MEMORIES, MEMORIES
by: Vera (Jennings) Hughes

 

 

 

My earliest childhood memory –I was probably three years old  or younger—but it was certainly pre-school,  is of  mother bent over the big  Singer sewing machine at the window, a long seam running under her hand, as the machine  hummed and whirred  away as if forever. I must have been learning new words, because” talking grand” as I thought, I said something to her about the “the tread”but she said quietly ”no, it's not tread, it's thread.”So she was my first teacher. Another day I remember Auntie Annie Kate Walsh [later Mother Emerentia] visiting on her way home from school, and I began pirouetting around, showing off my new frilly knickers and the socks that had a line of little  yellow ducks waddling in single file  along the top. Perhaps that was the beginning of my love of fashion and style! My first day in school I remember well. I don't know who took me there—I think it was Auntie Annie Kate- but I was wearing a lovely, blue machine- knit wool suit and for some reason instead of a skirt there  was a matching short trousers, or could I possibly be imagining that? Any how Mrs. Swords, always known as  the Missus, took me up in her arms, admiring and welcoming me, and remarking on how small I was.....

 

Mother was so generous and hospitable that one could wake up in the morning to find a travelling woman on a makeshift bed near the fireplace in the kitchen. There was one in particular who always outstayed her welcome, much to father's annoyance. Her name was Winey Leonard. She had wild tattered hair, sucked a clay pipe, like those given out at wakes, and used give orders to us children, who were dead afraid of her. Another time one Christmas night we were all around a blazing turf fire, replete and relaxing after the roast goose and the Christmas goodies. The rain was coming down in torrents and the wind shrieked and whistled through the windows, when there was a timid knock at the door. Who could be out on a night like this we all wondered., when in walked a young lad,  his hair plastered to his head and his raggedy  clothes all drenched. The poor lad was in such sorry state that Mother gave him some of the boys' clothes.” [He got my good gansey” Joe used say ruefully years later] She asked him his name  after she fed him, “Jack Dunne” he told her. And  for years to come if we complained about anything, she often reminded us of our good fortune, by comparison with  “poor Jack Dunne”who had to  shelter under a bush. Mother's hospitality was extraordinary, especially where vagrants, or unexpected visitors were concerned, her motto always being “divide small and serve all.”

 

Travellers, or tinkers as they were called then, because they made articles from tin and was not the derogatory word it later became, came the road frequently. The men sold tin buckets, cans, porringers etc. and the women flowers made of silk. But  most were  beggars. The women wore shawls under which there usually was a child or infant [ a babby] or indeed food items, or things they had purloined. Some of them had gaily coloured caravans, but many camped down for the night on the roadside, under a flimsy covering of canvas. It was a makeshift arrangement, lit up by a great big turf fire, on which they cooked.  Their arrival brought colour and picturesqueness to the countryside, but unfortunately pilfering, theft and letting their horses loose in fields did not endear them to the local farmers, and they weren't exactly welcome. Today's travellers are a totally different breed—wealthy, confident, with huge cars, vans, trucks and trailers, and they live very comfortably, even affluently on the sale of scrap iron, and on copper, brass, lead etc. often  stolen from  roofs,  and the ornamental statuary all over the country. As children we were afraid of them and their wild ways, and even today to call someone a tinker is the the greatest insult one can offer. But I must say that mother  was always flaithiuil to them and the tinker women went off wishing “ the blessings of God and His holy Mother” on her. Mind you, they could just as quickly wish you bad luck and misfortune had they not got what they wanted!

 

 

My memory of Bea [ Sr. Mary Columba ] is quite vague, as she was in boarding school when I was a fa year old, and when she entered the convent, I was seven. But I do  have memories of a big, tall grown-up girl who used to come home from time to time, stay for a while, and then disappear She was very vain about her beautiful wavy titian -coloured  hair, very often shampooing it,  loved style and  clothes, and used to dress up Lelia and myself in fancy hats, and admire us as we paraded around for her. Another memory of her was her verdict on seeing the changes in all of us, when she came home from Tubber.  Everybody had changed or grown, or got fat, all except Vera, who was “just the same as ever”meaning that I was still small and scrawny and hadn't grown an inch! What a blow to my poor ego.....She seemed to crave notice, and was unmercifully teased by Tommie [Fr. John] and Joe. A sort of game she used play to teach us manners, and not be too greedy, was to say “the farthest away” from whatever treat she was meting out to us,  was the first to be given it, so consequently all of us were pinned to the farthest wall!  By the time she was in the novitiate, the youngest, Cathal, was born. Mother lost another pregnancy I don't know how many years later, but it was daytime and she was in bed—most unusual for her—and the doctor was there, again something unheard of  unless you were dying, which reminds me that while we were entitled to free medical [dispensary] care, this was never taken advantage of--  foolishly I think—because of my parents' false pride in  not accepting “charity”[neither  would they ever accept the free beef given by the State during the “Economic War “ of the thirties, when there was an embargo by England  on the export of cattle from Ireland,  and farmers couldn't sell their livestock, and were ruined ] and years later when Cathal was a small boy and got a nasty gash from falling over an empty tin—a rectangular-shaped  Bourneville cocoa tin and the wound  was a deep, profusely bleeding rectangular wound, he had to be taken to Dr. Beirne in Charlestown to have it stitched, and mother told to bring him back when it was healed,  to have  the stitches removed. But since the visit to the doctor had cost three guineas, an enormous sum in those days, she took out the stitches herself, quite successfully, I may add.

 

Thanks to the growing number of children, and the fact that the new, two-storey house was not built until 1932-33 different temporary sleeping arrangements had to be resorted to for  the boys—Tommie, Joe, and your Dad, I presume, who camped  for a time in the granary loft at night, and the rest of us envied them the novelty of their new dormitory, where they could hear the breathings and stirrings of the cows in the cow house beneath, and inhale the lovely smell of grain. Speaking of the boys, Joe was the stay- at- home for several years, who helped  on the farm, rather reluctantly,  because he had itchy feet and wanted to conquer the world!  But he attended the Tech [Technical School] in Curry, where he learned the rudiments of carpentry, which stood him in good stead later in England at first, and then in Dublin. Proof of his carpentry skill was in a fine Colombian pine  sideboard  with drawers, cupboards and mirrors, he made  before going to England, that mother was very proud of. After he helped in the building of the house  with the assistance and supervision of the Mulholland builders from Sligo, he left for England, at the age of nineteen. His life and experiences there, as well as his youth in Cully  he recounted later in his book “The Big Stone.”

 

Joe was impulsive,  hot tempered, impatient, generous, and enormously capable at whatever he attempted. A rabid Republican, he regretted not being old enough to fight for Ireland in the Easter Rising, 1916—when he was only nine months old! He read a lot before going to England, and I think of him at night at the kitchen fire, his long legs stuck in the ashes, dead to his surroundings, as he roamed the wild West,  riding the range  with steers and cowboys, or was lost in the exotic lives portrayed by   Rider Haggard in his  tales of  Egyptian Pharaohs, the beauteous Cleopatra, mummied remains, slaves  and ancient ruins. Lelia and I used be enlisted to polish his shoes and brush his clothes and for our trouble he humorously called  us “slave number one”, and “slave number two”!I can never forget Joe's generosity sending home crisp English sterling notes  during the war years, or the beautiful glossy birthday cards to Lelia and myself. It was so thoughtful of a man to even remember our birth dates. Up to his death he always rang me at length with good wishes  on my birthday, the fifteenth of August. His love of home was deeply heartfelt and sincere, and he was the best son and brother anyone could have. It is interesting that he was the only one of the family who did not have Secondary education, yet he died a  multi millionaire. 

 

As for Martin, your Dad, Aileen, he was the complete antithesis of Joe in that he was patient, even-tempered, thoughtful, and a model student. I remember when he used come home from St. Nathy's College Ballaghdereen, he immediately  got into his working duds, and began helping on the farm and around the house, and I still have a mental  picture of him in the Big Garden, washing a tub of potatoes [ to be boiled for the pigs] stopping occasionally, and with a finger raised doing “sums”in  the air, his mind on higher things than chores. He won a County Scholarship,  otherwise College  could not be afforded. It was Auntie Annie Kate who tutored him, as the Master  never prepared students for anything so ambitious, and Martin  was a fast learner. Actually he was the only boy in the family to win this honour, while all of the six girls did—thanks to their teacher. Hi s marriage to Una Walsh in 1942 was an exciting event since he was the first in the family to marry. Moreover, Mother was just about well enough, almost a year after her operation to be there. She died the following year. In later life, when father was still grieving  after Mother's death in 1943, he used cycle from Foxford, and  bring him his favourite Clark's plug tobacco, and more importantly, stay chatting with him for hours. Those visits must have been doubly precious to father, at that lonely time. I always thought, and still do, that your Dad would have been an excellent professor of Irish, or something connected with Irish topography,  tradition and folklore. But anyway I'm sure he was a brilliant teacher as well as an ideal Dad.

 

Fr. John [ Tommie] I remember little of until I was more grown up, when his  letters home were cut into ribbons by the censor, and when he came back  from Whitechapel  in London and told us all the hair-raising stories about the air raids, sirens going off and the doodlebugs raining down on the city. Apparently he was a real hero in the underground air raid shelters, remaining calm,  telling yarns, cracking jokes, and generally comforting the poor unfortunates there who, if they ever survived, might find  their homes in ruins. He was always easygoing, calm, helpful,  generous to a fault, and was much loved in the parishes where he ministered  He was forever mending things, and was meticulous in every detail of what he was doing. He could take a watch apart, and humorously declare that when it was put together, he had enough bits and pieces left over to make another.! He loved jokes and funny stories, and had a great sense of humour. Since he was father's only help he was late in going to Ballaghdereen,  and so was in class with your Dad. Seemingly one evening when he was nearly fifteen, and  mother was milking the cows, he confided to her shyly that he wanted to become a priest. And so the prophecy of the travelling stranger came true. I told  this anecdote  at his funeral, but I'll repeat it here. One day when Fr. John was only a baby, a beggar man came the way, and as usual Mother gave him food and drink. When  he was leaving he pointed to the baby in the cradle,  and said to mother “mind the makings of the priestheen.”

 

Maire, or Mai as she was then called, was the Lady of the family, refined, artistic, patient, a perfectionist in everything she did, even to making a bed, when sheets and blankets had to be properly smoothed and  tucked in, whereas Annie Kathleen would say “just pull them up.”   When someone special was coming, and jobs were allotted to each of us,  Margaret invariably was given “cooking” and Mai “flowers” She was truly heroic during mother's illness in her last year dying from cancer. It was Mai, then teaching in Cloonagh, who bathed the patient, rubbed methylated spirits on her bedsores, [ that smell  even today brings a lump in my throat, as I see the wasted mother on her bed of pain.] and kept her company, as well as seeing to  washing, ironing, cooking and kitchen chores. Mrs. Swords once asked Mai to draw  a map of the baronies of Co. Sligo, which was done so artistically  with the Ox mountains sketched  and shaded in black, the names of the baronies and towns in red ink, and the sea in the most beautiful blue –I can still see it on the wall where the Missus had  it framed, she was so delighted with it. And it hung there for years until the school was closed, and locals bought the contents as souvenirs. I often wonder on whose wall did the lovely map hang? I do hope it is still loved and treasured,  now that teacher, artist, and so many have gone to their reward. Mai stayed at home for several years with father after mother's death, until she got a job in Dublin. She was  a very good cook, had a lovely singing voice, and was to meet her future husband at my marriage—Ed. was a first cousin of Alec-- and had a very happy marriage. She used help me with essays in both Irish and English when I was in Cloonagh school, I thought she was “a genius,” and I did miss her a lot when she was in Preparatory School in Falcarragh,  Donegal but in later years she and I  when both of us were in Dublin, she teaching in Crumlin, and  I in Castleknock,  met regurlarly,  and went together on several  holidays on the continent

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Just as Joe and Martin were opposites, so were Mai and Annie Kathleen [Sr. Mary Malachy ]who was like a a dictator, giving orders that had to be obeyed instantly. She was a tomboy, impatient, impulsive, tactless betimes, a great worker, and very talented in so many ways. She loved notice, was quite vain, and always turned what she thought the most flattering side of her face to the camera! Once when the extraordinary happened and mother and father went for a holiday—the only one I can remember-- to Enniscrone, and Annie K. when left in charge of  the rest of us and the house, we were treated to iron rations, stirabout [ porridge] and potatoes figuring largely on the menu. She certainly  excelled as “a plain cook”.but she had money to give the holidaymakers to their great surprise,  when they came home, money she had saved while they were away,  from the sale of butter and eggs in Charlestown. At that time, we, the younger fry, thought her a tyrant, making us leap out of bed in the morning—the bedclothes were pulled down off us-- and at the river jump in at once to show“character”Before she left home she could  ride the horse, plaster a wall or do the impossible, being the energetic go-er and do-er that she was. At one time in Tubbercurry,  Mother was sent for with a complaint about Annie Kathleen, who for some misdemeanor that I never knew,  was threatened with expulsion. Mother Anthony, a forbidding eminence, went on to list the miscreant's peccadilloes, and Mother listened. Then she said calmly “Well Reverend Mother,  I'm sure the Mercy nuns in Swinford will be glad to have her in their school”  with which there wasn't a  further peep out of her eminence! Thinking of mother's reaction then  it was so brave of her, in her quiet defence of poor Annie Kathleen who must have felt vindicated. After she entered the convent and qualified as a teacher in Carysfort, she taught in Tubbercurry Primary, and used supervise our meals in the refectory, where if any one was misbehaving, a stern look from her was enough. When she was sent to Fiji on the missions, she was terribly homesick at first,  and  at first cried herself to sleep every night, but she taught there for many years, played  outdoor games with the pupils, rode a horse, and afterwards in Sydney,  got several University  degrees, and  in retirement became a brilliant artist. Despite  that assumed  gruff bossy exterior, she was deeply sensitive, and had a soft centre at heart

 

Margaret [Sr. Anne]was the saint of the family, [so different from Annie K.]. --gentle, kind, patient, thoughtful, self-giving, obedient and amenable, always helping others, and she was just the same as a nun, until she died,  the next in the family to die after Cathal,  from cancer of the pancreas. I always thought her the perfect daughter, the perfect sister. There were only three years between us, and I loved her dearly One August 15^th a pot of boiling water fell on her foot in the kitchen, and huge blisters appeared. She was badly scalded, we were all traumatised, but mother who was there to soothe and calm her, applied her  traditional remedies and poultices, until the wound was cleaned, healed,  and the” proud flesh” had disappeared. Margaret had then to exercise the foot for a long time  in case the sinews  seized up, and afterwards only large scars remained. In case the expression “proud flesh” is new to you,  it was a sort of whitish layer- not of healthy flesh,- that was left  on the wound, until it was cured and cleaned up completely with healthy skin. There was special empathy between Margaret and myself, perhaps because we were the two smallest in the family—she was an inch taller- but really for her advice, consoling presence and thoughtfulness. Lelia knew all about the helping side of Sr. Anne, and I too the super job she used do at cleaning and polishing the silver. I still see her in her apron and rubber gloves wanting to help .Nor can  I ever forget her taking Mary a  breakfast tray up to her bed, complete with a little floral arrangement, on the morning of her marriage. A slight little nun  of almost 69 doing such a lovely, generous deed is just incredible. That was Margaret........always so thoughtful.

 

After the arrival of five girls, Padraic had no real pal at home, the three older  boys being far too grown up. He was a willing, able, fun- loving lad, full of amusing stories and escapades, but  he was a soft child, and afraid of the dark. I remember someone would have to keep talking loudly to him when he went at night  to the tank at the side of  the outhouses for water. Either that or he kept whistling to himself for courage, because he was afraid  of being grabbed en route  by some ghostly being. To allay our fears of the unknown, mother used say” I'll give sixpence to the first one to bring me in a ghost” [sixpence was a considerable sum to a child ] but of course the ghosts wisely stayed out of sight. What I remember especially about Padraic as a child, is that being next to Margaret—there was only 16  months between them-- she seemed to be his role model, since  if Margaret  agreed  to eat something unpleasant, then he'd eat it, or if Margaret was willing to do something he disliked, he'd do it. He was good singer, a competent amateur actor when he belonged to the Charlestown  Amateur Drama Group, and  excellent at “impressions” Padraic was always a hospitable host  and good company. His marriage was  the second to follow from mine—Mai met Edmund then, and Padraic met Noreen at Mai's. in 1961—quite a happy coincidence.

 

Behind the outhouses,  and next to the nursery was the donkey's abode, straw on the floor and ancient beams under the roof. It was aptly called a  “kip”[hut or hovel] although I imagine the donkey didn't mind. There we enjoyed doing “the wild cat's trick” which involved gripping the beams, leaping upwards, and and then backwards through one's arms,  while still gripping the beams, until one fell to the ground. This may seem easy, but it was a tough  and daring exercise, that Lelia, Padraic and myself were adept at. It certainly was  different from the drill we had in Tubbercurry with dumbells, barbells etc. Our drill master was George Leonard, who taught us, or at least tried to teach, Irish dancing, and was given to saying sarcastically “do you not know your left foot from your right” He was so slim  and narrow hipped, we schoolgirls thought he must be wearing a corset.! A game he used play was”Grady do this “ and “Grady do that”which tested our concentration, where he did exercises very fast, and we copied him at the “Do this” but stayed without moving a muscle at the “Do that” Eventually most of us failed the test , and were ordered to leave the floor, so the exercise ended up with the last winning girl remaining on the floor. It was great fun, and without sounding too bumptious, sometimes  I was last on the  floor. Sr. Dominic, [a sister of the afore mentioned Mother Anthony] Head Mistress and a severe and narrow minded individual, was always on the stage  in the Rec. Hall while Mr. Leonard was in action, frowning and pretending to read, but waiting to spot the  shameless hoyden who was not wearing navy blue knickers in a man's presence. She needn't have worried on that score, about Mr. Leonard. Years later the poor man was  murdered in his apartment by his male partner.

 

 

Going back to childhood, a memory that stays with me is of Mrs. Hennigan-nicknamed “the hen”- trundling along the road on her horse cart, seated  aloft  on a wooden form, the reins loosely in her hand. She was our travelling shop, bringing groceries, the weekly Western People. and all kinds of hidden delights  to her clients, with fish on Friday, which was then de rigueur on that day of abstinence. Her horse never hurried, just ambled along, stopping at the gate of whatever house he seemed to know there was business. Then there was the travelling salesman, who rejoiced in the splendid name of Jack Fitzgerald, but known as Jackeen.  His assorted goods –boot polish, safety pins, thread, shoelaces, candles and other small odds and ends he carried in a leather bag on his back like a schoolboy. Jackeen was a dwarf with a big, bushy moustache, and  a gamey eye, and I tried to avoid the sight of  him since the day he followed me around the kitchen, hairy lips pursed, and croaking “a poigin. Give 'z a poigin.”All we knew about him was that he came from Mayo— another world away. But he liked mother, one of his best customers, who always seemed to want something from his capacious bag and never failed to give him something to eat.

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Travellers, the tinkers apart,  and people selling things  like reading glasses, or mending umbrellas  ,  were common in my childhood, and certainly they fulfilled a need in the country side  with the nearest town more than three miles away. If there was any thought of danger to people living alone in an isolated area, it never occurred to anyone. However there was the Indian pedlar who came the way one hot summer day, when everyone but myself was out making hay, and I was alone in the house. He carried a large suitcase containing silken, lovely  colourful, exotic items of female finery that brought a whiff of the Orient, and began to take them out for my inspection. Picking out a glamorous blouse, he insisted on putting it up close against my then budding bosom, and telling me how beautiful I was in the “sill-ik” confection .His liquid brown eyes had a funny look  Terrified I ran out on the street, calling my father who  I pretended was coming. And very swiftly my would be admirer beat a hasty retreat, leaving me shaken. Mother was very disturbed when she heard what had happened, and even today, many years later I still remember the fright I got.

[Note: street refers to the area in front of one's house, usually of cobblestones or gravel].

 

The wooden  cradle at home was an antique, possibly made by my father from a  tree in the nursery where trees  grew in profusion. It was a sturdy piece of work,  that had survived long use, and I remember Cathal, the baby being rocked in it, “over to Doughdel Dough “wherever that mysterious land lay. If one rocked  too boisterously of course, baby landed on the floor. After he graduated from it,  Maggie Paddy Vatty [Maitiu]as Mrs. Tom Walsh from Cloonagh was known, asked mother for  it, to bring her luck, and it did. She had ten children.  Nearly every family had a nickname, since there so many families of the same surname, and one had to differentiate between them to know who was which. Of several Brennan families in Cloonagh, two brothers were known as Johnnie Maggie, and the brother as Mike Peter –the father being Peter, and the mother Maggie. That was most unusual, and so were their  lives  which were worlds apart,  as it happened, since  Johnnie became a well off business man, while poor Mike was a  Downs Syndrome,-- Mongol was the term then used -- who was  a  duine le Dia [God's child ] or a pure innocent. I wrote a poem about him years ago, and will enclose a copy.  As for my father,  there was one other Jennings family in Cully who did  have a nickname [ a distant relative ] but father  was simply called Sonny Jennings. Nobody ever called him Pat or Patrick.

 

“Characters”or people who were different,  added colour and variety to life, and  people accepted them as they were. There was Matt Mary Anne—I never knew his surname, but that didn't matter. The countryside knew, because he went from house to house, as many as he could fit in a day, and in each he'd walk straight to the dresser, pick up the teapot, shake it and point at the kettle. That was the signal for the tea making ceremony, that Matt loved, with the tea poured from the cup into the saucer and  drunk with much slurping and enjoyment. The character I knew best was Johnnie Kennedy, of course, since I spent a few years in Grandmother's, where Johnnie was farmhand, and general factotum for Uncle Mike. He was a simpleton, rangy, raw-boned, and scrawny, despite a hearty appetite—a saucepan of porridge was his favourite dish—and he chose to be  forever 35-a reasonable age, neither old nor young.! He loved a special sweet smelling bar of soap to which he was partial, and handled it with affection, baring  yellowed teeth and muttering happily to himself, a wide ecstatic grin on his face. He did all the odd jobs-”timireacht “it was called by grandmother, such as bringing in turf, cleaning out the cow house, feeding the hens, collecting the hen eggs, carrying water from Grady's spring well [Tom Grady was the nearest neighbour ] digging potatoes for the dinner, all of these chores to  the lilt of a tuneless diddle ee aye that could be heard in Cully. I have written funny stories about him in The Story of a Family, but I'll just repeat one. One day when Uncle Louis came, Johnnie was sent to dig potatoes for the dinner. Time passed and there was no sight of either Johnnie or the potatoes, but he eventually arrived weighed down with a sack of the tubers,  and when  Grandmother asked  in some annoyance “musha, what kept you Johnnie, and why the delay?” he replied “Sure, Catherine, we have Louis today”

 

Mary Luke Weaver was another character from that mythical place “up Mayo”who was married to Luke, a few fields away. Luke was a bit of a toff, and spoke in a precise cultured voice, and not in the local patois. They reared very smart educated daughters, one of whom  Annie,  was the Junior teacher in Cloonagh, and later entered the Marist convent, and died young. Another sister Sr. Luke was a good friend of Sr. Anne in Nympsfield, Gloucestershire.  Mary Luke loved visiting Mother, and they exchanged clutches of eggs to be put under the clocking [broody ] hens, a dozen of  thirteen for good measure,  in case one might turn out a glugger. When we did a churning mother sent someone to Mary Luke's with a can of fresh buttermilk, and butter prints floating on the top.  Prints were little rounds, or larger if you wished, made by pressing the butter down on wooden butter-prints, that had ornate patterns sculpted on them, usually shamrocks or thistles. One evening at a high tea at home to which Mary Luke was invited and Mai, home from Prep College and who knew about table style and etiquette, had set each one's place with a dinner knife and a butter knife. This nicety baffled the guest, who, holding up one knife exclaimed loudly “I have two knives. Is anyone short?”She could boss us too, as if we were her own. One night some of us were at our usual trick lighting little sticks in the fire, and whirling them around in the air to create lovely fiery wheels, when Mary Luke reprimanded us, saying in her hoarse voice that it was” the devil's work,” so that put an end to the fun.

 

 Card playing and rambling were popular in most houses as a form of recreation, but not in our house. Father wouldn't even allow cards in the house, they were a waste of time he said, and the school homework wouldn't get done. Both parents  wanted us to have the education they never had, and card-playing was verboten—not that we cared. If at any time we were acting the maggot, or talking rubbish, mother would say “Can't you talk about the rivers and lakes of Ireland?” But if we were fighting,  which happened from time to time, she recited the following:

 

“Birds in their little nests agree, and 'tis a shameful sight

when children of one family fall out ands chide and fight.”

 

A game we sometimes enjoyed was Dallog or Blind Man's Buff at night  in the kitchen, which often meant climbing on chairs or table or  under the sink, with the result that it became too noisy and dangerous, it was then mother  warned “when fun is best let it rest” and that was the end of the fun. Yet she did allow us enjoy it for a time, although aware of the danger of an accident in an enclosed space with an open fire. In her wisdom, we were given a certain amount of leeway in the game, but with discretion.

However she resorted to prayer, if the carry- on was really too much, even for a saint like her, and prayed”Jesus, give me  patience, my Mother Mary restrain my tongue.”Thinking back, I find it extraordinary that, after a hard day's work,  she made time to tuck us into bed at night, with the prayer:”Oh Jesus I must die, I don't know when or where or how, but if I die in mortal sin, I am lost forever. Jesus have mercy on me” I used think it began with “Oh Jesus I'm a sty” which I found puzzling, since the sty was where the pigs lived, but one could have a sty in one's eye too.  The bit about being “lost forever” was daunting to a child, but  it has special meaning now for me on the brink of mortality. I say this particular prayer every night, just in case the devil is stoking up the furnace in nether regions for me, and I was lost forever— better be on the safe side........

 

Auntie Annie Kate Walsh was my godmother. She was smart and beautiful, wore lovely clothes, and smelled of perfume -  Lily of the Valley, I think. She taught the whole school singing, [ the Missus hadn't a note in her head, had a voice like a crow, according to herself,] beating the time of the song, to the accompaniment of the metronome. There's a lot about her in The Story of a Family, her life in Cloonaughill, and her leaving to enter the Marists. After she left, Grandmother bemoaned her going, saying it was the black day for the Cullys [us-  Jennings ] that she had gone. Well it certainly changed life for me in Cloonaughill, and not for the better, again all recorded at some length  in the Family Story. But back to when she taught in Cloonagh and used come in to mother nearly every day after school. She loved the chat and visiting  her older sister, but not  poor Auntie Bridget [B.A.] in Bellaghy. Nor did mother either, although she was always pleasant. and gracious. Often when we were going home from Mass in the horse-trap, B.A. would waylay us outside her door, and invite mother in for the gossip, but while mother listened politely, I never remember her ever accepting the invitation. Anyhow, dinner had to be got for the gang at home, and  mother was no gossip. A saying of hers was”If you have nothing good to say about anyone, don't say anything.” However I enjoyed visiting B.A. Perhaps it was for the gossip! Usually it was after coming home from school in Tubber, and she invariably exclaimed “What did you do with your hair? Did you perm it ? Jesus, it's beautiful” and no matter how often I told her my waves and curls were natural, every time I visited, I was asked did I have it permed. She really was good-natured, and had a poor life of it, married to a Scrooge, of whom she was somehow afraid, but didn't want to “rise him like, and never contradicted him.  ” It's strange how different sisters can be in so many ways.

A propos an incident in B.A.'s life I wrote what I think was a tragi-comic story called “The Curse o' God Coat” about a fur coat she once treated herself to. It was exaggerated of course and only partly true. But I did like Auntie, and she babysat our children several times. Once when she was in Moate, and  Fr. John came, when he was leaving, she began foostering up under her capacious skirt for money she wanted to give him for a Mass, but to her great consternation, she couldn't find it. She was so alarmed and upset, I can't remember did she give him any offering in the end. Later, after he left, she began ullagoning “Jesus and Mary. Me good £ note, a good new, clean one too, that I had for Fr. John, What happened it?””Where had you put it”? said I innocently morya.”In my knickers” said Auntie. “Sure I thought it would be safe there. Oh wirra, wirra” she wailed as she rummaged again in the bloomers [ shocking pink and elasticated  at the knee]“Were you anywhere outside “I asked,  careful not to mention the toilet, in case she got a seizure.”Well I was in the garden, but I'd know if I lost it there, wouldn't I”​​​? And with that, she began pacing along the briar and  ivy-covered garden walls, rosary beads in hand and muttering to herself. I can't  remember did St. Anthony compensate her or not, but the poor thing was very disturbed, and a £ was then  a lot of money. Another time when she was in Moate  minding the children, and found Niall emulating Batman, half out the bedroom window, she began begging him tearfully to come back in. Considering  the distance from the window to the ground, she nearly had a heart attack. Still another memory is of all of us returning from a holiday abroad, and the children wild with joy, embracing and hugging the boxer dog, not paying any attention to poor Auntie who was visibly -and rightly I may add- hurt by being left standing ignored in the background.

 

Life for mothe and father was labour intensive, as indeed it was for most people at that time, since everything was done by hand, without the help of farm machinery or electricity, In later years we had the luxury of a wind charger that provided electric light, but depending on  wind velocity, the current was erratic, and the light was often dim. Yet it was Heaven for mother just to flick a switch instead of filling the lamp with paraffin, cleaning and polishing the globe, trimming the wick, and so on. In the interim between the table lamp and electricity, we had a Tilly lamp, with a gauze affair that gave good bright light, but, by comparison  electric light was magic. Washing clothes was a big chore—heating the water on an open fire, filling a tub or galvanisd wash-bath, hand washing with hard soap on a washboard, and wringing out the clothes.--  bed sheets in particular. In Summer when water was scarce, the job was done at the Mullaghanoe river,  that ran at one end of our land, which meant conveying everything  by horse and cart through the well-field and the river-field, building and  lighting a fire, doing the washing and  spreading it out on the whin bushes  on the river bank to dry. This was followed by the picnic ritual that we all loved. Actually we children thought the safari-like outing was great fun, as it meant we had a swim before the picnic of hard-boiled eggs, wholemeal bread,  curranty  cake and apple cake that  tasted ambrosial. A pastime we often enjoyed  was “sheeting” in the river for sprats, trout or half-trout, even though all that was occasionally caught were pinkeens,  that for some reason were called “bolgaduns” Sheeting involved cutting open a coarse hessian sack [that meal had come in] and two of us dragging it along the shallow river bed,  past the stepping stones, where the water was still shallow, while the third fisherman went ahead  with a stout stick “routing” out the hoped for catch  unsuspecting of their fate. I can never forget the wonderful river smell of those fish, or “that first fine careless rapture” of the shining, slithery catch taken home  in those  innocent days that are dead. Field mushrooms after a shower were another culinary delight, simmered in milk, butter and wild garlic.

 

Making the hay was something we were all roped into and those far-off summers must have been really hot because we peeled strips of sunburn off each other's backs—we children were then  topless,- after which it was off to our beloved river to cool off.  “Poll Larry” was the deepest part, one could dive there, and it was many years later that I learned it was named after  Larry Jennings, one of my father's uncles, and brother of grandfather Jack Jennings. Seemingly this Larry was a powerful swimmer and all round athlete, who like all of his brothers, apart from Jack, emigrated to America, and never returned.  Life on a farm was never without excitement, often unwanted. An incident that could happen more than once was a cow stuck in a dike or bog hole, half-drowned and not able to get out. It was then the neighbours came to the rescue, and  it was quite a drama to watch the poor animal struggle, until eventually it was pulled out, covered in muck but lowing loudly, relieved  at having been rescued..The loss of a cow would have been catastrophic, as cows  provided not alone milk  enough for the house, but butter  for sale in Collerans  where mother did business, and where it was in great demand by special customers. Both grandmother, mother, and even I myself [ after mother's death] won prizes for butter at different Shows. The sale of butter and eggs usually bought most of the necessary groceries, such as flour, tea and sugar.

 

Killing a pig-twice yearly was another drama, when the unfortunate animal was taken from the pig sty, tied to a table, its legs fastened together, and Uncle Mike came with his big, wicked-looking butcher knife to do the deed—father hadn't the heart or maybe the courage to kill a creature that was familiar to him---and the dying screams of the poor pig were heart-rending as the knife got its target, and mother collected the blood in a basin. The carcass was then hoisted up and hung upside down from a hook in the ceiling, scraped and shaved with scalding water to remove the bristles, slit open from feet to head, and carved into joints, that father salted and  packed in a tub until they were cured. Flitches of bacon were often hung from hooks in the kitchen As for the pig's blood,  this was mixed with breadcrumbs, chopped onions, spices, salt and pepper, the mixture filled into the thoroughly washed out pig entrails cut into lengths,  tied at either end, and slowly simmered in a pot –sometimes overnight  when the fire was almost dead. I can still taste the delicious black pudding, with which  nothing since can compare. Some of the puddings were given to the neighbours [ Mother used always say one's neighbour was one's best friend ] and Mary Luke Weaver was certainly not forgotten.”God blesh you Mary, and may He increase your store”was her grateful appreciation. Slaughtering the pig I thought cruel and inhumane,  certainly not suitable for children and queasy people to witness, but death came quickly, and  the end result was delicious,- home cured bacon, cooked with fresh vegetables from the kitchen garden and “laughing” [ they had burst their skin ] floury potatoes -a meal that although not exactly haute cuisine,  is still  the most popular one in Ireland!

 

Saving turf in the bog was summer work, that while strenuous, was enjoyable After the sods were sliced off with a special sort of spade, called a “slean”[  the blade had one high side to keep the sod from falling off] it was spread on the turf bank to dry, then “footed”or  built into “grogs”--raised  little cromlechs of sods leaning against each other, to let the wind go through them. Sometimes these were turned into “wind-rows” --longer rows of grogs,or  built into clamps, bigger again heaps. In those days the words associated with the bog were all in Irish, including “sean-pholl” or cutaway bog.   I presume Aileen you have seen this process around Foxford, otherwise it may sound complicated.  When the turf was dried through it was taken by donkey and creels to the roadside ---the bog was too soft and spongy for a cart—where it was piled up until it was taken home and made into ricks. Tea on the bog was one of the pleasures of saving the turf,  as one sat on the sweet smelling heather, the “ciob” or coarse, tawny sedge -grass shimmering under the sun for what seemed  like miles, away in the distance, as we enjoyed the contents of the covered lunch basket. I don't think such delicious fare will ever  be the same again.

 

Beezie Meehan's  house was beside  the school, more than half a mile away from our house , and  it was to her spring well we had to go for drinking water in summer, when our own wells dried up, or were merely a trickle. Beezie with her long wild grey hair and ancient wrinkled  face looked like a witch. She had the reputation—possibly wrongly-- of possessing “the evil eye”which could harm or bring bad luck, or misfortune on anyone she didn't like. So I used hurry past her street on my  way to the well, often spilling some of the bucket's contents, in trying to avoid seeing or meeting her. People then, even my grandmother believed implicitly in pishrogues, a relic of pagan beliefs, but with a mixture of Catholic customs thrown in for good measure in order to placate both sides! Another character was our shopkeeper Mrs. Colleran in the town. She was a remarkably distinguished looking lady, whom I describe in The Story of a Family. Politically she was a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, a sort of battle axe in that regard, who when things in Government did not meet with her approval, gave vent to her anger with the mantra”write to the Minister”as if that were to solve everything. But she was very kind, and loved my mother. She had two very nice daughters-Christina and Maudie, who assisted in the shop, and never married. Once, Uncle Mike, most insensitively I thought, once told them that together they'd make a good wife for some man. The two were inseparable, but it was a very hurtful thing to say.

 

The big Christmas shopping took place on Big Market Day—the Wednesday before Christmas-when all kinds of goodies were bought, such as Christmas candles, dried fruit, candied sugar, iced Christmas cakes, spices galore, bottles of sherry, Buckfast  Abbey wine and whiskey for the adults and visitors, baker's bread,  fresh meat from the butcher's etc. and “Christmas boxes”were given by the shops one dealt in during the year. These often included rich fruit cakes and brightly coloured  jugs of red jam that we thought much nicer than our own home made variety. In the evening after the visit to town, it was wildly exciting to see the horse and trap appear around the bend of the road at the Statue [ a wayside shrine] and see what treats  all the packages contained, and that  was when Christmas really began.  In memory, the Christmas Day dinner of  roast goose, stuffed with mashed potato, chopped onions and raisins, was always delicious, and the tall red candle in the window was replicated all over the country, shining like stars in the darkness.

 

Another great occasion for us children was the fair of Curry in August. It would be like today's children going to Disneyland, and was looked forward to for months beforehand. Curry was,  and still is, although an hotel has been added, a small cluster of parish church [our parents were married , and we were all baptised there ] parochial house, a school and a shop or two, but for the annual Fair of Curry it was thronged with people, buying and selling what seemed like everything under the sun-even kid goats,- and the hucksters' stalls did a roaring business, vendors shouting their bargains to all and sundry. The  stall selling “dilisk”[ an edible sea weed] from Enniscrone  was a great attraction, and   there were merry-go-rounds for the children, fat  ice cream wafers, liquorice pipes, toffee apples, peggy' leg,  gob stoppers and sweets galore, an occasion to gorge on what was rationed  fare during the rest of the year Why do I think it was always sunny on that particular day, or am I imagining it ? Perhaps it was,  but in any case, there was sun in our hearts on that splendid and magical day out.

 

The Corpus Christi procession  that has long disappeared, is another day that stands out in memory. The Blessed Sacrament was carried aloft under a golden canopy by the parish priest, flanked by surpliced altar servers, and Children of Mary resplendent in blue and white, walked slowly along in procession, while children dressed  in white First Holy Communion finery scattered rose-petals before it. In those far-off days , the Church triumphant was very much in evidence. It was a time when there was a Men's Sacred  Heart  Sodality in every parish—in Curry the Sodality men gathered outside the church, leaning on their bikes, smoking, spitting and chatting or watching the girls go by, until Mass began. The priests and nuns commanded great  respect, reverence and fear. The Parish Priests wielded enormous power, such as the appointment of teachers in Primary Schools, of which they were Managers They were the guardians of morality too, where company keeping especially was concerned, and  some of the more zealous “beat the bushes” at night, to dislodge the hapless lovers who might be lurking and canoodling there. I actually knew one such priest in Balla, Co. Mayo in the late 1940s 

 

 In Cully not far from the ball alley was a man called Jimmy Cahill, who ran a little ballroom, if one could call his glorified barn such grandiose name, but it was very popular since there was nowhere else in the area for young people to meet, dance and enjoy each other's company. However when a certain Jansenistic P.P. arrived in Curry,  he ordered Jimmy to close his “den of iniquity”which the unfortunate man did, and the boys and girls who used dance there left for”pagan” England. Many of them never came back. People were afraid then to disobey or cross the priest, as it was reckoned unlucky, so the clergy were put on a pedestal. Canon Blaine in Charlestown was a lovely, gentle priest, but not so his curate Fr. Kirwan, who had a vicious temper when roused. He  was saying Mass one Sunday when a child began making noise during the sermon. His reverence stopped, and seething with anger, he strode down the central aisle and ordered the parents to remove the child  [I witnessed this incident ] but when the little lad was next day  ill in bed,  raving and having nightmares, Fr. Kirwan had to go to their house, and offer the parents  profuse and abject apologies. What happened that Sunday was making a mockery of the words of Christ—“Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.”  Happily such unchristian attitude has changed completely,  the Church has become more human and family oriented, and children are particularly welcome, crying, making noise, or not.

 

The annual Mission in Curry church was always very well attended, even by people from miles away, after their hard day's work. The missioner—usually a Redemptorist—invariably thundered about company-keeping and sexual scandal,--a looked forward to sermon- and outside the church were stalls selling rosary beads, prayer books, statues, medals, holy pictures, candles and miscellaneous religious objects. Again, like so many things in my youth, this is a thing of the past. When I was about twelve, I went to school in Curry for a few months, while Cloonagh school was being renovated. . How I got there over three miles away, was on a held-together Humber “High Nelly “bicycle that sometimes let me down, as I pedalled along on a bumpy up-and-down road , and I am inordinately proud of the fact that, as a little girl  I was so brave, and without fear on that  journey on a long, lonely road, on my own..

 

On the subject of the church, a few amusing incidents come to mind. One Sunday Canon Gallagher the P.P. in Curry was droning on and on in his soporific voice, when a woman whispered to her neighbour “I left a cockeen in the poteen , an' it'll be gone up the chimley if he doesn't stop.” Canon Blaine in Charlestown often got lost in his homily, as if in a reverie, and one Sunday he stopped for so long that a woman said to the one beside her “He must have lost his papereen.”[ I actually overheard this!] This was in reference to the fact that the Canon usually had things written down—a sort of aide-memoire for his sermon. One Sunday however, after his usual interminable lengthy pause, he seemed to wake up suddenly and to the congregation's great surprise, and the end of a little snooze for some,  in a strong, loud voice he declared: “Let us ask ourselves, what are we workin' for”? What indeed? One of the eternal verities.

 

Then there was Fr. Eddie O'Hara, another P.P. In Charlestown,  who as far as I remember was an uncle of Mai McGowan, who married Uncle Louis.  He was a typical, natural, down to earth countryman, with no airs or graces, who spoke his mind, when the occasion demanded in the lingua franca of the people. One Sunday when he was saying Mass, --the priest then had his back to the congregation—and the choir on the gallery were somewhat unsuccessfully quavering out some difficult, new-fangled hymn, Fr. O'Hara turned  towards the Mass goers, and gesturing up to the gallery, he said loudly to the stricken choristers “Stop it. Stop it. There's some of ye up there think yer'e makin' a name for yeerselves with something new. Can't ye sing something fameeliar that we all know, like Daily. Daily.[This was from the hymn “Daily daily sing to Mary sing my soul a song of praise” Silence ensued, and then splutters of restrained laughter spread around the church. Another time, when talking about Judas, and his love of money, he said”Ye know, Judas held the purse, and when he had gone with the thirty pieces of silver about as far as from here to  the senthry box, etc. etc.” The said sentry box, an attractive little building with a pointed roof  was situated in the middle of the Square, like a diminutive kiosk, only that it was never open, but it must have been used in the past since I discovered recently that it contained weighing scales used on a market day to weigh the farmers' produce. Fr. O'Hara used local place names and analogies to make the Bible story more real and  interesting to his parishioners. He was a great G.A.A. fan,  and the new football stadium  in Charlestown, that was his brain child, built while he was P.P. was named after him. A popular priest he was much loved and respected by the people.

 

But back to Cully. The Nursery [ later we rather grandly called it The Grove ]was so called since it was once planted with trees, so that it would never be tilled for the good reason that it was the site of a  ringfort or dwelling place for several families in ancient times, including our ancestors , and so was looked on as belonging to the fairies or some preternatural beings. And thanks to the old people's pishrogues, many ringforts all over Ireland still exist- in Cloonagh too- practically intact. The Nursery was our playground. We carved our names on the tree trunks, made a swing between two trees, and a seesaw with a plank over a low ditch. It was a place of mystery, at night especially, filled with dark shadows and gnarled,  whispering trees, where you would never go on your own.

 

Both mother and father were brought up without learning or speaking Irish, albeit grandfather Jack was a fluent speaker, as was my grandmother, from the cradle. But being under British rule and forbidden our own language [ in order to make good loyal British subjects of us] she was brutally whipped in school for speaking her native language, and children were ordered to tell on  their parents if they spoke Irish at home. Incredible that I'm talking about only a century and a half ago, and indeed until we became a sovereign Republic in 1922. All of my father's uncles and relatives went to the U.S. Irish-speaking, so through the constant hemorrhage of emigration, we lost generations of our people and with them, our language, the badge of our identity. But that's all in the past, thank God..... And the language is still alive. All the Irish mother knew was “Ta cat beag ban ag teacht  isteach, ag teacht  isteach, 's luichin in a bheal aige” meaning “There's a small white cat coming in, coming in, and a little mouse in its mouth.”Hearing her say this was a source of amusement, and so was the time that grandmother lapsed into Irish one day when telling mother of some scandal, possibly about an unwed mother. A few of us were listening, enjoying the story, while poor mother didn't know a word of what grandmother was saying.

However our everyday Hiberno-English was peppered with words and sayings in Irish, by both parents, such as smacht, snas, amadan. Oinseach, spagai, dallog, bundunach [ A favourite of grandmother ] glanacht, meas, smig, raimeis, bothan and so many more—meaning control,  polish [not boot polish] idiot [male] idiot[ female], ungainly feet, blind man's buff, difficult/ awkward, clean-up, respect, chin,  nonsense and hovel. Alas, grandmother's beautiful Irish  died with her and she never spoke it to her children as they were destined for emigration, when it was useless, and English would get them somewhere.

 

Mrs. Swords, our teacher in Cloonagh was an Irish enthusiast, although she only learned it as an adult in the Gaeltacht [ the Irish-speaking part of Ireland.]Whenever a cigire [inspector ] was coming we wore a little paper “brat” [flag] with the words”Labhair Gaeilge liom.” [ Speak to me in Irish”] written  on the white band between the green and orange, and pinned  to our jumpers. Should she see the dreaded cigire  coming unexpectedly, she used get into a tizzy,  asking  us “what should we be at girls?”  rushing to  the clar ama [time table] on the wall—something that was never strictly adhered to. On our way home from school, she used come silently on her bike, and cycling past us say “a chailini, an gcloisim Bearla”? Girls, do I hear English”to which we gallantly replied “No, ni chloiseann” Oh, no, you don't” in order not to disappoint her. Some of the pupils were terrified of The Missus, as she was known, especially the unfortunates sitting in what became known as “the taibhse [ghost] desk”because she was perched there on the desk top while teaching, and her eagle eye had a grand stand view of all the mistakes and misspells, etc. those in the ghost seat were making. Hence it was avoided if at all possible. But she had a wry sense of humour as well as being strict. One particular day she was expelling two miscreants, following them to the door, with her cane, repeating -”amach abhaile” [out home] but, convulsed with restrained laughter,  she couldn't hide her amusement at seeing the pair on their way out dip their hands in the holy water font, and bless themselves. I was fourteen when I went to Tubbercurry, having been kept back for two years in seventh class, because the Missus wouldn't let me enter for the Co. Scholarship, knowing I would get it, and deprive both Ellie Egan and Maggie May Weaver, two of my class companions of scholarship quality,  the chance of winning  it. So  when I went to Tubbercurry I could have been put into Inter Cert. Class had I studied Latin and French, and I was nineteen, and older than the average, when going to University But then Life might have turned out differently.

 

While Curry was our parish, we usually went to Mass in Charlestown, where, as mentioned we did our grocery shopping in both Collerans and Donoghues. The latter had a thriving bakery, and Mai Feeley, mother's first cousin, was married to Jack Donoghue, She was a very handsome woman, and the soul of generosity. She died youngish, and years later Jack married another cousin of ours and of his first wife -- Josie Reilly, who was years younger than him. They had  five gorgeous sons, all now married, some in the U.S. and all had children—one has grandchildren, so Josie with whom I keep in contact, still lives in Charlestown, and is a great-grandmother. After Jack's death , she married Wally Keane, had a very happy marriage and one son. Charlestown is in both Co. Sligo and Co. Mayo,--divided by the railway line,  long since abandoned and grass grown -- the Sligo part being Bellaghy, where Mrs. Colleran and  Auntie B.A. lived. There was nothing much of interest in Bellaghy, except for a clog factory, that did brisk business, since all farming folk wore that  footwear. The clogs were made of strong, water-proof leather, had steel tips, and were both sturdy and warm, somewhat like the sabots I saw worn in France, south of the Loire. In Bellaghy, there were also the roofless ruins of a church, which was reputed to have lost its roof on the night of the Big Wind, in 1839. I presume it was then the present church was built.

 

Often on a Sunday afternoon, a visitor arrived. If it were a man, father took him to view and admire  the pigs, the crops, the garden and the cattle, after which there was a special high tea, and lots of chat between the adults. Johnny Walker's wife [Johnny was a first cousin of father, --their mothers were Dunne sisters] –often came on her bicycle from miles beyond Tubbercurry, off the Sligo road,-- and she was always very welcome.  A small, wiry little woman, she had lost a little finger  in an accident, and used take snuff that to us had a strange and exotic smell, and had  left a brownish patch between her nose and upper lip. She was the first and the only woman I ever saw taking snuff. She always came with a cake, or fruit or some goodies, that was  a custom in the West, and was much appreciated. One never went visiting, empty-handed, or as the saying went “with one arm as long as the other.” But what was appreciated most of all was her taking the trouble to cycle all that long way on the only day in the week that was a day of rest—some twelve miles each way—just to see and chat with mother.

 

I have mentioned some “characters” of my childhood—people who were different from the ordinary, but were blissfully unaware of it-- Among these were a brother and sister, Johnny and Annie Lukie [ I never knew their surname] who lived in happy and frugal celibacy in their tidy little thatched cottage on the side of the road to Charlestown. Johnny was a tall, rangy, commanding, almost military- looking  figure, who walked straight as a ramrod in his thunder -and -lightning suit, that was once of some dark material, but had become a sort of sludge green from age, and being aired only on a Sunday.   Why he walked so straight was in order  not to crease his good  leather Sunday boots, so polished you could almost see yourself in them. One scarcely ever saw Annie,  who was housekeeper, cook,  washer woman, and kept the fire going and  food on the table. Another of the odd-bods was Thomasheen Carty, who had a perpetual drip on the end of his nose, and at the ripe age of 55 decided to embark on matrimony. When after the ceremony in Curry church, he turned to his new bride, saying “Well now Bridget, we're wan”, she rejoined “Aye, so we are, but remember I'm the wan..” Their union was never consummated, as poor Thomasheen, stricken with fear, left her there and then, and lived happily ever after with his mother. Padraic used tell this yarn, so I never knew if it was true or not,  but certain it was that Thomasheen remained a bachelor. Another of Padraic's  yarns was of the mother whose child had died, telling the neighbours at the wake that there were little golden angels flying around  her bed.  “Moths they were of course”said Padraic!

 

About my years in grandmother's I have written at some length in The Story of a Family. I was there for perhaps two or more very happy years before Auntie Annie Kate entered the convent in 1932,  but then I was left in Cloonaughill an eight  year old little  girl-- with grandmother and Uncle Mike for another year or two, the reason being that Auntie had paid for piano lessons for me  in Charlestown, and a piano to practise on was in Cloonaughill, half way to the town. I had no one to play with and used think with longing about home, and all the fun they were having. To put it mildly, grandmother was a hard woman, to whom constant hard work, and making money –not forgetting the two Masses a day she attended when on holiday in Enniscrone—were all that mattered. I never remember any little kindness or “softness” in her, but was always sent out to do jobs like weeding the street, dibbling potatoes  [putting  them in holes made in the ridge with a wooden pointed implement by Uncle Mike] or picking blackheads-a weed harmful to cattle-- out of the new-mown grass and a lot of other odd jobs around and in  the house.

 

Anyhow the day came when I decided I had enough, and I escaped. It was the day of Corpus Christi, and both grandmother and Uncle Mike had gone to early Mass, leaving me in bed. It was a stormy morning, with the wind whistling and crying through windows and doors, the rain falling in torrents, and  the whole house shaking, or at least so I thought. To add to my distress was  St. Patrick on the wall over the bed,  looking very stern, and driving a pile of snakes in my direction. I got up, threw on some clothes, and away down the boreen towards the main road, not too sure which way to turn, when I got there. But I guessed the turn for Cully was left, opposite the Yank Durcan's. The rain had abated  somewhat, but another terror lay ahead. As I got near Cully ball alley Jimmy Cahill's bull had cut loose,  possibly maddened by the Summer storm, and was thundering down the hill towards me. So  to avoid being killed or mangled, I jumped over a low bridge at the butt of the hill, landing in the swollen stream. My clothes were torn, and I was bruised and bleeding, but I was alive, and the bull berserk, was careering away in the distance.  When I got home and to safety and met mother in her milking apron, I felt I had reached Heaven. It was the end of my sojourn in Cloonaughill. 

 

 One happy memory of my time there however  was the chat of locals who occasionally  came rambling at  night—Tom Grady, Isaac [Pat was his real name] Durcan, and  Joe Fleming from beyond the bog, all of whom could have walked out of the Old Testament, and told ghost stories that would make the hairs stand on your head. While I loved hearing them, I was both excited and afraid of going to bed afterwards. Joe Fleming, jolly, short and fat, was a  popular lilter, and  if there wasn't a musical instrument like a fiddle or melodeon, in a house  where house dances took place, he provided the music with his lilting. He once told me the  longest word in the English language, that after all those years, I haven't forgotten. Here it is:

            Trans-fan, muglifi-can, do-bo-ban-dan-ciality [Note the repetition of the “an” sound.....] 

Where did he get it? But seriously I now think it  such a pity I wasn't grown up enough to tape the night's proceedings, had I a tape recorder, and knew how to use it. Like grandmother's Irish, the yarns, nonsense rhymes  and ghost stories all died with their story tellers.

 

Some very pleasant memories of childhood in Cully are of what mother called “the daft half hour” before going to bed, when, homework over,  we sat around the fire, told stories, sang, did recitations, or   mimicry of some of the local characters. Doing an impression  of  father at confession to Canon Gallagher,  I mimicked the voices of both the penitent and the confessor, and father thoroughly enjoyed it. The half hour lasted an hour or more. It was such  innocent fun, when I come to think of it. Anthony Meehan was our next door neighbour, and my father' first cousin –his Aunt Nellie Jennings being Anthony's mother. In appearance they were a mirror image of each other,---the same clear  fresh skin, the same dark blue eyes, the same height and gait.. Anthony was a great talker, and a wit with a wicked sense of humour. He used boast about their cat being the best mouser in the townland, and one night when the neighbours were in his kitchen,”rambling”and the cat was snoozing beside the fire, a mouse darted across the hearth, but the cat merely yawned and went back to sleep.”So that's the famous mouser”said one of the company. “Sure” said Anthony” that mouse was one of our own.” Today, not a single stone of  that cosy  Meehan home remains.

 

Lelia and I were almost bosom companions when we were small children, and for a time, had a sort of made up language of our own that only we could understand. We were together in Primary school and for two years in Secondary, until  she went to Preparatory College in Tourmakeady, a very picturesque part of Mayo. After Leaving Cert,. She decided to do medicine, and we were together again in Galway University, until she went to do her hospital stint in Dublin before qualifying as a doctor. Then she got a hospital job in Liverpool, and as you know,  married Vincent and  stayed there until her death in 2010 although there was a time when she dreamed of coming back  and settling down in one of Erin's green fields. It  was a pipe dream of course—her husband, children and work as a doctor were in England..   In temperament, unlike myself, I must admit, she was easygoing, unruffled, even tempered,  patient, and took her time doing things, like the time at home when she was left in charge of getting the dinner for the meitheal [work group]  in the bog, one summer day. Meal time came, and Lelia had the wooden draining board scrubbed clean and everything spic and span, but there was no dinner. Of course it was helter skelter  then in a flurry of cooking, but even the hungry meitheal couldn't get cross with her. In the long ago in Primary school, Mrs. Swords used say on seeing Lelia arrive at her ease “mall, righin, socair, teacht an tseagail”--slow,  steady, unhurried like the coming of the rye]-a cereal that takes its time germinating. I daresay it was this calmness that made her such a good doctor. Although I seldom visited Liverpool, when she died, a part of my/our childhood, with all its happy memories died too. She was always taller than me, the ranai [a thin, lank person] of the family  but somehow it never bothered me.[ I must really have been a ranai, as Grandmother used say my wrists were like a wren's. I was intrigued that  tiny wrens had wrists like a person! ] Lelia's sense of humour never deserted her. One day in Liverpool, she was speeding along in a new car, of which she was very proud, when she was flagged down by a traffic policeman. When  she let down the window, he said “Madam, do you know you were doing over 60 m.p.h.?””Gosh. Was I really?What a terrific little car.” she replied. The confounded limb of the law scratched his head and waved her on. I believe she was a splendid and much loved doctor,--in fact I was told that if perchance  she wasn't on duty, some of her regular patients told the receptionist they'd wait for Dr. Jennings herself.

 

In our teens we  were all blissfully innocent or rather ignorant of sex, procreation  or what was then coyly called The Facts of Life, something one didn't expect of anyone brought up on a farm where life was in the raw. But I  thought the cock was murdering the poor  hen, meekly accepting  her fate when he was  piggy back on top of her, and used  always shoo him away. As for a cow being taken to the bull, I hadn't a clue as to what was the purpose, and ditto for a bossy ram among the submissive sheep.  In Secondary school most of the girls must not have been quite so ignorant, if one can presume from going to Confession to Fr. Domnic Casey, the convent chaplain,  who invariably asked “Are you 19 my child? And did you sin by yourself”?--very puzzling and unnecessary questions, I thought, when no pupil was ever as old as 19, and if you stole something, you were surely on your own! Oh, happy days!

 

 Speaking of hens, we had some 80 or so,  that provided  sufficient for the table, and a basketful of several dozen for sale on Sunday  in Collerans, where they were collected by our cousin James Feely, who had an egg exporting business from his home in Dawris to Birmingham. The hens seemed to have human traits. It was amusing to hear their crooning wonder and happy clucking, returning to the hen house after it was whitewashed inside and out, and spring cleaned with fresh bedding, and they took their place quietly and happily, without any quarrelling, at once on the perches. There was one pet hen, called Nellie. She was blind, after an assault by  one of the pigs, and used come along by the wall to the kitchen to be fed, lay her offering, and plod off again by the wall. Still on eggs and “characters” Mrs. Dame Brennan, married to a distant cousin of ours, who shared the spring ploughing every year with father, had a mean, calculating, hard-looking face, and was herself related to Pat Murtagh  [Auntie B.A.'s husband.] She too sold eggs in Collerans but never seemed to have the exact count, being usually a few eggs short. This she admitted,  promising to replace them “when the little red hen would lay.”But Mrs. Colleran waited  and waited forever for that little red hen to oblige! Mrs. Dame wasn't too complimentary on occasion, like the time she told a neighbouring woman  who was wearing her best coat she had got in an American parcel, and expected a compliment--”Well, I suppose 'twas nice whin 'twas new.”said Mrs. Dame.

 

Returning to Cloonagh school and more about the Missus, in third class we were learning about fractions, which were still a bit of a mystery to me, and one day she sent me to the blackboard   to unravel a fraction mystery. I soon got stuck, and she prompted with”agus anois” [and now] to encourage me, so I chanced “iompuigh bun os cionn e.”[turn it upside down ] “An ea”? [indeed?] said she with “Ora, iompochaidh  me bun os cionn thu”[ Oh, Ill turn you upside down ] but I got away with not being up ended that day, and actually got to love fractions. One of the girls, Maura Breathnach had a long way to come to school, living closer to Charlestown, but she was easygoing, and was often late. On one occasion, arriving later than usual, she announced to the Missus “Thainic me” [ I've come/arrived ] “Ora, thainic tu. If there was a cloud on Nephin –[a mountain in Mayo]—Maura  would hug the bed.”On that occasion, I hope poor Maura did not feel the sting of the cane.  Wielding the cane with vigour was commonplace when I was in primary school, and Mike Francis Swords , [related to Mrs. Swords's husband,] who taught next door in the Boys' Infant school—from infants up to Second Class---was an utter savage, who should never be let near school children of any age, he was so cruel and heartless. I once saw a little boy staggering  on the road home, his legs pouring blood  from the beating he got.  Indeed as far as I can remember, the said savage once hit Laurence [  Larry] so badly on the head, his hearing was affected, and one day Mother had to go part of the way to school with him, he was so afraid of  the teacher. Today that teacher would be before a court of law, but unfortunately many  parents  then told their children they must have deserved  the punishment. Again today people know their rights, and physical punishment is completely banned.

 

 Religion and prayers were very much part of Mrs. Swords's life, and consequently of her teaching. In the evening before going home she  and all of us recited several prayers, including the “De Profundis in Irish, and then she was up on her bike with a load of copy books on the carrier for correcting, and the long road to Charlestown still lay before her. She was truly heroic, and a great teacher  whom our family can thank for so much. She had no children, but looked on us, the pupils as her own, she told me in later life. She was married to Thomas, a short fat little man, [she was tall and gangly] who was a retired teacher and  had taught in Cloonagh They lived in Charlestown, and when the poor man was suffering from Alzheimers, then called senility, he used go out in the street at night starkers,  singing and bawling at the top of his voice. Of course he was happily unaware of what was happening, but it must have been a nightmare for her. And there was the long road to school again to face in the morning.

 

Like many country people then, father -as well as mother - was knowledgeable about cures, potions  and remedies, and in Spring he gave us a concoction of sulphur and molasses or treacle, to clear out the system, and purify the blood.. The mixture  was gravelly to taste and we hated it. So too was the senna tea [are today's Senokot  tablets related to it?] we were made drink for the proper functioning of the bowels. This had a sickly, horrible  taste  that I can never forget, but it was de rigueur. Goose-grease rubbed into painful or pulled  muscles was another remedy, and there were lots of others. If one had a splitting headache, a wet cloth was put on the forehead. A half-crown coin pressed against a bump on the forehead reduced the swelling and the pain. Gargling with salty water cured a sore throat,  a poultice of white bread, fat bacon or  dampened oatmeal mixture applied to a running sore cleaned it up, and so on. Tablets were unknown, or cough bottles or indeed anything from a pharmacy, and we all survived!  Once when mother had a painful varicose -ulcerated leg, which looked dreadfully raw and swollen, father applied a poultice made up of  wild herbs he collected in the fields and pounded up with unsalted butter, and I don't know what else. Keeping her leg raised for several days,  after a few applications of the mysterious concoction, the ulcer disappeared completely, leaving the skin fresh and clean.  Seemingly father had got the remedy from a wise woman who lived  beyond the Mullaghanoe river and had the reputation of being gifted with  healing powers. Unfortunately father went to his grave without divulging the secret cure to anyone.

 

No one ever talked about the Famine or of the 1916 Rising when I was in Primary school, and began to learn Irish  history. I remember asking mother about the shootings and atrocities  that happened in  Easter week 1916,  how did she feel about such tragedies, and did they affect her life, to which she said she was so busy with home and children, and by then expecting her fourth child, she was scarcely aware that Irish history was  being made. And no wonder. By 1916 she had three small children, all under three years of age, but I was talking to a man who was himself a child during the Great Famine of 1845—48 This was Jimmy Dunne  from Cloonagh, who was in his late eighties at the time, and I was a ten-year old or thereabouts. He was an extraordinary man for his age, healthy and red-cheeked, and with a razor-sharp mind and total recall of the misery, poverty  and degradation of people that followed the famine. He told me that the road we knew as The New  Line-- the road left from Cully  ball alley to Banada, and Enniscrone eventually, was made during the Famine, and called Stirabout Road , as a day's pay was a small bag of meal, on which the road workers and  their  families survived .I felt very privileged and humbled, and still do,  to have known a survivor of the mid 19^th century Famine. It was like touching History.

 

An incident that showed mother's presence of mind in a crisis situation was the evening I was putting our bullocks into the nursery after collecting them from a field beyond the main road, and one of them stubbornly refused to go in with the rest. Then to my shock/horror, he turned and made for me, pinning me up against the ditch—I can still visualise his hairy, horny head hard against my chest. It had been raining earlier, and the ground was wet and mucky. In terror I slipped and knew this time he was going to gore me to death, as he had retreated a few yards,  head lowered to get a good go at me. While he was coming again I raced to the house screaming and gibbering. Mother met me at the door, and gave me a good hard slap on the cheek,  instead of hugging me. I couldn't believe it. Mother who never hit me, had slapped me hard,  and with that, the fright and shock of the mad bullock attack were gone, and I was back to myself. How she knew to treat her hysterical child still baffles me. Incidentally the  crazed bullock was a neighbour's, that had roamed into our field...

....

 Laurence [Larry] and Cathal were good  pals, there being only a year and half between them, and like the rest of us were a great help to father when so many  of us were away in school.  Cathal was only twelve when mother died, and a sad scene comes to mind of him  kneeling beside her bed, weeping his heart out as she lay dying. Grandmother who was standing, erect  beside the bed, while mother was in her death throes, suddenly announced in a loud voice “There's someone of you holding your mother back. Let her go. Let her go.”Then mother just slipped peacefully away, and for some reason I have always thought it was Cathal, who  grief-stricken, didn't want her to die. Hers was the first and only death I have witnessed. Tragedy was to strike when he himself died at the age of eighteen, in Sligo hospital from meningitis, for which there was no penicillin at the time. He had been in the Marist College in Dundalk, in Leaving Cert  year, was a very good student, and had expressed a wish to become a priest. He had what seemed like a bad flu  earlier that year at college, but was never properly seen to by whatever doctor attended the college. In fact he was grossly neglected, and we knew nothing about it until he came home at Easter, pale and gaunt. He died on Christmas Day 1948—the youngest and the first of the family to die—a tall, handsome, promising young lad –and is buried in Rhue graveyard, with mother and with father,  who joined both of them in 1953.

 

Laurence too was an excellent help on the farm, and like Cathal grew tall, athletic and good-looking. He spent a few years in Ballaghadereen College, after which he worked  in Dublin for Joe, who had returned from England, and learned the skills of building and carpentry. He was adept at the latter, and developed a very successful business in Chicago, where he had settled down, married Mary ,McNicholas from Co. Mayo,  reared a wonderful family, all of whom married, and have given him beautiful, multi-ethnic grandchildren. His beloved Mary died in 2004  after which he retired, enjoys a game of golf, and visits to Croatia, where one of his sons in law hails from. Apart from myself he is the only one left of the gang-of-twelve, and is hale and hearty at 86, despite a serious heart operation some two years ago. A memory of him at home in Cully as a young man is of teaching me the tango around the kitchen, making sure not to kick any buckets,  pots or pans. He was a beautiful dancer and must have been a good teacher. The tango is still my favourite dance.

 

Looking back on this”boithrin na smaointe” [memory road ] at childhood and life in Cully, I marvel at how our parents managed to rear,  have educated and give high standards to so many children. Potatoes, vegetables, butter, milk, cream, fruit, poultry, eggs, bacon, etc. we produced, so we were practically self sufficient in that respect. The words “free range” and “organic”were not in our vocabulary. Mother was practical and resourceful and was gifted at sewing and dress making. She made all of our clothes when we were children, patched and darned and mended. Also on a homemade wooden frame she stitched together in a herring bone design a double layer of thick wool material to make warm quilts for the beds. As for material for making clothes,  the owner of  a drapery shop in Charlestown, a Mrs. Brennan, who had no children of her own, and knew mother's need, always kept certain  remnants and “ends” of woollen, linen, and  cotton fabrics specially for mother  at a give- away bargain  price. They were great friends, and her shop was like going to a neighbour's. As for father,  his work was never done, until he had  to retire from heart trouble in his early seventies. Farm work was back -breakingly  repetitive—breaking limestones, and burning them in a lime kiln-ours was in a field beyond the main road- until they were reduced to powdered lime to“sweeten”and enrich  the land, and ploughing,  harrowing, spring sowing, hay making, cutting and saving turf, harvesting, stacking  stooks of oats into pyramid-shaped ricks in the haggard, threshing wheat and oats, winnowing the grain, digging potatoes, mending fences, and so on. Since it was inevitable all these jobs had to be done, there was no great drama about the work. As well as all that, father mended our shoes, soled and heeled them, and  cut the boys' hair Without such industry one could not live even in frugal comfort. It seems extraordinary to me  now that  my parents never stood in a Bank, never handled a cheque book, and wonder of wonders,  never owed anyone a penny. So they certainly lived within their means, philosophically from day to day, trusting in divine providence—my mother's acceptance of her lot, and the bringing up  of her houseful, always being “God will provide” And somehow, He did. All of us in turn, shared those chores from early years, but as it was  working with a meitheal, even picking stones [ a hateful job] before the ploughing of a lea field was not hardship. Work was hard, but we had fun too, and  each other's companionship. We were young, strong,  healthy, full of  energy, and there was always the  magical, nebulous mirage of something called the Future  that lay ahead, when one's wishes came true, with all our hopes and  dreams of happiness.

 

I have mentioned Cloonagh school, and the huge influence of the wonderfully comprehensive education provided for pupils there,--mainly in the girls' division, it must be admitted-- in a very rural part of the country.  As to its story, it was built in 1878, the year Our Lady appeared at Knock, Padraic Pearse was born, and my father was a year old. The building, divided in two parts-- one for girls, the other for boys—would certainly not merit any award today for architectural excellence, having merely two rooms in each division, with an open fireplace in each –the luxury of central heating was light years away—and an outside dry toilet in each of the two yards adjoining the school,--  primitive conditions in today's sophisticated eyes, albeit basic 136 years ago, when the largesse of British rule was in short supply, and there was no school within three to four miles away. However, Cloonagh school catered for a large population from the neighbouring villages, to whom it must have been a welcome addition at the time.

 

 

It remained gender-divided until 1946, when World War Two had taken its toll of the people through emigration, and eventually because of seriously falling numbers, it was closed in 1975, and later purchased by some local people, and transformed into a modern and beautiful Community Centre. To provide heating in what was an open grate in my childhood, we children had to bring two sods of turf each day, a custom that was replaced in more enlightened times by  a cartload of turf per family, per annum. The two rooms, one for Junior,  the other for Senior pupils, was divided by a half-glass, half-wooden partition, and the average attendance was 80 to 100 children. But where did those in the Senior half all sit, or how did The Missus conduct classes for children from Third to Seventh grade?  The only solution was that half of them sat in the desks, writing, studying, or reading, while  the other half stood in a half circle, being taught. I remember so well the chalk line on the floor, and have often wondered since did the saying “to toe the line” derive from it, or indeed was the chalk line  the situation in other schools too.

 

However it was not the building  itself that mattered but the quality of the teaching, which in my time was first class. My Auntie who taught in the Junior division there from 1923 to 1932  was “a born teacher” who loved her work and her little charges, and gave of herself and her talents so generously during those years before she entered the Marists, by which time I had graduated into Mrs Swords's class. Proof of the latter's success is that she was twice awarded the much -coveted Carlisle and Blake Premium Award for excellence in teaching—something that must have been the envy of other schools in the parish who referred scathingly to Cloonagh as “the Academy inside Bogs” Undoubtedly she deserved the signal honour of the award,  and there were certainly many children, including our own family, who would never have had the chance of Second Level education without winning a County Scholarship, thanks to her hard work, interest and dedication. 

 

 

One might call Cloonagh an all Irish school then, the day beginning with the “paidrin pairteach”or Rosary, followed by the roll call, to which one answered “annseo”meaning “present”when your name as Gaeilge was read out,. followed by whatever subjects, all of which were as Gaeilge, apart from English. However, the curriculum was wide, as the usual subjects apart, it included practical ones such as cookery, needlework, darning, knitting,and cutting out patterns all of which would be not alone useful, but vital in the lives of most of the pupils, and  thereby, the Missus was unwittingly “streaming”the girls' education for the future. Miss Rogan, Domestic Science Inspector, came on an annual inspection, to judge the cookery, and I often think of the culinary miracles performed then to the highest standards, under the most basic and indeed primitive conditions—no electricity, no running water, except what was ferried from Meehan's spring well, and the “cooks” were spotlessly arrayed in white starched aprons, cuffs and head bands. Such finery in a little country school.

 

Added to all of these, Nature Study and the pressing of flowers and plants into special copies was another interest, involving the out of doors, which we all loved. To sum up, thanks to our splendid teachers, --my Auntie in Junior school and the Missus in Senior—it is no wonder Lelia wrote in the History of the School ”Cloonagh was my first University” Teaching  for the most part was then “chalk and talk”and one day,  to our delight, [God forgive us ] the Missus had lost her voice, and could only whisper, so the day turned into a sort of holiday, and there was no “cuir amach do lamh”-”put out your hand” for the regulation swish of the cane, which for some unfortunates was then a daily occurrence in all schools, who firmly believed  in the truth of  the dictum “spare the rod, and spoil the child” Usually at the end of a long day, she would say in a strangled voice “ta pioblach orm.”[ I am hoarse ] and as a teacher myself later, sometimes suffering from “clergyman's/teacher's throat” I can only sympathise.  As for the physical punishment, it was demeaning not only for the child,  but for the teacher  as well.ot far from the school lived Johnnie Michael  who wore the same string around his neck for years, to ward off flus and colds, which it apparently did.  A field away from the school was Pat Biddy's[ Pat Swords's ] little shop in his neat little house. Pat was a bachelor,  and his brother Thomas, who had once taught in Cloonagh was married to the Missus. In a tiny room off the kitchen he stocked the usual paraffin, candles, meal, flour, bread,  and to the joy of his regular customers from the school, large shiny cans [ with lids] of hard glace sweets in rainbow colours- two dozen  a penny in a twist of paper, and big, round farthing biscuits [ four for a penny] studded with currants.  His many school regulars were often treated to thick slices of fresh pan loaf, covered in country butter. Nothing ever tasted so wonderful, and certainly  today's grand sophisticated Supermarkets could never compete. All of these necessaries and delights Pat must have brought from town in a donkey cart, as he had no other mode of conveyance. In memory of those happy long ago days, here is a little poem I wrote about the month of Mary, always celebrated with hymns and prayers.

May Days

 

A May altar on the mantel top

above the empty grate

ablaze with gorse-blossom..

A plaster Virgin enthroned in tulle,

like a bride..

flanked by  primroses, bluebells,

buttercups in glass jars.

An overpowering smell of paraffin

from the red-globed lamp

that smokes.

Girlish voices chorusing

“I'll sing a hymn to Mary”..

My arms freckled, legs bare,

in new Summer dress and sandals.

The sun streaming

through cracked panes,

past the dusty blackboard,

the coloured map of Europe,

curling at the edge,

its shiny fabric

slashed by pointer-marks.

The scent of new-mown grass

in Meehan's field,

drifting like incense through the window........

 

I have made little reference so far to my days in Secondary school, as if they had never happened, perhaps because childhood in Primary school took such precedence in memory. Boarding at the Marist Convent in Tubbercurry, eight miles away, had its advantages, in that one was safe and secure there, although I missed home comforts a lot at the beginning, Moreover one did not have to brave the elements on a shaky bicycle all those long miles away..However I loved  the classes,  the novelty of new languages, and  meeting new girls, but I was not so enamoured of  the rigidity and routine of being one of the herd, as it were, without  personal identity, character or personality  In my time there 1938-1943,  although World War Two was raging in Europe during  four of those years, we knew absolutely nothing of the obscenities, concentration camps, gas chambers, the mass slaughter of so many millions, or that the madman Hitler was jackbooting all over Europe. Perhaps it was as well we were not aware of these horrors,  blissfully cocooned as we were, in a convent school, with no radio, no newspapers,  in  little, peaceful Ireland, and later  I was greatly shocked to learn the reality of what really happened in their country,  from Polish students at  Galway University, who had managed to escape the slaughter, although a few had witnessed it.

 

Being wartime, we boarders were on scant, skimpy wartime rations, and were always hungry, so parcels from home were  eagerly looked forward to, like  manna from Heaven, and nothing ever tasted so deliciously forbidden than a hunk of porter cake dotted with raisins, consumed at night in bed in the dormitory  Some of the girls took back from home bottles of Scott's Emulsion, Parrishes Food, and cod liver oil, to make up for the vitamin  deficiencies in the convent menu, even boxes of eggs that were  kept in the refectory, one's name written on them and boiled [bullet hard too often] in the kitchen. Lelia who was still there before going to Prep. School, and because of the iron rations, the often poor quality of the food, and  growing tall at the time, fell victim to a lack of calcium, her nails were falling out and she became anaemic.  She did not fully recover until she went to Tourmakeady, where the food was excellent. In winter the cold was almost unbearable, and one thought with longing of the big, roasting fire at home, as one sat on the antediluvian radiators to keep the blood in circulation. It was chilblain weather, and I recall poking at my swollen chilblained  feet with the point of my compass, to relieve the dreadful itch. Another memory is of curling up one's frozen feet under one in bed in an effort to thaw out, and it seemed one had only fallen asleep, when Sr. Leo, in her crackly voice intoned “Benedicamus Dominum”[ Let us bless the Lord ]and we responded  with a sleepy “Deo gratias”[ Thanks be to God”] and it was morning.

 

Then it was a scramble to the “lingerie” [the Marist Order was originally French] the area outside the dormitory with a double row of hand basins and our lockers, where we endeavoured to wash  modestly under our dressing gowns, that had an unfortunate habit of slipping off. And so the day began with Mass in the beautiful little convent chapel,  followed by breakfast, a hymn and prayers before class began, and then to the day's routine. In the evening, partitions between the class rooms were folded over to form the Study Hall, where study began, under the eagle eye of Sr. Dominic, Mistress of Schools, sitting  in majesty at her high desk. Sometimes to check on the proceedings, she patrolled down the Hall with a little ahem, a flick of her veil, and a swish of the large  rosary beads dangling  on her hip. Our cousin, Evelyn Gallagher told me that once when she was idling during evening study, and Dominic was on the war path,  she began mouthing silently and earnestly the Hail Mary as Gaeilge to give the impression of a model, studious, conscientious student.

 

For its time and limited finances, the school curriculum included  the cultural and the  physical, providing for both body and soul-the “mens sana in corpore sano”of the ancients. We had two choirs, and two orchestras  -Junior and Senior-and an operetta was performed every year. Piano, violin, and  violoncello lessons were available extras, and the piano exams were examined for many years by a Mr. Weaving, a stern  elderly gentleman, who struck fear into many of us awaiting our fate.  In reality he was a courtly and fair-minded examiner. He even passed our performance. My piano teacher, Miss Slevin from Omagh had little patience with her pupils, unlike Sr. Peter who was ladylike, gentle and encouraging, and while I got Honours in the singing exam, I never wanted to sing, or even hear again  the song  I had learned, as  I associated it with fear, sarcasm and  swollen tonsils that were operated on in Sligo hospital. Incidentally, being put to sleep with ether was an unnerving, surreal experience I never wanted repeated. The annual operetta meant missing class in order to practise, and we loved the dressing up, the stage make- up and playing to a public audience. On one occasion  there was a Japanese -themed operetta with a power-obsessed emperor who boomed out arrogantly  “I am the high and mighty Hokey, Cokey, Lippy Lippy LopLop”/all disobedience by beheading I soon stop, stop, and in one scene a timid little, first -year girl had to prostrate herself in humble obeisance to the mighty emperor. But to everyone's consternation, she stayed on the floor, unable to get up, and when she was helped to her feet, there was a telltale puddle on the stage floor. Stage fright sometimes does take a lot out of one....

 

On warm sunny days we went “up the rocks” through a hilly field strewn with boulders, past Fr. Casey's house, and on to a level area, where we played tennis, camogie and rounders. When playing camogie, whenever the ball came her way,  Lelia begged her opponent to wait a minute until she got s good whack at it, but I'm afraid nobody ever obliged...  She was  good  at swimming and diving in our own river, and years later at golf and skiing  In wet, wintry weather, our exercise was in the recreation Hall,  and whoever was acting the female dance partner, put her school tie on her back.  Our initial introduction to the Rec. Hall was “the cats' concert”  when the Bun Rangs, or new girls, had to perform for the entertainment of the whole school. Each one had to have a party piece—a song, recitation, poem or dance. It was a gruelling experience for the newcomers, but, with hindsight, a good preparation for performing in public in later life. On the practical side there was the mending session, when we darned our stockings, sewed on buttons, and tidied our lockers. Sr. Leo supervised the mending, making a close examination of our handiwork, and when she discovered a little hole in the stocking or fabric that had been overlooked, she clucked “dear, oh dear” looking at one sorrowfully, and enlarging the damage with her index finger poked through it. She was really a kind and patient soul and of an age to be retired.

 

Culture and good manners were high on the agenda for  Sr. Dominic, who gave us a weekly session called “points” of table etiquette, ladylike behaviour  and social interaction in general. We had to watch our language too, never uttering something as vulgar as having a good “feed”or the word “musha”that belied our rural origin. Her command of Irish was poor, and Irishisms and slang words offended her, and one day when she reprimanded Mary Crean, a lively girl from Mayo for using the expression “arrah musha” the quick  rejoinder was “arrah musha Sister, what harm is it?” Still on language,  Latin, like other subjects was taught through Irish, but our teacher, Mrs. Cunnane's knowledge of the language was scant, and one day  translating “the  soldiers came out of battle” from Latin, she said “thainic na sa-duiri as an mbuideal” mispronouncing the word “saighdiuiri”and having them, like the genii coming out of a bottle.....The “arrah musha”Mayo girl came back one time with her hair pinned up into little rolls and tresses a la some current film star, and was quickly ordered by Sr. Dominic to  remove the creation, so unbecoming in a Marist girl.

 

In the convent then, as in many convents, the Marist community was divided into “choir nuns” and “lay nuns”or in other words those who had second level education, and those who hadn't.  They dressed differently, they even walked in two separate groups at recreation which I found all wrong, my sense of justice was offended and I remember telling one of the choir nuns that  I thought such attitude was  heartless and unchristian--total discrimination. Actually the change to wearing the same habit etc. was to come years later. The lay nuns did all the chores-- cleaning of toilets, baths, cooking, sweeping, dusting, washing, and looking after our laundry. They were all lovely, helpful and kind, especially Sr. Laurence, a Londoner [with a charming accent] from some upper class family who deliberately chose to be a lay nun. On their daily perambulation to the convent cemetery, half of the nuns walked facing the other half, so that one group was walking backwards, something that's not that easy. This was reversed, of course on the return journey.

 

We boarders went for a long walk on fine days, out all the approach roads in turn—towards Ballina, Ballymote, Charlestown, Sligo—headed by a nun, and walking in twos, with a change of walking companion on each walk, which I thought  sensible, so that one didn't become “buailte”  [struck] on the same girl, which could and did happen. Moreover it was right to mix with other classes, other pupils, and get to know them. While I was a boarder, Sr. Venantius was Principal in the Primary school,  and taught Domestic Economy in the Secondary, This included  a practical cookery class, and she always turned a blind eye to our scoffing what we had cooked, and to the fact one day that one of the girls, standing near the cooker, had a large greasy patch spreading on the pocket of her apron, that she had stuffed with filched butter rolls....Auntie V. was well aware of our meagre meals in the refectory, but she told me many years later, that the nuns were given the exact same fare. One of the young nuns, S.r.  Jarlath  who was very pretty,  often looked unhappy and eventually left, but had the temerity [ the nuns thought, I would say the courage] to return at a later date to a dance in St. Brigid's Hall in town, adjacent to the convent,  where she took the floor, “tripping the light fantastic” with exuberance.

 

When it came to leaving school, there were very few options open to us as to a future career, however well we got on in the Leaving Cert exam. These were  basically teaching,  nursing, the Civil Service, office work, Domestic Economy, the Bank, or of course joining the Order, and being looked after for life. One could never aspire financially to anything so elevated as medicine or  law, and  I have often wondered how Lelia succeeded  in doing medicine. Today's pupils are certainly spoiled for choice, having Career Guidance Counsellors  and a very wide number of options. However,  each  girl eventually found her niche in life, and was fulfilled, as I discovered at a Past Pupils' get together a few years ago.  Today, the convent  building is still there on a hill dominating the town, and has been transformed at a cost of 10-12 million Euro by the Sophia Social Housing Group into 30 units for the homeless. A new small convent where some ten elderly nuns live, was built in the convent grounds, and there is still room for private development. A fine, new, modern, well-equipped school has been built on a green- field site a short distance away. “The old order changeth,  giving place to the new” with a vengeance, as a new more prosperous, progressive Ireland has emerged,  and the now -aged school girls of the forties are left with their memories. But I still see those girls and class companions, and those nuns exactly as they were in the middle forties. They have not aged, but stay  forever --the nuns in a dark  blue and cream habit  that  today  has long become  outmoded, the girls in navy gym slips or pleated skirts, jumpers and long, black stockings—although I know that many are no longer with us, or  like myself, are teetering on the edge of the grave.

And as I go about my daily routine, I sometimes find myself humming a hymn to our guardian angel,  we used sing at term break, and at the end of the school year::Here is the last verse::

 

“Dear angel, guide my feet. I come

each moment closer to the brink.

 It may be I am nearer ho-ome

today, dear angel than I think.”                                                  And, yes indeed, it may be.......

                                                      .....  

                    The years since our childhood and teenage years have brought so many enormous changes, one realises  that it was in another era, another time and  another Ireland when story telling, card playing, music making, hand ball and pitch-and-toss schools and home made entertainment now seem like a dream. It was a chapter in our history too when Ireland was emerging from an impoverished and disadvantaged past, and people, like our parents  were beginning to be aware of  the value of education. For me those years are now peopled with ghosts---of parents, brothers and sisters, relatives, friends and companions, and now especially of Alec  and Niall—and I'm beginning to feel like Maurya in Synge's “Riders to the sea” when she intoned “They are all gone now, and there's nothing more the sea can do to me”of her sons who were all drowned, substituting “life” for “sea”  Mother's death was devastating for all of us, but especially for poor father, who had lost his love and best friend, wife and companion for over 31 years, who had gallantly weathered the storms of life with him. He had no one to talk to in the sad and  and lonely years until he joined her. Joe took him to Dublin for a few months, but he did not take to city life, and came home to die in his own bed.  Fortunately Lelia, then qualified, was with him at the end.

 

When mother came home from the Mater hospital in Dublin,1941, where she was operated on for a cancerous tumour, I stayed at home for  about a term, to look after her, during which time I read nearly all of Dickens's masterpieces, that I got from the convent library. As the months went on, she became more emaciated and bedridden, and when Lelia came home at Easter of 1943, she went immediately upstairs to see her, and was chatting away to her in the dark. But when the light was switched on,  Lelia ran downstairs screaming hysterically that the old crone in the bed was not mother, but Miss Mulligan, a gaunt and wrinkled, shrivelled old lady who lived in Charlestown-- the awful  physical change in her was so traumatic and shocking. At Easter we knew Mother was   going to die,  and  grief-stricken, asked her would she remember us in Heaven. Her answer was “Sure what else would I be doing” For her an eternity of idleness would be a novel experience. She  died on June 13^th, feast of St. Anthony, to whom she had great devotion,-she was only 55- and on the day of her funeral, I was doing Leaving Cert English, so in the morning I did Paper 1  then went out to Rhue for her burial,  and returned to do Paper 11.  I must have made up a lot of what I wrote that day,  but anyway when the results came out, I had got an all Honours Leaving Cert.

 

 My sorrow now is that she, and father too, did not live  to enjoy a little pampering in return for all they did  for us, and  for all they denied themselves so generously during their lives. Not that one can ever ever repay one's parents. But we are left with the memory of how privileged and  fortunate we were in being their children, and to have known their care, goodness, courage  and love. Their faith and trust in God were unshakeable, and they lived it.  There was the ritual of the nightly family Rosary, even when mother was half asleep from tiredness, and every morning father knelt at a chair in the kitchen saying his morning prayers. They accepted the strict Lenten fast religiously, when only one full meal and two “collations”was the norm, and the black fast days of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday,  without a murmur, when milk and butter were forbidden. At that time, not alone during Lent,  one had to be fasting from midnight on Saturday,  if one were going to Communion the next day, and  in Lent poor father was always starving on the journey home from last Mass. To add to his hunger and  bad humour, he couldn't even light his pipe, having given up smoking for the Lenten forty days.

 

  It was a sad, empty, and lonely house in the months that followed mother's death, and I was at home not knowing what I was going to do, or what the future held, when one day in November, Mai and I chanced to meet Fr. Mc Carrick in town—he was the Diocesan Religion Examiner, who had examined us in Cloonagh, and we knew him well.. When he heard that I was still at home, he said  I  should be in Galway University, and to get  there immediately. With Mai's generous help I did, late in the term,  arriving in mourning clothes, and feeling lost and bereft.

 

A new life and the great, big wide world were opening up to me.   Ach sin sceal eile—but that's another story!

 

Aileen—The “een”at the end of some words .like papereen, poteen, cockeen etc. derives  from  the Irish “ in” the diminutive of a word..

 

“Wirra. Wirra” used by Auntie B.A. is the Anglicised  form and the vocative case of “A Mhuire” meaning “Oh, Mary” –the Blessed Virgin, and so is a prayer.

 

With much love to you Aileen for travelling this journey  with me to the dear, dead years of  the past--

                      from  your ancient Auntie Vera

                              Cartronkeel House, Moate,

                                   Co. Westmeath.   November/December 2014

                   

                              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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