It is nearing Easter again. I am thinking of Easter Sunday when we were children.
Eggs were sold to buy the groceries, so it was seldom a child got an egg to eat. Now the shops are full of chocolate eggs, but that was a long time in the future.
On Easter Sunday we could have as many eggs as we liked to eat. When we went back to school, we asked each other, "how many eggs did you eat for Easter?" "Three from the shell and two from the pan." An old man called Thomas Breham lived near us, he always gave us eggs for Easter. He would say to us, "Would you like an egg, or would you like two?"
We never refused. Simple times, nice people.
Further along the road, there lived a man, John Morrison. He made up poems all the time, as he went about his business on the farm. Anything out of the ordinary that happened in the village, there was a poem about it the next day. There was many a red face after neighbours had been quarrelling about trespass, etc. Sitting in his cart going along the road, he'd have a smile on his face, and you wondered, "who is catching it now?"
Ours was a thriving village. Big families and such a lot of young people. There was a crossroads, with a bridge across a little river. On St. John's night, 23rd June, we lit a bonfire at the crossroads, all the young people congregated, somebody would bring a musical instrument and we would dance for hours. Now ours is a deserted village. Empty houses.
Ours was a great house for visiting. Lots of our neighbours came nearly every night. It was very informal. They just lifted the latch and bade you bless, pulled a chair up to the fire. They told ghost stories. We kids listened with big ears and big eyes and then were too frightened to go to bed. You couldn't imagine anything as dark as the middle of the country at night. We had no electricity then and the rooms were dark, indeed.
When we were coming home from the shops on a winter evening - I don't mean the shop next door, I mean the shop three miles away - we were so frightened, passing by all the places that were mentioned in the ghost stories, that when we got to the gate, we walked backwards to the front door, in case the ghosts would get us.
On winter evenings it was always dark when we got home from school, so we didn't cross the fields.
Sunday, 28 December 2014
April 2nd, 2000
Today is mother's day.
Traditionally, the day when children spoil their mother. It is great to have a big family and get lots of presents and cards, and of course visits from the family. I had flowers, plants and chocolates galore. Sean came from Newbury. I went out with Myles and his family and we had lunch at a road-house. Patrick brought the family to visit, and took me to Myles' house. Mary bought me a set of steps I had my eye on. Anne cooked a special breakfast. Michael came in the evening.
It was a good day.
Traditionally, the day when children spoil their mother. It is great to have a big family and get lots of presents and cards, and of course visits from the family. I had flowers, plants and chocolates galore. Sean came from Newbury. I went out with Myles and his family and we had lunch at a road-house. Patrick brought the family to visit, and took me to Myles' house. Mary bought me a set of steps I had my eye on. Anne cooked a special breakfast. Michael came in the evening.
It was a good day.
Sunday, 7 December 2014
March 21st, 2000
Today is my mother's anniversary.
She died 71 years ago of pneumonia after childbirth. Her baby was buried one week before her. Her name was Kathleen. It must have been a sad and lonely house. Poor Delia, on whose shoulders fell the whole weight of responsibility. If she only had some nice aunts and uncles, like my children have today, but people weren't as caring.
Our farm was not large, but father rented land for extra grazing. We had about six cows, just for milk and butter for the family. We had horses, sheep, 'any' cattle and always pigs. I hated the pigs. You'd hear them squealing a mile away when they were waiting to be fed, and you had to be careful that they didn't toss you in the trough, when you took them their food in. That was women's work, at least in our house. The farm was divided into pasture, land crops and meadow.
The only thing I ever liked about farming was the haymaking. We used to take the dinner out to the meadow, and we'd stay a while, messing about with the hay, then came the day when the hay was brought into the haggard, and we young ones were allowed to tramp down to the haycocks as they got higher. It was great fun.
My father killed the pigs for the family's consumption. If it was a pig that we had reared from a piglet, we hated the whole after action and managed to disappear until the sorry business was over. The bacon was cured with salt. The pig was boned and cut into sections, the sides were rubbed hard with salt and then stored in a thick wooden box in the cool dairy, with a layer of salt in between. It took a while for the bacon to be ready for eating, but we had the lovely boned with lots of meat on, pork ribs and fillet of pork. Also after a few days, the lovely black puddings made with the pigs blood, oat meal, pepper and salt. We shared the meat and black pudding with the neighbours and when they killed their pig, they shared with us.
I remember the day when electricity came to our house. It was very exciting. My father switched on. It was much easier than getting the paraffin lamp ready.
My father is a very good amateur vet, he treated all our animals, but if there was a very sick cow, the vet would be called. We were a very lucky family to have such good health, because a child would have to be very sick indeed, before a doctor would be called. Cows were valuable.
My brother Tom was exceptionally clever. At leaving age of fourteen, he and three other boys were at the top. The other three boys went on to college, because they had the money and influence. Not so much Tom. His headmaster asked my father to allow Tom to go for further education and offered to tutor him until he could get into college. My father said he was needed on the farm. End of dream. He and Eddie went into the building trade. Tom became a carpenter. Eventually he went to live in Dublin. He went to evening classes and got a degree in Sociology. My mother's two sisters came after our mother died to take us girls to America. It wasn't to be. I was glad later in life that we didn't go. I would not have liked to bring up my family in America, and I wouldn't have met Mylie and had my lovely family. Anyway, that is all in the might have been.
I have thirteen grandchildren, another soon and one great grandchild. Never a dull moment. Birthdays, Christenings, school activities. There is not much time to be miserable.
I feel so privileged, as I was over thirty when I got married.
Well my family have obtained the education denied to me. College and University and degrees all over the place. Even if it was later, rather than sooner.
Martin and Anne were the only two who went to University in their early twenties. Patrick was a builder with his friend Michael. In his middle thirties he decided to do his A-levels. He did very well. Then University and a Law degree. Now he is a barrister and I am proud of him. It can't have been easy. Michael also had his own business underpinning houses. One day on his way to work a car crossed his path, knocking him off his motorcycle, injuring him badly. End of underpinning days. He also did his A-levels. and got As all through. He went to Oxford and got a first in History. He is now studying for his Masters. So after that, who knows.
Myles was a milkman. Decided to study for a teaching degree. Spent four hard years at Greenwich University and got his degree. He is now a teacher.
Anne and Martin have taught English for years. Anne in Spain and Martin in England, Italy, Australia and South America. Now back in Italy.
Mary and Sean haven't gone to University but they do very well. Sean is a business manager and Mary a legal secretary.
I am happy that every child today has the opportunity to attain an education. Whether or not they take advantage of it. It's all taken for granted now. Most parents are behind their children all the way. Others are not that interested. I still have ties with the school where my children started in the sixties. Two of my grandchildren are there. I take my littlest one, to and from each day and I meet all the young mums. So my life has come full circle. Aren't I lucky that I got on well with my family and their husbands and wives and all their children. May it continue so.
I have two Spanish sons-in-law and three English daughters-in-law who are all very good to me.
She died 71 years ago of pneumonia after childbirth. Her baby was buried one week before her. Her name was Kathleen. It must have been a sad and lonely house. Poor Delia, on whose shoulders fell the whole weight of responsibility. If she only had some nice aunts and uncles, like my children have today, but people weren't as caring.
Our farm was not large, but father rented land for extra grazing. We had about six cows, just for milk and butter for the family. We had horses, sheep, 'any' cattle and always pigs. I hated the pigs. You'd hear them squealing a mile away when they were waiting to be fed, and you had to be careful that they didn't toss you in the trough, when you took them their food in. That was women's work, at least in our house. The farm was divided into pasture, land crops and meadow.
The only thing I ever liked about farming was the haymaking. We used to take the dinner out to the meadow, and we'd stay a while, messing about with the hay, then came the day when the hay was brought into the haggard, and we young ones were allowed to tramp down to the haycocks as they got higher. It was great fun.
My father killed the pigs for the family's consumption. If it was a pig that we had reared from a piglet, we hated the whole after action and managed to disappear until the sorry business was over. The bacon was cured with salt. The pig was boned and cut into sections, the sides were rubbed hard with salt and then stored in a thick wooden box in the cool dairy, with a layer of salt in between. It took a while for the bacon to be ready for eating, but we had the lovely boned with lots of meat on, pork ribs and fillet of pork. Also after a few days, the lovely black puddings made with the pigs blood, oat meal, pepper and salt. We shared the meat and black pudding with the neighbours and when they killed their pig, they shared with us.
I remember the day when electricity came to our house. It was very exciting. My father switched on. It was much easier than getting the paraffin lamp ready.
My father is a very good amateur vet, he treated all our animals, but if there was a very sick cow, the vet would be called. We were a very lucky family to have such good health, because a child would have to be very sick indeed, before a doctor would be called. Cows were valuable.
My brother Tom was exceptionally clever. At leaving age of fourteen, he and three other boys were at the top. The other three boys went on to college, because they had the money and influence. Not so much Tom. His headmaster asked my father to allow Tom to go for further education and offered to tutor him until he could get into college. My father said he was needed on the farm. End of dream. He and Eddie went into the building trade. Tom became a carpenter. Eventually he went to live in Dublin. He went to evening classes and got a degree in Sociology. My mother's two sisters came after our mother died to take us girls to America. It wasn't to be. I was glad later in life that we didn't go. I would not have liked to bring up my family in America, and I wouldn't have met Mylie and had my lovely family. Anyway, that is all in the might have been.
I have thirteen grandchildren, another soon and one great grandchild. Never a dull moment. Birthdays, Christenings, school activities. There is not much time to be miserable.
I feel so privileged, as I was over thirty when I got married.
Well my family have obtained the education denied to me. College and University and degrees all over the place. Even if it was later, rather than sooner.
Martin and Anne were the only two who went to University in their early twenties. Patrick was a builder with his friend Michael. In his middle thirties he decided to do his A-levels. He did very well. Then University and a Law degree. Now he is a barrister and I am proud of him. It can't have been easy. Michael also had his own business underpinning houses. One day on his way to work a car crossed his path, knocking him off his motorcycle, injuring him badly. End of underpinning days. He also did his A-levels. and got As all through. He went to Oxford and got a first in History. He is now studying for his Masters. So after that, who knows.
Myles was a milkman. Decided to study for a teaching degree. Spent four hard years at Greenwich University and got his degree. He is now a teacher.
Anne and Martin have taught English for years. Anne in Spain and Martin in England, Italy, Australia and South America. Now back in Italy.
Mary and Sean haven't gone to University but they do very well. Sean is a business manager and Mary a legal secretary.
I am happy that every child today has the opportunity to attain an education. Whether or not they take advantage of it. It's all taken for granted now. Most parents are behind their children all the way. Others are not that interested. I still have ties with the school where my children started in the sixties. Two of my grandchildren are there. I take my littlest one, to and from each day and I meet all the young mums. So my life has come full circle. Aren't I lucky that I got on well with my family and their husbands and wives and all their children. May it continue so.
I have two Spanish sons-in-law and three English daughters-in-law who are all very good to me.
Saturday, 6 December 2014
February 17th, 2000
Today is Holy Childhood Day. Dedicated to all the children of the world.
We had a special mass for the children of the Good Shepherd School, next door to the Parish church. We have children representing all five continents, and today they carried their national flags on to the altar and asked for prayers for the children of their countries.
We have children from so many of the trouble spots of the world.
The children read the lessons and special prayers for children and families who suffer from wars and strife.
Then Father John came down from the altar to talk to the children at their own level. I'm sure he knows the name of every child in school, and they don't even know how wonderful it is to have a priest they can talk to, with the patience and kindness to listen and advise.
I sat there in the church, listening to him speaking to the children, but my mind was taking me back to my childhood, my school and our parish priest.
Like another life. A different planet.
My mother died when I was five years old.
She was thirty nine years old. I had a younger brother and sister, four older brothers and a sister. Delia was thirteen and a half years old. She had to take over the care and responsibility of the family. It didn't matter that there were brothers older and younger than her. It was always the oldest girl who had to take charge. I knew many young girls, clever and intelligent, who had to leave school and become slaves to their families and got little appreciation.
My brothers never did any work in the house. They milked the cows and fed the calves, and worked on the farm. I never saw my father boil a kettle or make a cup of tea in his life. As for cooking a meal or getting the shopping, that was well outside of their capabilities.
Delia washed, cleaned, cooked, minded us. Mary was only a year old. She knitted, sowed, made and mended. She knitted the pullovers, made the dresses. She made all the butter the family used, and sold the surplus, along with the eggs and chickens. To buy the materials for knitting and dressmaking, she put new fronts and turned collars on my father's and brother's shirts, she made little suits for my small brother. In her 'spare time', she did crochet work and embroidery. She had gifted hands, but now she is eighty four years old, and her gifted hands are getting stiff.
We never really appreciated her when we were young, we thought that was her job.
Our school was three miles away, no transport, except 'shank's pony'. We had two choices - across the fields or by road. The land we had to cross was grazed by twenty or thirty big bullocks, and if one started to paw the ground and bellow, we were in trouble. It only took one to get the herd going and we had to run for our lives, we were adept at clearing fences, hog holes or any obstacle in our way. Going by road was not much safer. There were few cars, but there were always horses and cattle being driven.
One day, we three youngest ones were going by road, when a flock of sheep came towards us, driven by a neighbour. One of them singled me out; he rammed me with his head and landed me in the ditch, then came in after me and pummeled me into the ground, until he was pulled off me. Ambulance?Casualty? You must be joking. I brushed myself down, and we had to run the last two miles to school and were late, which got us a good telling off.
Dogs were another hazard. Every farmer had two or three dogs, and more were child-friendly. WE always had to make a detour past the really mean ones. Our own dogs were no better. We always had mean ones, except for Fly - she was a grand dog. One evening our younger brother hadn't come home from school, so we took Fly and went to look for him. We thought he might be waylaid by the bullocks and there he was, up a tree, surrounded by the beasts. We told Fly, go get them. She scattered them in all directions. Christy climbed down and said, "I thought you'd never come."
We never bothered to tell any of these things at home. It was just an everyday story of country children. Today's children have no form of adventure. Or bare feet or freedom.
Christy, Mary and I were great friends. Being the youngest of the family, nobody took much notice of us so we ran wild in the summer in our bare feet. We were always hungry. Fresh air is a great appetiser. Late summer and autumn was a fine time for natural sustenance. We ate nuts and crabapples that would poison a goat.
But winter was a lean time.
Coming home from school, no school meals then, a crowd of us would go in a farmer's field and dig up some turnips, wipe them on the grass, skim them with our teeth and feast. We even ate raw rhubarb. I think now, it was a great source of vitamins.
Our school was very basic. We had one teacher for the infants and one for the older classes. We only had about sixty pupils, but we had a wonderful grounding. No child left our school who could not read and write. But sadly, not so with the history of our own country. Oh, our heads were full of dates of battles of long ago. Brian Boro, and the Red Branch knights and the high kings and all that. We were taught nothing about the famine years, nor about the recent troubles. Nothing about nineteen sixteen and about nineteen twenty-two, and the division of Ireland. Only later, with the help of books, I learned a little of history.
When I left school at fourteen, there was no further education without money and influence and there was little of either. There was no library within six miles, many cycled to the library in Ballinasloe every couple of weeks and took out as many books as she was allowed, so there was intensive reading for a few days. We also 'borrowed' books from the older brothers. I always loved reading, I read anything I could lay my hands on. The trouble I got into for reading when I should be doing my chores. The children today don't realise how wonderful it is to have a library within walking distance, with hundreds of books on every subject, and all the modern technology.
In all my young years I don't remember seeing a young priest. Our parish priest was not a child-friendly man. He was a big man, always in full black. He rode a black hunter, wore black gaiters and if we saw him in time, we took good care that he didn't see us. Unfortunately, he and my father had a disagreement about money, at a house mass, the priest threw the money on the table, my father put it in his pocket and said when you get it again you'll take it, but we children paid the price. Each time he came to our school, he reminded us by name to tell our father to pay his dues. It went on for years. We never bothered to mention it at home. We had the 'mission' in our church about once a year. Two mission priests came to preach. They preached about hell and damnation, sin and evil. There weren't many courting couples to be seen around the roads while the mission was on. I often wondered afterwards how they knew so much about sin and the devil, and so little about the wonderful love of God, and yet all of us who left home brought with us a strong faith to hand down to our children's children.
My two oldest brothers were builders. Eddie was great, he used to give us young ones money to clean his shoes and brush his clothes. My brother Martin was a lovely man. We were a noisy family, always shouting and rowing over something, Martin used to calm the troubled waters. I never heard him raise his voice to family or neighbour. He died aged fifty two years.
Well, we grew up, as families do, lacking a decent education. I went to work for a family. I only stayed there for a year. Then I got a job at Galway hospital where there were proper wages and lots of people to socialise with. We worked hard, but the beach was only ten minutes away, and dances and the cinema down the town. It was a great life. I spent four happy years there, but then I got itchy feet and came to England. I looked after the children of a Jewish family. They were wonderful people. I stayed there until I got married five years later.
I went home to Ireland for my father's funeral. All the family were together once again. On the boat coming back, it was very crowded, and Mary and I couldn't find any seats. This man got up and gave me his seat and that was how I met Mylie. Little did I know that we would be married within a couple of years. We had a wonderful family. Six boys and two girls, of whom we were and are so proud.
Mylie was a lovely man. He did the gardens for all the old ladies, he cut our boys' hair, so their friends came to have theirs cut and he mended all their bikes and always had time to chat with the kids around the gate. Our lads were always bringing young people, especially on Saturday nights. On a Sunday morning, I'd find two or three young people in the living room and Mylie in the kitchen, making them tea and toast.
Mylie died very suddenly and all these young people, (now grown up) came back to support the family and pay their respects to a grand man.
Well, life had to carry on. In the house that was bursting at the seams with ten of us, now there was only me. It was awful. I could hear from my bedroom the clock ticking downstairs, never heard it before. The family got together and asked me would I like Patrick and his family to come and live with me. Well he came with his wife Sarah, little Lucy and three cats, and left after four good years with Lucy, two little brothers and one cat.
My daughter Anne lived in Spain for years with her family. I flew out there about three or four times a year, first to Alhaurin near Malaga, then to Madrid. It was great. But then Anne and her family came home to live with me after Patrick moved to his new home, and that put a halt to my gallop.
Shortly afterwards, Martin went to teach in Australia. I went to visit him and stayed five weeks. Adelaide is the most beautiful place. Now he is in Milan and I am looking forward to going out there. I went with Lorenzo, Mary and Jennifer to stay with Lorenzo's family in Puente Genil, and last year I went with Patrick and his family. We rented a house on the top of a mountain, twelve miles from Malaga. At night when the lights were on all over the mountains it was like fairyland. We've booked again for this year. Mylie came to Spain when Anne lived there. He used to go to the pensioner's social club and played cards and dominoes with the old boys. He got on fine without a word of Spanish, and got invited to their homes. They used to phone Anne to come and interpret for them, which pleased Anne if she wasn't busy.
I have been so lucky, I have always been close to children. I worked at our parish school for ten lovely years as a lunchtime supervisor and playground duty. I loved every day of it. I looked after my grandchildren for years, still do, so I haven't had time to grow old and contrary.
Now I'm reading the history of Ireland from the famine years. Emigration to America, the coffin ships, etc. And more recent history which we should have been taught at school. I think a lot of people of my age who left Ireland are very ignorant of its history.
Christmas was great when we were young. Wherever the brothers were working or wherever anybody was, everybody was home in the house by twelve o'clock on Christmas Eve night. We ate a midnight supper. Everybody sat around the kitchen table. We had everything except meat, at that time it was a day of abstinence. Everything was homemade by Delia. Potato cakes, apple cakes, currant cakes. Everything was organic then. We celebrated three holidays. Christmas Day, New Years Day and Epiphany (January 6th). On each of these three days, Delia cooked a goose, and what a goose. I have never tasted anything like it anywhere. She cooked and mashed a pot of potatoes with lots of chopped onions, pepper and salt, all bound together with flour. She stuffed the inside and craw of the goose and then made stuffing balls to put all around the goose, then she made a flatcake of the remaining stuffing and made dents all over it. Into each dent she put a little sugar, then spread the cake over the goose and stuffing balls in the pot oven, covered the lid with coals and left it to cook for about two hours. It was out of this world. Writing about it, I can still smell and taste it.
I don't know where Delia learned all those things. Nobody taught her. She made great bread and her butter was so good that the housewives around Kilconnell used to ask at the shop if Delia brought in any butter. I was about ten when I made my first bread. Delia said it was fine, but I expect it wasn't good. I was never much good in the house. I hated sowing and knitting. I knitted one pair of socks for a brother. They were so hard and stiff, they could have walked on their own. End of knitting days. Delia and Mary could do anything and everything. Well I have learned a lot since then. I have certainly done a lot of cooking in the last forty five years. I've had a great life. Enjoyed it all, with its highs and lows, sorrows and happiness. I've got my wonderful family and keep in touch all the time, my own home and good health.
The thing I hate most about getting old is there are so many places I would like to see and flying time is getting short, I haven't been to America yet, or flown Concorde!
Thanks to all the nice people I have met along the way, the ones who stopped and smiled when I was sad, or gave a little help. My wonderful neighbours and friends. May they all be as lucky as I.
We had a special mass for the children of the Good Shepherd School, next door to the Parish church. We have children representing all five continents, and today they carried their national flags on to the altar and asked for prayers for the children of their countries.
We have children from so many of the trouble spots of the world.
The children read the lessons and special prayers for children and families who suffer from wars and strife.
Then Father John came down from the altar to talk to the children at their own level. I'm sure he knows the name of every child in school, and they don't even know how wonderful it is to have a priest they can talk to, with the patience and kindness to listen and advise.
I sat there in the church, listening to him speaking to the children, but my mind was taking me back to my childhood, my school and our parish priest.
Like another life. A different planet.
My mother died when I was five years old.
She was thirty nine years old. I had a younger brother and sister, four older brothers and a sister. Delia was thirteen and a half years old. She had to take over the care and responsibility of the family. It didn't matter that there were brothers older and younger than her. It was always the oldest girl who had to take charge. I knew many young girls, clever and intelligent, who had to leave school and become slaves to their families and got little appreciation.
My brothers never did any work in the house. They milked the cows and fed the calves, and worked on the farm. I never saw my father boil a kettle or make a cup of tea in his life. As for cooking a meal or getting the shopping, that was well outside of their capabilities.
Delia washed, cleaned, cooked, minded us. Mary was only a year old. She knitted, sowed, made and mended. She knitted the pullovers, made the dresses. She made all the butter the family used, and sold the surplus, along with the eggs and chickens. To buy the materials for knitting and dressmaking, she put new fronts and turned collars on my father's and brother's shirts, she made little suits for my small brother. In her 'spare time', she did crochet work and embroidery. She had gifted hands, but now she is eighty four years old, and her gifted hands are getting stiff.
We never really appreciated her when we were young, we thought that was her job.
Our school was three miles away, no transport, except 'shank's pony'. We had two choices - across the fields or by road. The land we had to cross was grazed by twenty or thirty big bullocks, and if one started to paw the ground and bellow, we were in trouble. It only took one to get the herd going and we had to run for our lives, we were adept at clearing fences, hog holes or any obstacle in our way. Going by road was not much safer. There were few cars, but there were always horses and cattle being driven.
One day, we three youngest ones were going by road, when a flock of sheep came towards us, driven by a neighbour. One of them singled me out; he rammed me with his head and landed me in the ditch, then came in after me and pummeled me into the ground, until he was pulled off me. Ambulance?Casualty? You must be joking. I brushed myself down, and we had to run the last two miles to school and were late, which got us a good telling off.
Dogs were another hazard. Every farmer had two or three dogs, and more were child-friendly. WE always had to make a detour past the really mean ones. Our own dogs were no better. We always had mean ones, except for Fly - she was a grand dog. One evening our younger brother hadn't come home from school, so we took Fly and went to look for him. We thought he might be waylaid by the bullocks and there he was, up a tree, surrounded by the beasts. We told Fly, go get them. She scattered them in all directions. Christy climbed down and said, "I thought you'd never come."
We never bothered to tell any of these things at home. It was just an everyday story of country children. Today's children have no form of adventure. Or bare feet or freedom.
Christy, Mary and I were great friends. Being the youngest of the family, nobody took much notice of us so we ran wild in the summer in our bare feet. We were always hungry. Fresh air is a great appetiser. Late summer and autumn was a fine time for natural sustenance. We ate nuts and crabapples that would poison a goat.
But winter was a lean time.
Coming home from school, no school meals then, a crowd of us would go in a farmer's field and dig up some turnips, wipe them on the grass, skim them with our teeth and feast. We even ate raw rhubarb. I think now, it was a great source of vitamins.
Our school was very basic. We had one teacher for the infants and one for the older classes. We only had about sixty pupils, but we had a wonderful grounding. No child left our school who could not read and write. But sadly, not so with the history of our own country. Oh, our heads were full of dates of battles of long ago. Brian Boro, and the Red Branch knights and the high kings and all that. We were taught nothing about the famine years, nor about the recent troubles. Nothing about nineteen sixteen and about nineteen twenty-two, and the division of Ireland. Only later, with the help of books, I learned a little of history.
When I left school at fourteen, there was no further education without money and influence and there was little of either. There was no library within six miles, many cycled to the library in Ballinasloe every couple of weeks and took out as many books as she was allowed, so there was intensive reading for a few days. We also 'borrowed' books from the older brothers. I always loved reading, I read anything I could lay my hands on. The trouble I got into for reading when I should be doing my chores. The children today don't realise how wonderful it is to have a library within walking distance, with hundreds of books on every subject, and all the modern technology.
In all my young years I don't remember seeing a young priest. Our parish priest was not a child-friendly man. He was a big man, always in full black. He rode a black hunter, wore black gaiters and if we saw him in time, we took good care that he didn't see us. Unfortunately, he and my father had a disagreement about money, at a house mass, the priest threw the money on the table, my father put it in his pocket and said when you get it again you'll take it, but we children paid the price. Each time he came to our school, he reminded us by name to tell our father to pay his dues. It went on for years. We never bothered to mention it at home. We had the 'mission' in our church about once a year. Two mission priests came to preach. They preached about hell and damnation, sin and evil. There weren't many courting couples to be seen around the roads while the mission was on. I often wondered afterwards how they knew so much about sin and the devil, and so little about the wonderful love of God, and yet all of us who left home brought with us a strong faith to hand down to our children's children.
My two oldest brothers were builders. Eddie was great, he used to give us young ones money to clean his shoes and brush his clothes. My brother Martin was a lovely man. We were a noisy family, always shouting and rowing over something, Martin used to calm the troubled waters. I never heard him raise his voice to family or neighbour. He died aged fifty two years.
Well, we grew up, as families do, lacking a decent education. I went to work for a family. I only stayed there for a year. Then I got a job at Galway hospital where there were proper wages and lots of people to socialise with. We worked hard, but the beach was only ten minutes away, and dances and the cinema down the town. It was a great life. I spent four happy years there, but then I got itchy feet and came to England. I looked after the children of a Jewish family. They were wonderful people. I stayed there until I got married five years later.
I went home to Ireland for my father's funeral. All the family were together once again. On the boat coming back, it was very crowded, and Mary and I couldn't find any seats. This man got up and gave me his seat and that was how I met Mylie. Little did I know that we would be married within a couple of years. We had a wonderful family. Six boys and two girls, of whom we were and are so proud.
Mylie was a lovely man. He did the gardens for all the old ladies, he cut our boys' hair, so their friends came to have theirs cut and he mended all their bikes and always had time to chat with the kids around the gate. Our lads were always bringing young people, especially on Saturday nights. On a Sunday morning, I'd find two or three young people in the living room and Mylie in the kitchen, making them tea and toast.
Mylie died very suddenly and all these young people, (now grown up) came back to support the family and pay their respects to a grand man.
Well, life had to carry on. In the house that was bursting at the seams with ten of us, now there was only me. It was awful. I could hear from my bedroom the clock ticking downstairs, never heard it before. The family got together and asked me would I like Patrick and his family to come and live with me. Well he came with his wife Sarah, little Lucy and three cats, and left after four good years with Lucy, two little brothers and one cat.
My daughter Anne lived in Spain for years with her family. I flew out there about three or four times a year, first to Alhaurin near Malaga, then to Madrid. It was great. But then Anne and her family came home to live with me after Patrick moved to his new home, and that put a halt to my gallop.
Shortly afterwards, Martin went to teach in Australia. I went to visit him and stayed five weeks. Adelaide is the most beautiful place. Now he is in Milan and I am looking forward to going out there. I went with Lorenzo, Mary and Jennifer to stay with Lorenzo's family in Puente Genil, and last year I went with Patrick and his family. We rented a house on the top of a mountain, twelve miles from Malaga. At night when the lights were on all over the mountains it was like fairyland. We've booked again for this year. Mylie came to Spain when Anne lived there. He used to go to the pensioner's social club and played cards and dominoes with the old boys. He got on fine without a word of Spanish, and got invited to their homes. They used to phone Anne to come and interpret for them, which pleased Anne if she wasn't busy.
I have been so lucky, I have always been close to children. I worked at our parish school for ten lovely years as a lunchtime supervisor and playground duty. I loved every day of it. I looked after my grandchildren for years, still do, so I haven't had time to grow old and contrary.
Now I'm reading the history of Ireland from the famine years. Emigration to America, the coffin ships, etc. And more recent history which we should have been taught at school. I think a lot of people of my age who left Ireland are very ignorant of its history.
Christmas was great when we were young. Wherever the brothers were working or wherever anybody was, everybody was home in the house by twelve o'clock on Christmas Eve night. We ate a midnight supper. Everybody sat around the kitchen table. We had everything except meat, at that time it was a day of abstinence. Everything was homemade by Delia. Potato cakes, apple cakes, currant cakes. Everything was organic then. We celebrated three holidays. Christmas Day, New Years Day and Epiphany (January 6th). On each of these three days, Delia cooked a goose, and what a goose. I have never tasted anything like it anywhere. She cooked and mashed a pot of potatoes with lots of chopped onions, pepper and salt, all bound together with flour. She stuffed the inside and craw of the goose and then made stuffing balls to put all around the goose, then she made a flatcake of the remaining stuffing and made dents all over it. Into each dent she put a little sugar, then spread the cake over the goose and stuffing balls in the pot oven, covered the lid with coals and left it to cook for about two hours. It was out of this world. Writing about it, I can still smell and taste it.
I don't know where Delia learned all those things. Nobody taught her. She made great bread and her butter was so good that the housewives around Kilconnell used to ask at the shop if Delia brought in any butter. I was about ten when I made my first bread. Delia said it was fine, but I expect it wasn't good. I was never much good in the house. I hated sowing and knitting. I knitted one pair of socks for a brother. They were so hard and stiff, they could have walked on their own. End of knitting days. Delia and Mary could do anything and everything. Well I have learned a lot since then. I have certainly done a lot of cooking in the last forty five years. I've had a great life. Enjoyed it all, with its highs and lows, sorrows and happiness. I've got my wonderful family and keep in touch all the time, my own home and good health.
The thing I hate most about getting old is there are so many places I would like to see and flying time is getting short, I haven't been to America yet, or flown Concorde!
Thanks to all the nice people I have met along the way, the ones who stopped and smiled when I was sad, or gave a little help. My wonderful neighbours and friends. May they all be as lucky as I.
Friday, 5 December 2014
December 28th, 1999
Three days left of the twentieth century, and two thousand years.
Goodbye to the twentieth century. The good and the bad times, the glad and the sad times, the wars and pestilence, to man's inhumanity to man; to brutality and torture, to poverty and disease, to racial hatred and intolerance. To child abuse and child labour, good riddance to the master and servant class, to the bad times when only the privileged and the rich obtained an education. No matter how clever the underpriveleged child.
Still, not all gloom and doom.
Welcome to the second half of the century. The wonderful advancement in science and technology, the eradication of killer diseases such as tuburculosis, which was prevalent in the 1940s, At that time I worked at Galway hospital in the west of Ireland. There were special wards for T.B patients. Day after day, young people were admitted to die eventually, always young, it was also very sad for us young workers who talked to them every day. In the children's ward I saw this lovely little girl, she looked so well, I asked the nurse in charge, that beautiful child suffered convulsions and she died that night, There were so many awful diseases at that time. Polio, which left many young people crippled, and diphtheria which devastated our school when I was a child, of the five children who caught the disease, only two survived. No penicillin then.
Thank God we were a very healthy family, we only had the usual coughs and colds.
Two of my best friends, aged twenty-one and twenty-four died of T.B.
At that time, people were ashamed to admit to the disease, as if it were a disgrace.
Now cancer has taken over the role. Perhaps one day with the help of science and technology a cure will also be found for cancer.
We have a great debt to Aneurin Bevan and the National Health Service, instituted in 1948 which gave every person, young and old, a right to free health care. It was the envy of the world.
In the fifties and early sixties, I had my eight children and the medical care I recieved in hospital and the care and attention at home was equal to private care today and was second to more.
In the sixties, science and technology enabled man to explore space, in 1969 men walked on the moon, "a small step for man, a giant step for mankind" and yet there is no solution to child poverty and disease and pollution in the big cities of the world.
Medical science has advanced in leaps and bounds in the last twenty or thirty years with open heart surgery, heart transplants and test tube babies, but no cure for the common cold and asthma still affects a great number of people.
Now we have the computer age, with the 'web' and the 'net' - a complete mystery to people of my age. I might still learn it. If you can't beat them, join them.
Nobody writes letters anymore.They send E-mail. My grandchildren use it all the time, I got my Christmas and birthday cards from my son Martin in Brazil by E-mail. I hope pen and paper does not become obsolete in the 21st century.
I cannot let the 90s go without a mention of the blessed Maggie, who thought she was God.
You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
In the early part of the century, match making was a fine art in rural Ireland. It probably had gone on for hundreds of years. The fathers or uncles of the proposed couple met and discussed terms and argued over the dowry. Sometimes the match was made between a young girl and a much older man, and the girl had little say in the matter. Perhaps she had to go live where there were already brothers and sisters and sometimes the parents of her husband. And worse luck for the girl whose people couldn't afford a dowry. She continued to live at the family home, where her brother brought his wife, and she slaved for the new family and helped to rear the children. She had no money, no status and little respect, and she grew more bitter every day. There was always the exception where the woman lived happily with her brother or sister's family. Perhaps she was glad to have escaped the marriage market; she had her children to rear and no responsibility for the roof over her head. This is from life in my village.
The girls of my generation didn't hang around for a man. We got the hell out of it and found jobs. I worked at Galway hospital with dozens of young girls, the work was hard and long, but who cared, we had a day and a half off in the week and we finished at six with the beach ten minutes away.
We went to dances in the town at the weekends. The hospital gates were locked at 10:30! So most times we were locked out. No problem. If we couldn't sweet talk the gatekeeper, we climbed the wall, it was six feet high but when one is young and fit, it was a daddle. Much harder to avoid the night sister. We had to watch her movements, until a friend inside, opened a window to climb in. Would the young people believe that today.
Visits back to childhood are not always happy. As a family, we were very clever and intelligent young people. We all attended a national school in a rural area, until the age of fourteen which was leaving age. There was no further education without money or influence and there was little of that. I have always felt the lack of a decent education. It is like a hunger.
Welcome to the new woman of today. The woman who has it all. A decent education, career, husband, children and home. Probably an au pair or live-in housekeeper.
Then the single career woman with her own flat, friends and social life. Women who work in every profession, with a wonderful university education and all thanks to a wonderful band of women who worked and suffered, been divided, pushed and spat upon, taken on by the government and the police, been sent to prison and force-fed more than once and eventually won and gained the vote for women. And there are thousands of women today who can't be bothered to vote.
Goodbye to the twentieth century. The good and the bad times, the glad and the sad times, the wars and pestilence, to man's inhumanity to man; to brutality and torture, to poverty and disease, to racial hatred and intolerance. To child abuse and child labour, good riddance to the master and servant class, to the bad times when only the privileged and the rich obtained an education. No matter how clever the underpriveleged child.
Still, not all gloom and doom.
Welcome to the second half of the century. The wonderful advancement in science and technology, the eradication of killer diseases such as tuburculosis, which was prevalent in the 1940s, At that time I worked at Galway hospital in the west of Ireland. There were special wards for T.B patients. Day after day, young people were admitted to die eventually, always young, it was also very sad for us young workers who talked to them every day. In the children's ward I saw this lovely little girl, she looked so well, I asked the nurse in charge, that beautiful child suffered convulsions and she died that night, There were so many awful diseases at that time. Polio, which left many young people crippled, and diphtheria which devastated our school when I was a child, of the five children who caught the disease, only two survived. No penicillin then.
Thank God we were a very healthy family, we only had the usual coughs and colds.
Two of my best friends, aged twenty-one and twenty-four died of T.B.
At that time, people were ashamed to admit to the disease, as if it were a disgrace.
Now cancer has taken over the role. Perhaps one day with the help of science and technology a cure will also be found for cancer.
We have a great debt to Aneurin Bevan and the National Health Service, instituted in 1948 which gave every person, young and old, a right to free health care. It was the envy of the world.
In the fifties and early sixties, I had my eight children and the medical care I recieved in hospital and the care and attention at home was equal to private care today and was second to more.
In the sixties, science and technology enabled man to explore space, in 1969 men walked on the moon, "a small step for man, a giant step for mankind" and yet there is no solution to child poverty and disease and pollution in the big cities of the world.
Medical science has advanced in leaps and bounds in the last twenty or thirty years with open heart surgery, heart transplants and test tube babies, but no cure for the common cold and asthma still affects a great number of people.
Now we have the computer age, with the 'web' and the 'net' - a complete mystery to people of my age. I might still learn it. If you can't beat them, join them.
Nobody writes letters anymore.They send E-mail. My grandchildren use it all the time, I got my Christmas and birthday cards from my son Martin in Brazil by E-mail. I hope pen and paper does not become obsolete in the 21st century.
I cannot let the 90s go without a mention of the blessed Maggie, who thought she was God.
You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
In the early part of the century, match making was a fine art in rural Ireland. It probably had gone on for hundreds of years. The fathers or uncles of the proposed couple met and discussed terms and argued over the dowry. Sometimes the match was made between a young girl and a much older man, and the girl had little say in the matter. Perhaps she had to go live where there were already brothers and sisters and sometimes the parents of her husband. And worse luck for the girl whose people couldn't afford a dowry. She continued to live at the family home, where her brother brought his wife, and she slaved for the new family and helped to rear the children. She had no money, no status and little respect, and she grew more bitter every day. There was always the exception where the woman lived happily with her brother or sister's family. Perhaps she was glad to have escaped the marriage market; she had her children to rear and no responsibility for the roof over her head. This is from life in my village.
The girls of my generation didn't hang around for a man. We got the hell out of it and found jobs. I worked at Galway hospital with dozens of young girls, the work was hard and long, but who cared, we had a day and a half off in the week and we finished at six with the beach ten minutes away.
We went to dances in the town at the weekends. The hospital gates were locked at 10:30! So most times we were locked out. No problem. If we couldn't sweet talk the gatekeeper, we climbed the wall, it was six feet high but when one is young and fit, it was a daddle. Much harder to avoid the night sister. We had to watch her movements, until a friend inside, opened a window to climb in. Would the young people believe that today.
Visits back to childhood are not always happy. As a family, we were very clever and intelligent young people. We all attended a national school in a rural area, until the age of fourteen which was leaving age. There was no further education without money or influence and there was little of that. I have always felt the lack of a decent education. It is like a hunger.
Welcome to the new woman of today. The woman who has it all. A decent education, career, husband, children and home. Probably an au pair or live-in housekeeper.
Then the single career woman with her own flat, friends and social life. Women who work in every profession, with a wonderful university education and all thanks to a wonderful band of women who worked and suffered, been divided, pushed and spat upon, taken on by the government and the police, been sent to prison and force-fed more than once and eventually won and gained the vote for women. And there are thousands of women today who can't be bothered to vote.
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