all convinced we could do magic, but thankfully it fell into the mountain cycling category of ‘just a phase’.

For those of you with too much collagen to remember, Irish Tour de France winner Stephen Roche had us all convinced we too could master a bike, before we quickly discovered it was all well and good until we encountered a hill and someone expected us to go up it. 

When it became clear my cycling hack of dismounting and walking beside the bike would not fly in professional cycling, I decided to hang up my helmet and focus my energies on pulling bunnies out of hats.

This hobby also proved to be a short-lived fling because, and I hate to admit this for fear of incurring the wrath of Keith Barry, I don’t love magic.

I can’t quite tell you what exactly has always bothered me about it. Is it the inherent duplicity? The deception? The fact it seems to be a pretty male-dominated form of entertainment, if we don’t include the presence of the female assistant who is having what we hope are fake knives thrown in her immediate vicinity.

I’ve never been one to hide my distrust of anyone who claims to be able to read my mind while simultaneously wearing a cape and a top hat. All of this makes my husband’s unilateral decision to purchase a magic set for our five-year-old even more bizarre.

Of course, it was an instant hit. Morning, noon, and night, we are practising card tricks and honing our ability to make cups move around a table using only one of our two hands. It is a lot of fun, of course, a bit of a giggle, but I am worried my future as the Debbie to my son’s Paul Daniels is inevitable.

What could have been a cute hobby for the weekend has become a bit more all-consuming, in the way that magic does. Much like Japanese knotweed, magic has quickly gone from ‘it’s nice to have a bit of variety about the place’ to taking over our lives — but I am determined to support my son in a relatively harmless, if intense, hobby.

So far, he doesn’t seem to subscribe to the ‘don’t let them see how the sausage is made’ mindset in relation to his craft, happily sharing the secrets behind the illusion with us.

Is magic a craft, you ask? Well, if comedy can meet Arts Council criteria when it comes to being a craft, anything is possible.

But of course, even though I don’t love the magic, I love the tiny magician, and it is because of this all-consuming parental love that I can feign enthusiasm for hours on end.

Even for the biggest cynics of magic like myself, it is hard not to be tickled at just how pleased my eldest is with himself when it comes to his catalogue of magic tricks.

“Watch my wand get smaller,” he announces, and with an “abrakebabra”, he slowly, very slowly, folds the wand up, to which we all clap in mock wonder.

So determined is he to make this a full-time career that he has enlisted the help of his little brother, who is allowed to stand with him for moral support but not allowed to touch the items in his magic box, as they are basically an inventory of chokeable objects. 

But still, his young assistant cheers in all the right places and seems enthused at his brother channelling his inner Houdini.

And Houdini Number One certainly is, because between the jigs and the reels, he has somehow managed to disappear my car keys.

Still, there’s no need for Keith Barry to be sweating yet, because this tiny magician’s current bedtime is 8pm, meaning his capacity to gig at night is slim. But once that curfew goes past 9 o’clock, it’ll be every professional illusionist for himself.

Now, if somebody could just magic back my car keys, that would be pure wizardry.