by Virtual Gathering
As I walked through the village of Coolderry, Co Offaly the strong scent of the fully-grown palm trees brought me back to my childhood in Barraduff. I then found myself recalling memories that had been stored away. I enjoyed reliving them again and sharing them with my own family. There are so many neighbours, friends, community events and activities which holds memories of fun, freedom, laughter and togetherness. I began thinking of those hazy days of summer where we, as children, and later as self-conscious teenagers, would bask under the leafy greens dreaming of our end of summer glowing tans – only to be interrupted by a bucket of cold water poured over us by adventurous brother Pat and partners-in-crime, cousins Liam Walsh and Barry Delaney. Before we knew it a fully pledged water fight had begun. As I was the competitive type, I was never left unprepared for such attacks. I’d have the girl’s ammunition ready and available at different hiding spots. Dangers of falling off the garage roof didn’t seem to come to mind after successfully dousing the lads from above. The chase would run through from the front door to the back, upstairs, downstairs, in and out and all around the garden. My poor mother in the kitchen jokingly waving a wooden spoon would eventually join in the banter. All would end as we surrendered around the kitchen table for a feed of Mom’s griddle bread, the “real” Kerrygold butter and jam. Only on one occasion can I recall the water fight ending poorly. I was caught unawares. It was a revenge attack on my strategic planning. Pat, the leader, took my top half, Barry the left leg and Liam the right. I can still remember the roars and yelps as they carried me up the back field and hovered me over the cattle trough. The last time the hill heard such screams and shouts was the killing of our pet pig a couple of Christmasses previously. As the three took delight in their impending success, I was gradually lowered into the slimy green water. With the imaginary waving of my white flag, they gloried in their eventual success.
One of five girls and one boy and raised on our family farm, we had no choice but to pull up our sleeves, leave our fancy nails at the beauticians and our complaints in our bellies. I can always remember the summer holidays. The three small ones (myself and my two younger sisters) slept in single beds in the room opposite our parents. My Dad would enter the room, and even though the sun had woken us a lot earlier, we dared not stir in our beds. Eyes closed, pretending to be in a deep slumber – for it was the one that moved who would be the one to face the milking that morning. Failing this, he would pull the toes of the chosen one. The moans and groans would end in the realisation that there was no point complaining. To be fair, Dad would have given us all the same “training”. As a mother of four young children, I can now appreciate the privilege of growing up on a farm. We dared not mention the word “bored” for a list of jobs would be proposed. We were certainly not afraid of hard work. Part of the morning ritual was going on “the rounds” with Dad. Though sometimes tough, we enjoyed meeting the neighbours and taking advantage of their generous nature as they shared their drinks cabinet and biscuit jars – a rare commodity in our house, as they would disappear from the shopping bags soon after they were brought home. Along the way we’d meet characters like Batty Lynch whose hearty laugh lives on in our memory. We’d meet Ned and Doreen Barry, whose wonderful gardening skills we marvelled at. Up the hill and next to encounter our visit was Mary Ann Moran – a generous lady, she always made sure that our glasses were filled as she loved to hear stories from school. By the time we got to the creamery, we had definitely earned a packet of Golden Wonder Crisps across the road at O’Connor’s.
Neighbours played a great role in our childhood memories. Many a Sunday afternoon, when the sitting room was darkened and the Sunday Game was the focus of attention for the football fanatics in our house, the three small ones went on our frequent neighbourly visits to Denis O’Sullivan. Denis, a retired member of the Garda Síochána spent many hours listening to our stories and likewise he shared many with us. An educated gentleman, he’d recall days of his duty on the streets of Dublin. He’d reminisce on stories of his youth and how life was when he was a child. After getting our feed of Seven-up and biscuits, we’d take turns mounting the ass at the back of his house with Denis walking by our side ensuring we’d not fall. All was going well until brothers, Tadhg, Moss and Mick Brick would arrive on the scene. Like a little lad looking for a bit of mischief, Mick would slap the rear of the donkey. This sudden move would send the donkey racing off, bucking and leaping down to the far end of the field with the poor misfortune who happened to have been on the donkey hanging on for dear life. The rest of us were looking on from the side, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Poor Denis, feeling responsible, followed the mad, driven animal annoyed at his friend for causing such mayhem. Thinking back now, and knowing how much I love my Sunday afternoons, what patience and tolerance they must have possessed to have entertained us for hours at a time.
As all you readers know, Lisselton takes in our two local prominent businesses – Hegarty’s (as it was called when I was a child) and Behan’s. To get us from under her feet, my Mom would, on occasion, ask us to go and get a few groceries. On our bikes we’d go, conversing with many along the road. The high salute from Joan Lynch as she’d laugh over a yarn or two. She’d then draw from her apron a sweet for us as we’d head away on our quest. Joe and Mary B Kennelly’s house was always a great house to encounter. The geese and ducks roamed freely around the yard. The smell of Joe’s pipe as he’d offer us a tray of fresh eggs is a memory instilled in my mind forever. We’d then pedal on like the hammers of hell till we reached Gunn’s Cross. The best part of the bike ride was about to begin. Like greyhounds being set loose from their traps, we’d steady ourselves to make the rapid descent downwards. Legs straddled outwardly, hands tightly clinched to the rickety handlebars, beginning only moments apart from each other so as not to collide, we’d round the old school corner with a sigh of relief that we weren’t met with a misfortunate oncoming vehicle but also an exhilarating feeling that wanted us to repeat the experience each time we were sent on this mission. When we finally arrived at Lisselton the shopping list was taken out. Now my mother was a great believer in ensuring that everybody got a fair deal. This rule applied to shopping locally also and would have always given both shops equal custom. On one occasion, the top of the list read “Behan’s”. However, Catriona and I had different ideas. Hegarty’s had just brought out the latest range of gobstoppers and we worked hard to earn the price of them. As kids though, there was an inbuilt fear that if Behan’s saw us purchasing next door there would have been a parochial outrage. So between us, Catriona and I concocted a plan. As Catriona was the better talker, she was sent in to distract Jerry who was positioned just inside the large front facing window. I, on the other hand, decided to creep down on all fours, pass the shop door and underneath the windowsill and eventually make my getaway to Hegarty’s. All was going according to plan and in my own mind the gobstoppers seemed closer to my pocket now that I had passed both danger points. Then, out of nowhere my head was faced with a pair of boots. I slowly lifted my head from my crouched position, my eyes drawn to the long lanky stretch where Dick Behan stood – arms folded as he leant up against the wall. With a half-grin and a raised brow, it was as if he knew what our intentions were. I was, yet again, defeated and our gobstoppers had to wait for another day. We settled for the bag of sweets given to us by Dick after realising that it was my loose change that I was so intently looking for! Great memories, and I hope that my children will look back on their childhood with the same love as I look back on mine. Though married and settled very well in Offaly, Lissellton and Kerry will always be “home” to me.
by Virtual Gathering
I started my stage career when an Irish teacher came to Asdee one time. I was going to school there and he did a play in Irish and I had a part in it. I remember that play because the character I was playing had a boyfriend and my brother Joe was the boyfriend! That was a bit awkward! We took the play to Listowel where other groups were performing. I had no trouble with the Irish because my mother was a native Irish speaker from Donegal. In fact she went to America when she was young and she had very little English. We used to go to Donegal and we got used to the Irish there. Even now I can understand the Irish news on the television. My father came from Kilmorna in Duagh.
Fr Neilly O’Keeffe, my brother, started the drama with Bryan McMahon in Listowel, going around collecting all the old stories and folklore. I have all his material and I would be grateful if someone could do something with it.
I started on the stage as an adult when there was a play being done for charity her in Ballybunion. Hennessy who was doing a part and she had to have her appendix out so my brother Joe, God rest him now, started at me to do the part. That day this travelling woman came in. She was used to coming in and she sat on a chair inside the door. I was standing on a chair hanging a curtain for the opening of the play. My opening line was “Blast ye, stay where I put ye!”
She went back to another house and said to the woman of the house “That poor woman! To think that poor woman has to speak to her family like that!” She thought I was giving out to my family!
So I came back that night and did my part on the stage here and that was the beginning of my acting career.
I remember one play we did in particular called “The Righteous Are Bold”. I was playing the part of a woman who came back from England and was possessed by the Devil! I was speaking foreign languages and was in a bad way! Part of my role was to break statues on stage when I was in a frenzy. The play was popular and went on for a good number of nights and I had what statues there were in Listowel broke! I used have to have to break them and dance on them. At the end of the play a priest came and exorcised me! In fact I was going out with Timmy at the time and we did a few performances in Lisselton as his father was involved there. His father was wondering what his son was doing going out with a girl who was playing a part like that!
Years later, Fr Neilly took me to the same play in Dublin and it was useless! A lot of it was done out of sight backstage.
Fr Neilly wrote a play for us then and we got to the All Ireland final and we won that. That was in 1959 and I was pregnant when I was doing it!
I had a connection with the Shannonside Annual in the 1950s because Fr Neilly started that and I was the secretary. Johnny McCabe from Ballylongford was one of the people involved. There is a picture of me over in Gortaglanna in one edition of the Annual. People used to send in articles at the time and Fr Neilly went out and interviewed people. Liam de Brún was one of the contributors.
They were great days.
by Virtual Gathering
Lads, isn’t ‘The Tech’ great! That was our initial opinion after years in the national school. Now before anyone says otherwise, most of us would agree that we got a great education during those days but enjoyment was probably not the word we would use to describe them.
Then came ‘The Tech’, and by that I mean the Technical School in Listowel which at the time was sited at the end of Church Street just up from Rita Dowling’s shop. No corporal punishment and subjects like woodwork, metalwork, magnetism and electricity, mechanical drawing, mathematics, English, Irish and rural science. Where could you go wrong! To add to that, a number of the teachers were great characters in their own right and seemed to enjoy life. That was how it looked to us anyway. It is necessary to name a few of these men as they left us with a brighter view of life. Mr Harry Nielsen, a genius and a little eccentric who taught metalwork, mechanical drawing, magnetism and electricity. Harry, as he was affectionately known to us all, would stride through the classroom and workshop ‘smoking’ a stick of chalk, while demonstrating how to ‘turn’ properly using the lathe, file metal correctly, draw detailed isometric diagrams and, if you did not do it accurately afterwards, he would come down and read the riot act to you in front of the class. You never took it personally though because the next day he could praise you for doing a task correctly. He had a bit of a short fuse as well, I remember one day, he expertly floated a chair through the air and it bounced a few feet from a couple of lads messing in the workshop, which brought them immediately to their senses.
At that time in the early sixties, Sunday night was the big night for dances. Harry could never understand the reasoning behind this as everyone had to work on Monday. “Why do people not go and enjoy themselves on Saturday night when they could rest on Sunday, after all it is the day of rest” he would constantly question. He had many more similar questions on life in general which at least made us stop and think for a moment or two.
Next we had Mr Paddy Drummond from Tralee who was the boss and nobody questioned his authority. If you tried to pull a trick on him, he would draw himself up to his full five foot nothing and say “Come over here, if I met you on the Rock Street fourteen yard line a few years ago, you would be still recovering from the shock, get out of my sight before I lose my temper”. A brilliant maths teacher who singlehandedly made the subject interesting to the ‘shower’ he was teaching (us). He deserved a medal for patience and another for his teaching methodology. He was also responsible for entering us for public examinations such as P&T (Posts&Telegraphs – Eircom nowadays), ESB, Bord na Móna etc because we certainly would not have bothered entering ourselves. At that time in my life, I thought driving a lorry for Cahill’s would be a great number and that was the height of my ambitions. Paddy and Harry got me to sit the P&T examination and as a result, Cahill’s lost a bad lorry driver.
Paddy Drummond was also the main man behind the football teams in the school. I, however have a sad story for you about my football career in the Tech and it involves Paddy who I think always thought I was a bit of a smart-ass anyway and needed to be shown the error of my ways. The junior team were playing a match back in West Kerry and I was selected as a sub on the team. I was so delighted and even more excited when during the match, as I was sitting with the rest of the lads on the subs bench, Paddy called out “O’Shea, come here”. I thought this is my big chance in my footballing career. However, Paddy says to me “go behind the goals down there and every time the ball is kicked over the bar or wide, kick it back to the goalie”. My dream of stardom was shattered.
I must tell you about another event that sticks in my memory. Just a few weeks after I joined the P&T, the phone in the Tech went out of order and myself and the technician went down to have a look at the problem. The phone was in Paddy Drummond’s office and in we went. Now remember I had only left the Tech about three months earlier and was still only seventeen, but now I thought I was above all that and I stuck out my hand and said “Hello Paddy”. He looked me straight in the eye and said “To you boy, I am still Mister Drummond”. That put me in my place and of course gave the technician a great laugh and he used Paddy’s comment as a joke on me for long after.
Some years later, I met Paddy after an All-Ireland near Heuston Station in Dublin. We were talking about old times. He asked me how I had done and I said ok, ach dúirt cara a bhí in éineacht liom gur bhain mé amach céim eolaíochta cúpla lá roimhe sin, this was meant to say to Paddy that the teaching methods in the Tech were really good. Paddy made sure that I didn’t get a big head and said “finally grown up, have we, well done”. He shook my hand and we laughed.
Seán Ó Mahúna was our teacher for Irish. A big man who lived down Bridge Road direction. Bhí an-ghrá aige don Ghaeilge agus mar sin thug sé an grá sin dúinn. Nílim líofa san Ghaeilge, mar a fheiceann tú, ach deinim mo dhícheall chun í a úsáid agus thug Seán an misneach do dhaoine chun spraoi a bhaint as ár dteanga. Now we pulled a few tricks on him in the classroom from time to time and he could show his displeasure in no uncertain terms, ach de gnáth, bhí an-tuiscint agus an-fhoighne aige chun rudaí mar sin a ghlacadh.
Patsy O’Sullivan was a great teacher and a good footballer who tried his best and to my mind successfully, to cultivate in us a love of the land through his rural science classes. He initiated a project where we were to grow vegetables in a little plot at home and he indicated that he would call to our homes to inspect our efforts. Some very successful gardens resulted from that.
Another good teacher who comes to mind was Bob Fitzgerald. He was the main man on woodwork but I regret to say that his expertise was lost on me. It was a subject that I did not like, and that is putting it mildly. The only woodwork tool I could use properly was the mallet so you see I was never going to become a great carpenter. Mick Curtin (RIP) at Lisselton Cross was not going to have any competition from me anyway. I really envied the lads who could turn out beautiful pieces with tight fitting mortise and tenon joints. Myself, I could never find where Bob kept the nails in his workshop (joking). Technology came to my rescue and took me away from inflicting my woodworking ‘skills’ on an unsuspecting public.
I had many friends during that time, a time I will never forget. I will name a few of those I met during those days, many years ago – I hope they do not mind. Gerard Sullivan, Pat Quill, Tim Brazil, Mike Sullivan, Tony Donoghue, Teresa Larkin, Mairéad McKenna, Jim Nolan, Michael Costello and there were others.
Gerard Sullivan was way ahead of me in the cop-on department and I must say, life was always brighter when he was around. In those days, the bicycle was king as far as transport was concerned. Cycling to and from the Tech should have been included as part of the curriculum as we certainly learned a thing or two about life during those journeys. Gerard and myself made many cycling trips to such exotic places as Duagh and its surrounds and the people we met added greatly to the enjoyment of life.
I remember getting a pair of homing pigeons from Tony Donoghue in exchange for getting him membership of Captain Mac in the Irish Press newspaper. Who remembers Captain Mac? One mistake I made, I did not clip the wings of my birds and by the next day, the two had returned back to Tony. After a reduction in wing size, the two remained with me for the remainder of their lives, much to the horror of my mother as they were certainly not the cleanest of pets. Tony emigrated to Chicago and did well as a head chef in big hotels in the windy city. Pat Quill was from the famous townland of Lyreacrompane. As well as being a gentleman, he was a great footballer and a pleasure to know.
Is mór an trua nach mbíonn ‘bualadh le céile’ againn chun scéalta a mhalairt ón am sin fadó, nuair a bhíomar óg agus nach raibh morán ciall againn.
Talking about Lyreacrompane allows me to change the subject for a moment, if you don’t mind. It reminds me of that lovely part of the world and of the bog. Bíonn áthas orm i gconaí siúl tríd an bportach agus suaimhneas a bhaint as an chiúnas agus ceol binn an éin. Tá an portach i nDirha go hálainn nuair nach mbíonn ort obair leis an móin. Aer úr an phortaigh a chuireann ocras ort i gcóir an dinnéir, nó ar maidin taréis oíche mhór i mBaile an Bhuinneánaigh, baineann sé an tinneas póite uait agus tagann tú ar ais chughat féin. Sin mo leigheas ar aon nós, bain triail as tú féin. Ní dhéanfaidh sé aon damáiste ar aon chuma.
Long ago, we often asked the question “what was the worst job in the bog?” Was it ‘the cleaning’, ‘the cutting’, ‘the turning by hand’, ‘the footing’, ‘the re-footing’, ‘the drawing out’ or ‘the drawing home’. My vote goes with ‘the turning by hand’, usually the sods were stuck to the heath and after a day on bended back, pulling the sods free and then turning them, that was a back-breaking job. The ‘footing’ could come a close second, with the ‘drawing out’ in third place especially if you had to use the wheelbarrow in a soft bog. A great deal depended on the bog of course, as some gave you great black turf off the sleán and it was ready to draw out after a few weeks. Other bogs were a nightmare. Inniu tá an t-inneall ann chun alán rudaí a dhéanamh agus tógann sé sin an cruatan as cuid den obair ach ní dheineann sé an tae fós. An tae sa phortach, sin scéal eile! Nach raibh sé go hiontach. Nílim ag caint faoi bhlas an tae mar de gnáth, bheadh luch ábalta siúl air bhí sé chomh láidir sin. Táim ag caint fén bhriseadh ón obair agus an comhrá eadrainn faoi ghach rud a tharla ar an domhan nó i mBaile an Bhuinneánaigh ar aon nós.
Talking about the bog. Above is a meitheal of hardy young and not so young from days gone bye. It would be great to have the names of All in the group. I think I recognise members of the Neville, Enright, Lynch, Mahony, McMahon, Long and King families among the team.
by Virtual Gathering
My earliest memory is being taken to Lisselton School when I was 4 years old. That was 79 years ago.
The first thing I recall is that everything was new to me! The pupils and the teachers were new to me the first day. The second day, I went to school on my own. I teamed up with some of the Allens, my neighbours, and they became school friends of mine for my young life in football and so on.
The old school at that time was in need of repairs and, shortly after I started there, we had to walk to Ballydonoghue church for the most of a year, without shoes, while the school was being repaired. A lot of my friends got colds, standing all day on the flags in the church. Mrs Scanlon (Pidge Pierce) who was our teacher at the time insisted that we take a sack bag under our arms to school to put under our feet to stand on, to insulate our feet from the cold of the flags. We used to put these in a little heap in the corner in the church when the school day was over.
The school was rebuilt by Pat Keane, the contractor, with new gables and partitions and so forth, and it was at that time that the wall in front of the school was built. The playground was enlarged as well, because when I went to school first we had a very small playground. Three little haggards owned by Ned Collins who lived across the road were acquired by the parish priest for some small sum. When the school was repaired we had a much improved place, elaborate for its time.
“What made me dislike that language”
Irish was the order of the day. One half-hour of English, and the rest of the subjects were all in Irish. I think that was one of the biggest mistakes that was made by the government. It left five of my classmates illiterate. Sadly, four of those emigrated to Britain in the late 1940s and early 1950s and they could not write home to their mothers. That made me dislike that language. During my lifetime I’ve been addressed a few times by prominent people in the Irish language and I’ve told them “Do that no more!” One of those people was John B Keane who got very upset, but when I explained my case and gave the names of two of the lads who could not write home to their mothers, he thought it was sad. But in Asdee, our neighbouring parish, the teacher there – who was a Master Moriarty – taught each pupil how to write a letter in English. He used a sheet of paper and wrote “Dear mother” in one corner, with the date and a few lines like “Working on buildings mostly”, etc. But Master Brown in Lisselton School was obsessed with Irish – nothing else mattered, even though we might not have a bite to eat, no shoes, no weather protection. To teach that language was all he wanted, and it turned most of us of us against Irish, and remember there was over 80 boys and over 80 girls on the roll at the time. The same set-up was in the girls’ room. The slow-learners at the time were left playing marla on their own. Very few had the opportunity to go to any other school.
After schooldays were over, all youngsters had to do was go working with local farmers or on their own holdings, and when they got old enough, they emigrated. I hated to see them going because they usen’t come back in a hurry. If they did come back, they were different people. Quite a number of them are buried over there and a few were found dead on the street, after falling into hard times. They weren’t able to rough it as the years rolled by. One of those who died was brought home all right to be buried because his people were able to do so.
“A wrench, a hammer, a chisel”
Even though I was born on a hillside farm, my interest was in mechanics, and anything to do with a wrench, a hammer and a chisel. My first project was a bike. I went up the hill to Davy Kissane’s house in Lacca. His son, Mike Kissane was a general repair man and could repair anything – clocks, bikes. He had just moved over the Hill to begin his married life in Laheseragh. The other son, Jim, was in the house that day. I told him my story and said that even if I had the frame of an old bike it would be a great start. Jim came out with a pike and started prodding around a hedgerow. At one point the pike came into contact with some iron object and my heart jumped for joy! He cleared around it and there the frame appeared with weeds and grass on it! To me, there was gold there! Jim pulled it out, cleared off the weeds and said “That’ll give you a good start!”
I put it on my shoulder and marched down the hill. There was a brass plate in front of the frame below the handlebars that was corroded from the weather. On the way down, I started cleaning that with scraws that I picked from the side of the road, and by the time I got home the brass plate was shining. And written on it was “Sunbeam” – that was the name of the bike. And that made my day!
I had the core of the bike, and that led on then to the other parts – chain wheel and chain. I got these from Seán Gunn who lived over the road. There was a bit of a tangle there, because Seán wanted a razor, and he knew my father had two of them, so I took one and gave it to him, and I got my chain and chain-wheel. Then, the back wheel I got from Paddy Connor who lived back the road at that time. He was from Ballyduff and was married to Jo Sheehy. He had a spare back-wheel and he kindly gave it to me. And he led me on to Seán Francis who had a front wheel, and now I was getting somewhere. I got a saddle from Paddy McNamara of Killomeroe – he used to ramble here because this was a rambling house. But I was short of two tyres and two tubes. The Dunlop “Cruiser” tyre (28X1.5) was a half-crown, the Dunlop “Champion” was four shillings, and the Dunlop “Roadster” was a shilling more – it was top of the range. So I started with my half-crown tyre, and bought two for five shillings, and two tubes for one and six apiece. I was craving off my mother for a long time and I eventually wore her down! My father wouldn’t listen to me. I got ten bob off her and I had three bob left and I decided to treat myself. I bought black jack and came home as happy as Larry! And Mrs Beasley, the shopkeeper, says to me before I left – “You’re lucky”, she says, “Tyres will be very scarce soon!” The war was about to start. The funny thing is during the war I had new tyres and lads that needed them more to go to work had no tyre!
I had no handlebars, so over at Boland’s I got the steering wheel of a Model Y (Baby Ford). I wedged it down and I had to do an improvised braking system.
“Jesus, a leanbh, you’ll watch where you’re going the next time!”
That bike took me to all the villages of North Kerry. One day I was going down Gunn’s Hill and just in front of Johanna Gunn’s, calves were being driven out on the road by one of the young Gunns. I thought I could avoid them, but I struck one of the calves and I got a fair oul fall. Johanna came out – she was a big, heavy woman, shoving on in years at the time , and she’d be a grandmother to Joe Gunn now and Fr Thady, and a great-grandmother to the priest, Fr David – and the first word she says to me was “Jesus, a leanbh, you’ll watch where you’re going the next time!” But after saying that, she carried me in and she washed my face which was all torn and made a good job and I went off out. The front wheel was bent and I put my bike on my shoulder and went home. Later I straightened it out.
The motoring world
Then I got to know people who were interested in mechanics, and they were few and far between. The Hennessys had a car, and then Bolands had a car, but there was no other car on the Hill. I had a motor-bike for a year, off of Timmy Stack in Ballyconry at £3. That took six month’s repairing to get her going, and that kept me going till 1949. In 1949, I bought my first Baby Ford Y, for £9 10s. I bought it off Breen’s, and ’twas Breen’s first sale, and that took a lot of repairs, mostly body-work. That got me into the motoring world, and that was over 60 years ago.
A place of tears
Seeing that there was no car on the Hill, there was one way of making a few bob. People wanted to go to wakes, funerals, christenings, etc, etc, and that filled a gap there. I did Cobh (Queenstown) when people were going to the States by ship. I did trips to Shannon Airport a number of times. It was a small place at the time, but it was a place of tears as far as I was concerned. People that were going were crying with sadness and people coming home were crying with happiness, and you wouldn’t know the difference between them. I did that for about two years with that car. After a while, I was able to better myself with a better Model Y Baby Ford. Those particular models were made between 1932 and 1937 and they were sold in Mangan’s in Listowel. A new two-door cost £120 and a four-door cost £140. (The model was changed in 1938 to a Ford 8.) The last two that were sold in Listowel were bought by John Guerin for £100 apiece from Moloney who had just bought the garage. John Guerin was a hackney-driver where the supermarket is now. These Fords were fantastic! You had the bare basics. God, everything was so simple! If you look at the electrics, they were a minimum. There was a vacuum wiper and if you were going up a hill, the wipers would slow down and probably stop. And no indicators!
All private cars were off the road during the war years till 1946, and no cars were made. People were slow to buy them. The first car the Bolands bought after the war was off Mrs Pierce in Listowel. They bought another one from Hart in Ballylongford – the late Liam Boland drove these cars.
Nobody seemed to encroach on my territory as regards my taxi-service. God, I carried hundreds! I carried everybody in every house. I carried a hundred people in one day to St Batt’s Well – that was the last Saturday in April. At that time there was a lot of water there and local people used to put rushes around the well. (Now it is beautifully done up, thanks to the local committee.) People used to come from Listowel and Ballylongford and the villages around.
“Mary, if you don’t help me…”
I think the most interesting journey I done was for a woman who lived along the road above. I took her into Listowel to have her first child and everything passed off fine. Listowel was a busy hospital at that time. In the meantime she changed houses and lived up in Ballynoneen. And so, two years later when her time came again, her husband came down over the Hill to me on his bike to take her to hospital. I was at a picture in Listowel and he waited in the house for me. When I came home, I tied up his bike on the car and we went up the Hill, and in a narrow little road where a car never went before to get into his house. I had to take her into the hospital alone at three o’clock in the morning. I went on by Ballybunion because it was the only road that was tarred at the time. When I was down at the Height of the Bogs, she says to me could I go any faster! I knew there was trouble brewing! Tyres were hard to get at the time, so I had gaitors on each tyre, and you could hear the thud-thud as they rotated. I was wondering if I would make the town without one of them bursting! A Mrs Scanlon of Glouria, who was a very holy woman, had given me a little illuminative statue of Our Lady and she told me to put that up in the front of the car and I would be protected, if I had devotion enough, wherever I went. So, just near the cross where the black house was, the railway house, I remember I looked up at the statue and I says, “Mary, if you don’t help me, I’ll never again pray to you!” Same as if I was talking to a priest!
So I continued on to Listowel, and up to the hospital and I jumped out of the car, knocked heavy on the door, and the night-nurse opened the door. She says “You’ll wake my patients!” I told her my story, that I had a lady here who was having a child and she gave one look and she came on with a wheelchair and we got Biddy in the chair. I had to push her down the hallway and the child came on the scene as I was pushing her! The nurse called another girl to help her . I heard what I thought was a cat screeching , and I realised it was the new-born baby! I vanished! I went in to my old car and I was just out to the railway gates when “bang” goes my back tyre! I looked up at the illuminative statue in front of me and I says “Thank you, Mary!” And we’re friends since!
That story is true but it was frightening to me, though!
In 1962 I gave up the hackney business and went back to farming.
by Virtual Gathering
It was while I was going to St Michael’s College in Listowel that I first noticed a girl called Peggy. She was going to the convent. I was always admiring her because she was always smiling! We used to meet casually coming and going on the street. She cycled to school. Then I used to meet her later at the dances when I started going at the age of seventeen or eighteen. I met her in Carroll’s Hall in Lisselton often. There was another hall at the Cross also but we kept to Carroll’s because we used to have the boxing there and Tom Carroll was into football.
Peggy went to school up the country and learned the trade of butter-maker. But before I met Peggy, I remember after coming home from America with a Palm Beach suit , which looked ridiculous in Ireland at the time, I busted my lip at a football match. I had to be taken to the doctor in Ballylongford to get stitches put in the lip. Afterwards, Liam Boland drove us to a pub. Jerry Molyneaux was there, and in the car also was Violet Nolan, “The Dawn Beauty”. But I didn’t go into the pub and was left in the car with Violet. Liam was vexed because Violet stayed in the car to look after me, but I couldn’t do much with my frozen lip anyway! Afterwards, Liam was still vexed and drove us all back to his own house and let us walk to our own homes! Jereen Molyneaux was mad and started firing stones all over the place! I was lucky because I had to walk Violet home! Later she went to America but she had bad luck because it didn’t agree with her at all, and she became very ill. But she and her sister, Bella, were lovely girls.
Ballybunnion
We used to be kicking ball in the field near the house on Sunday evenings in summer and we would look back towards Ballybunion and see the lights of Birds’ amusements and hear the music. You could hear sounds from a long distance away in those days. We would jump into the stream below the house and wash our face and dress up. We would put on open neck shirts and we’d head for Ballybunion. We used to walk down on one side of the street and salute the girls we fancied who were on the other side. Then we would walk back up and salute them again! Then we would come home quite contented, after six miles of a walk for nothing! Walsh’s Hall, and The Pavilion were big at the time and you could get a season ticket for one pound and ten shillings. The Pavilion very high-faluting and you wouldn’t want to let on to the lads that you were going there at all. And there were lots of tales going around about what went on inside. The Bolands and Pat Kissane played a trick on a fella in there one night. It was this fella’s first night in there and they led him into the women’s toilet! The women ran out screaming! He was so ashamed that he wouldn’t come out till Mike Ryan, who worked on the door, went in and brought him out!
Pat Crowley’s band used to come to play in Ballybunion. They were a beautiful band and played lovely romantic waltzes. You would have the thoughts of it coming home from the village. The fifteenth of August was big. There used to be crowds four or five abreast walking on the streets then. The priests sometimes tried to separate the men from the women! On one occasion a boy and a girl were walking up the street holding hands and a priest was walking down. The priest hit them with his cane on the hands and said “Don’t let me ever see you giving bad example like that again while I’m here in this town!”
Later I met Peggy again at a dance in Ballybunion. We got married in 1950. ’Tis one of the few dates I can remember! She had a car and it’s the only car I can remember the registration number of – IN 6630. When I’d see that car coming, my heart would give a jump! Peggy had her own sporting career as a camógie player with Kerry and in 1952 we both played for Kerry on the same day. I was playing for Kerry against Louth, and she was playing for Kerry against Waterford in Ballylongford. She was the star at centrefield. That must be unique for a husband and wife! She played for quite a while after we married, and I was training away with Kerry, and Dr Eamonn O’Sullivan was strict about training. This was awkward when you were trying to run a farm. I was training for boxing also.
We had eight children, four boys and four girls. Pat was the first-born, and then Dan, Betty, Norma, Mike, Bill, Jacqueline, and Annette was the youngest.
FARM WORK
The work was hard on the farm in my time. If the corn got lodged we used have to cut it with the scythe. John Galvin often did this. There was a great knack in cutting it. You’d cut it in against the crop and you’d leave it lie against the crop. Then it would be taken out in sheaves to be bound later. Sometimes, the lodged corn would be wet when it was being cut, and you’d get wet . It would be left out loosely to dry and afterwards put into stooks.
The thresher was a big event. Horses used to pull it. We used to have the threshing near Coneen Keane’s often because the horses couldn’t pull the thresher too far into the fields. Mickeen Bosco McMahon had the horse-drawn thresher and a tractor used be driven after it. Denis Foley over in Ballingown had a black mare which was pulling threshers all over the country. The thresher was a big heavy machine with big iron wheels. Some horses, when on the first pull they’d find the weight of the thresher, they’d rear up and back back. By night, storm-lanterns would be used and held by hand. There would be great tatteraah when threshing at night sometimes! The Bolands were the first I saw pulling the machine with a tractor.
We used to cut the hay with the horse-drawn mower, and the corn too. For the corn, we’d have an attachment with a kind of platform at the back of the cutting bar and the corn would fall back on it. The sheaf would be controlled by a man with a rake.
Any grain we had in the early days would be used at home. When my cows were taken the second time, I sat (sowed) all the place with corn. It turned out to be the worst year ever. The world ploughing match was held behind in Killarney. We had it in stooks and they were so wet they began to grow again because the weather was so bad we never got a chance to draw it.
We dug the well in Gort when I was young. They brought a blind man from the Knockanure side to divine for water. He found the spring on the dry side of the hill and it was only twelve or fourteen feet down. He got an awful fall while he was walking with the divining rod because he walked into a furze bush! Ned Healy over further must have dug a hundred wells in his time and never found water! Our well kept all the Hill going and it’s still going!
We had a lot of workers here. The first man I remember was Paddy O‘Donnell (Old John’s grandson), then Jackeen Horgan from the Hill. He later moved to The Switch below. Paddy Healy often helped us with the spuds. We used to take the board off the plough and you could plough the furrows . Tom Bawn used to work here also. Jereen Healy was a great hardy man who worked here a good while. We used to draw beet to Listowel one time and Jerry was as good as two of us, throwing in the beet with a beet-pike into the railway wagon after we tipped the load from our trailer. I remember he used to teach me maths while we were thinning beet! These were some of the men who worked with us in Urlee over the years, but many other good men and women worked here also.
Finucane Family
(Finucane family) to come.
(Part 4 of Mo Scéal Féin will be printed in the 2013 edition.)
