The Gruesome Secret of Our Ash Tree

Our European Ash (Fraxinus excelsior)        © 2016    by Victor Sullivan.

A fine old tree stands proudly at the east end of our garden, just as it did when my wife and I bought the derelict property in 1970. The large, overgrown plot with its mature Sycamores, Elms and Laurels, had been neglected for decades and it was some months before we cleared an access path and finally touched the massive trunk of our Ash tree. Its present girth is 3.35 Metres. (11 feet). 

We had been advised that this particular tree was the subject of a Preservation Order, a matter of little interest to us at the time, as we had no intention of felling it for firewood. We set about repairing the house that had been built around 1904 and in the course of our repairs we discovered that a small section, we called it the scullery, had once been part of an earlier structure on the same site. From old maps in Cork City Library we learned that our acquisition had replaced a row of three cottages, constructed for Prison Warders employed at the nearby, disused and derelict prison, Cork City Gaol.

During summer, the view of the old prison from my bedroom window is obscured by our Ash tree's dense foliage but in winter, through its bleak, barren, lower branches, the gloomy main gate-house of Cork City Gaol is clearly visible. The gate-house was designed to be, not only the main entrance to the prison, it was also an execution facility that incorporated a cell for the condemned, with twin beds, one above the other. It also had a tiny chapel where the wretched condemned prisoner could receive the Last Rites of the Church. The spot immediately in front of the main door is the precise location where numerous public executions took place between 1827 and 1865. 

Such public events were a popular source of free entertainment and attracted large crowds of enthusiastic onlookers. Some mothers are said to have brought their children to witness the formalities and thus be memorably warned that a similar fate could await them if they were disobedient or misbehaved. Placing bets on how many kicks the victim might achieve before expiring was another common practice at these well-attended events. 

The date and time of each execution was advertised and it was wise to arrive early in order to be assured of a good position for a clear view of the Hangman's performance. Not everyone wished to be 'up too close' to the Hangman, some preferring a more distant over-view of all the onlookers and the focus of their attention in front of the prison's main door.

One execution enthusiast was a very small man of considerable athletic dexterity and a grim determination to see everything. Doney loved executions and he boasted that he had never missed one. His limited height meant that he could only see the details of the Hangman's skill from the front row of the dense crowd but  that was uncomfortably too close to the Gallows, the Rope and the Condemned. If Doney moved further back among the gaping crowd he would have seen only the backs of the people directly in front of him.  

To solve the problem, Doney claimed personal viewing rights on what he considered to be the best position for execution observations, high in the branches of his Ash tree, which, in those days, was the only tree growing in the immediate area. It stood a comfortable eighty yards to the south-west of the Gallows. Doney climbed higher and higher until he reached the topmost branches of his Ash tree, while less agile followers struggled to secure a position on the lower branches.  As some very ancient wounds on the trunk of the tree suggest, far too many people climbed onto the lower branches, snapping them off, hence the tell-tale scars on the now aged trunk.

It is said that 'All good things must come to an end,' and so it was with the public Executions. The 'Respectable Residents' who lived near the Prison raised an objection to the City Authorities, complaining, not about the executions in public, but about the low class of people such spectacles attracted into the area. Their complaint was eventually taken seriously and, in 1865, the last public execution took place outside the main door of the Cork City Gaol. Thereafter, executions were carried out inside the high walls of the prison, hidden from public view, the 'Respectable Residents' who lived nearby were no longer bothered by unsavory crowds of gapers and Doney never again had reason to climb into his observation perch that still grows magnificently at the end of our garden.  

Film Review

by Cecily Lynch  © 2015

During the Cork Film Festival I saw a documentary on the journey of African refugee people from their native pastoral lands to the big cities of Europe.

The film’s opening sequences were almost biblical. There was a long shot of hundreds of men women and children crossing a scorching desert on foot. Then there were night scenes of ravaged looking boats being loaded with silent and downcast people.  More and more humanity was crammed into these flimsy crafts. Children wailed as the first waves ploughed into the boats.  The adults were silent and petrified.  The engines broke and they were at the mercy of the rough seas.  The boats lurched crazily from side to side, spilled the elderly and weak into the black darkness.  Their cries for help could be heard above the crashing of the waves.   The survivors moaned in the darkness.

Towards dawn an Irish rescue ship approached. Screams for help arose.  The people were hysterical with fear.  The naval officers imposed a strict discipline.  Women and children sick and covered with vomit were winched first up the side of the rescue ship.  The rescuers wore anti infection clothing and mouth masks.  The stench from the battered boats was appalling.

As the rescue ships approached the harbours of the Italian and Turkish cities, volunteers and Red Cross aides stood with rows of police, in long helpless rows as screams of terrible grief and loss arose from the decks of the rescue ships.  As they disembarked, the refugees were contorted with grief for the loved ones who had been swept overboard.  Their cries of desperation were heart shattering.  The cries rose up to the skies in wild screaming of utter pain.  The dashed their heads against the harbour walls, they rolled on the ground, the pounded their heads, they threw their arms up.  The police shifted uneasily and the soldiers looked away, at the sight of such human grief and suffering.

There is no doubt that the visual impact of cinema is extraordinarily moving and sometimes unbearable. 

The Feis

by Cecily Lynch  © 2016

The Feis is a peculiarly Irish institution.  (It is pronounced 'Fesh').  The Eistedfod in Wales bears the closest relation to it.  However, the Irish Feis extends to six or eight weeks and is based on competitions in various art forms: singing, reciting and the playing of instruments.  Over the six weeks of the Feis, twelve thousand performers strut their stuff on the stage; the majority are under 18 years. 

It had been almost 60 years since I had been in the Feis.  As a skinny and shy teenager I had performed in a verse-speaking group.  We had, unfortunately, come last in that competition.  I had resented this humiliation and had vowed never to set foot in the Feis again.

Now hoary and grey, scarred by the many battles of life, poisoned by bitterness and grief, I pulled back the entrance curtain. The theatre was half-full.  Children ran around.  Grandmothers abounded. Teenagers were decked out in outlandish garments.  Parents hovered anxiously. No, nothing had changed in the intervening years

Competition 38 was announced.  A stream of children mounted the small stage, stiff with nervousness and stage fright.  They assembled into formation.  I waited, remembering my own nervousness all those years ago.  The teacher rapped the desk. And suddenly the hall was filled with angel voices, rivalling the seraphim and cherubim rising, rising, swelling, rolling, like a sweet spring tide.  It was, in one word, glorious.  I was rapt, entranced.  Stream after stream of children mounted and performed their piece.  Boy sopranos. Sang like violins. Little girls in frilly dresses lisped the harmonies in the seriousness of childhood concentration.  More and more young children ascended the steps, their treble voices mounting to the heavens.  More and more streamed up to the stage, their clear voices rising like birdsong.

And there I was, the cynic, who had come to mock, to laugh, to be sarcastic about the doting parents, the fawning grandparents, there I was smiling in delighted joy, elated, transfixed, and transported by the intent gravity of the children, as they sang their hearts out in the untroubled land that is childhood.

Swans in Prague

by Sara O’Mahony      ©   2015

Enlightenment from nature on a river in Prague

The swans on the river in Prague,

They are there to tell us to be clean and do what we can

About the environment

If you could see how dark

Dark murky the water was

And see the flotilla of 

Twelve swans, then three,

Twenty, thirty swans

Two swans, all on the river that night

Loud and clear in that moment,

It was about being pure and to learn from them.

They are existing in nature, surrounded by industry

That is a unique message. 

Diary of a Carer

by Cecily Lynch    © 2014

Old age is so touching, so gentle, so dependent, so sweet, so irritating, so pathetic in its failing powers. 

I entered the gates of a large and beautiful house.  I could see the patient at the window, waving at me.  My heart sank.  I faced eight hours of forced smiling, of choking back resentment at his criticism of my clothes, my accent and appearance. ‘In you go, girl.’ I addressed myself sternly, ‘Get on with it!’

The odour of urine met me full on.  The elderly gentleman was in his underwear, his shrunken limbs blue with the cold.  He looked very cross.  

‘About time you came’, he spat the words at me viciously, ‘It’s five past ten already!’

‘Well Thomas’,  I gushed, although my temper was rising, ‘Aren’t you the early bird this morning.’

‘Bah!’ was his only answer.

‘We’ll soon have you nice and warm, won’t we?’  My professional patter sounded false even to myself.

I got on with my work.  

He was particularly difficult, limp and uncooperative.

I paused, looked carefully at him.  His lips were blue, his breath fluttering.

I spoke into the emergency button quietly.  Then I took his hands in mine.  He trembled and whispered very faintly, 

‘Forgive me, you have always been so good.’  His voice trailed away and his eyes closed in the long, long sleep of death. 

On the Rim of the Known World

On the Rim of the Known World    by Cecily Lynch

© 2011

Sublime Isolation

The peninsula of Beara in West Cork is wild romantic and beautiful. On a recent visit I wondered at wildness, the loneliness, the incredible emptiness of the rugged, timeless spaces. On the very edge of the western world is situated Dzogen Beara, the Buddhist Retreat Centre on the edge of sheer cliff where the wild Atlantic bashes and crashes drowning the monks' reverent chanting. 

I walked along the little winding roads admiring the pretty bungalows built impossibly on bare rock. Each a  separate little world but so far away. The hedgerows were fertile with cowslips, foxgloves and ferns, the distant mountains run along the skyline peaking to the huge heights of Mangerton and Carrantuohill. I felt the impact of being the only person for miles and miles around. Between the sea and the sky I hung suspended, my past slipped away and I was just a little drop in the universe.

It was with a start that I realized that it was the 21st century and the bus was coming.

Christy WHO?

My Midnight Rescuer

by Victor Sullivan © 2012

The Lambretta scooter had come with me from London when I returned to Ireland in the latter half of the1950s, devoid of any knowledge of what had been going on in my native country during my absence. My hobbies and interests were entirely focussed on things of a technical nature, mainly ham radio, industrial electronics and keeping the Lambretta fit for purpose. I took little or no interest in the notable personalities in the public eye and no sport of any kind ever encroached in my fields of curiosity or enthusiasm.

While employed on a process control project in the most northerly end of the country I received an invitation to a cousin's wedding in West Cork at the opposite end of the country, necessitating a 200 mile trip on my ageing scooter.  I could not escape from the job until 6:00pm on that Friday afternoon in August. Having filled the Lambretta's tank to the brim I set out on my expedition. In Ireland in the 1950s roads were poor, traffic was almost non-existent, apart from local farm tractors and horse-drawn vehicles. Signposts, wherever they existed, could not be trusted. Driving at around 40 miles per hour I estimated five hours should get me to my destination. Allowing a stop for a meal I'd be there by midnight.

It was pleasant driving along the rural roads for the first two hours. The sun shone. The Lambretta purred along confidently. I was making excellent progress but hunger-pangs prompted a break having reached the main Dublin to Cork road so I stopped for a meal at the first eating-house I encountered. I also topped up the fuel tank, (late-night service stations were as yet unheard of) and set off once again. Things were never quite the same after that. It was growing dark and the Lambretta intermittently emitted a dog-like growl that became progressively more threatening as the next hour wore worryingly on. The dog seemed to grow bigger and nastier and I noticed that even though the hand-grip throttle was turned fully against the stop my speed was dropping to below 30 MPH. The scooter was unwell, very unwell. Everyone seemed to have gone to bed as I growled through the town of Cahir in County Tipperary and headed anxiously onto the long, lonely stretch of bleak road heading towards Mitchelstown and the distant city of Cork. 

It was around midnight when the dog was shot. A sharp bang underneath me and the growling stopped. So did the Lambretta's engine and its lights went out. I stood beside it, cursing. It was very dark on that lonely roadside in County Tipperary with only a dead scooter for company. I had no torch, no light and any hope of getting to the wedding in the morning was  rapidly fading. My only remedy would be to thumb a lift from a passing vehicle, any passing vehicle... if there ever would be one. Some local farmer might trundle by but I needed a long distance traveller. Begin to walk? No. Better stay with the scooter. I took its side panels off, laid them on the road and hoped the action might earn a sympathy vote. I grew cold. Then colder. Nothing moved on that empty wilderness of lifeless road. Was it an hour? Perhaps two?

A faint noise in the far distance... a slight brightening of the sky... a whatever-it-might-be was approaching. The thing coming towards me along that long stretch of road across the moorland was no fast mover. Then I saw its headlights. I stood in the middle of the road waving a side-panel of the Lambretta. The noise grew louder, the vehicle began to slow down and stopped. It was a huge truck, a fuel  tanker. 

The driver lowered his window.

"You're in trouble, my good man?"

"Thanks for stopping. My scooter's died and I have to get to West Cork for a wedding in the morning."

"Well, I can take you as far as Cork city and no further. I can't take your scooter though, so throw it in the ditch and climb in." 

I obeyed gladly and a powerful hand reached down, grabbed my right hand and hauled me effortlessly up into the comfortable passenger seat of the warm cab. I presume we exchanged names and I undoubtedly expressed my gratitude for the very welcome lift.

"Where have you come from?" was my rescuer's first question.

"Donegal."

"They haven't much of a team this year. Tell me, what did you think of the match last Sunday?"

"What match?" I asked innocently. 

"Ah now! You're having me on! What did you think of our team, eh?"

By the time we reached slumbering Mitchelstown it had begun to dawn on the tanker driver that there was at least one person on the planet who knew nothing and cared nothing about the outcome of last Sunday's match and it had been his misfortune to have picked up that one freak of nature, me. There had been no topic of conversation other than that match and it must have been with profound relief that my rescuer dropped his weird passenger off in the empty streets of Cork city in the small hours of the morning.

Somehow, via thumb, bus and luck, I got to the wedding venue just in time, sleep-starved and food-starved but glad to have made it.

Later, at the reception, I recounted my adventure to a man I didn't know seated beside me.

"A big road tanker you say? Are you sure?"

"Yes." I confirmed. He looked at me as if I had announced that I had some unpleasant, infectious disease and quickly left his seat. 

Moments later an anxious looking woman approached me, holding the hand of a young boy.

"Are you the fella who got the lift to Cork in the petrol tanker last night? she asked.

"I am."

"And you shook the driver's hand?"

"I did. He pulled me up into his cab by this same hand." I replied, holding out the limb. She seemed reassured.

"Would you please shake hands with my Michael." she requested.

Somewhat amused I said, "Of course." and stretched out my hand towards the shy seven-year-old who stared at my paw in awe before nervously grasping it, then grinning from ear to ear.

An overweight lawyer came up to me a little later; "What kind of tanker was it?" he asked.

"A big Esso tanker." I answered.

"Then let me shake that hand of yours!" he demanded aloud. That seemed to initiate a general drift towards me of would-be hand-shakers. Some muttered something about it being a privilege to shake my hand. Soon I had shaken hands with half of the guests, young and old, at their request and my utter bemusement. I was not a well-known celebrity, merely an obscure second cousin of the groom. 

I sought out a much respected uncle and demanded an explanation. 

"Well you must be the nation's prize eegit! There isn't a man, woman or child in the county who wouldn't give their all to have been where you were last night. Your hand was held by the mightiest hand that ever held a hurley. That tanker driver was the hero of the Hurling match last Sunday and many other matches before it. You, of all people, with not the slightest knowledge of, or even the remotest interest in the game of Hurling, were rescued from the roadside by the finest hurler that ever lived, the great Christy Ring!"

Whenever my children, and now my grandchildren accompany me on visits to Cork Airport, they find it embarrassing when I make a point of addressing a life-size bronze statue of a man wielding a hurley. I salute the statue and say aloud: 
"Thanks for picking me up, Christy." 

A Search for Roots

by Marie Guillot  © 2015

Seeking in the rain…

The pouring rain does not deter the two senior women who have travelled the Seven Seas to reach the place. Wearing wax jackets and wellies, armed only with pruning shears and cameras, they are scouting an old graveyard by the sea, in a remote area of Ireland. They try to read an ancient map that currently looks like a wet rag. At any rate, it’s more of a rough sketch, found in their family papers in Australia.

Alone at the beginning, they can now hear voices; next thing, three young men appear from nowhere, walking in-line along the only narrow path crossing the cemetery, in the direction of the sea. They are speaking loudly, in a language that is closer to Russian than to Gaelic or English. The open skies do not seem to affect them either.

Each party nods politely to the other and the trio disappears, but not far, as the duo can still hear their discussion, getting livelier with time. The women make their own noises, with exclamations and laughs, as they find, or not, the clues they are seeking.

The job at hand is hard: most of the tombs are covered in ivy and bushes have sprung up everywhere; in truth, machetes would have been more efficient. In addition, rain and winds have eroded many inscriptions. It takes patience: cutting off enough vegetation to reach the text and trying to interpret the remaining letters and dates. They may never succeed, as some characters are totally illegible. 

When, at last, one of the two sisters shrieks with delight (the other one joining-in immediately), it brings back the lads who think that there is murder going on there and rush “at the ready” to save the “damselles” (so-to-speak).

The five are soaked and dripping all over but, even if tentative explanations are not fully understood on both sides, all will remember their parting: a warm exchange of wet farewells, loaded with goodwill, among a cluster of placid tombstones, in a forgotten corner of Ireland.

THE UNLOCKED HOUSE

by Madelaine Nerson Mac Namara,    ©  2015                       

Mirror you lie

flat on your back

the window sill

your gloss hard bed.

Gulls and magpies

wander the sky

clutter and clear

your unlocked house.

Clouds visit you

sunlight tickles

the dusk riddles

and tells stories.

Patient lover

you wake and dream 

my tomorrow's

face and weather.

Ireland’s Freedom Centenary

By AIDAN O’SHEA.

Look carefully at this photograph. Here is a young man in his mid-thirties who was executed by firing squad at dawn on May 3rd, 1916. Patrick Pearse was condemned by court martial as commander of rebels in The Easter Rising, a rising which lasted less than  a week, a rising that could never withstand the power of British military force in Ireland. His is a soulful, doleful appearance; his life was both heroic and ultimately tragic. 

In this centenary year, we should review his life and his work. Patrick Pearse was born in November 1879 at 27 Great Brunswick Street Dublin to James Pearse (1839-1900), a widower and monumental sculptor from Birmingham, and Margaret Brady (1857-1932) of County Meath. James converted to the Catholic faith before this marriage in 1877. The second family comprised Margaret (b.1878), Patrick (b.1879), Willie (b.1881), and Mary Brigid (b.1884).  

The family business  thrived and they moved to the suburb of Sandymount when Patrick was five years old. He spent five years at a private school before entering the Christian Brothers School at Westland Row. By this time Irish national and cultural spirit was being actively promoted by teaching orders of brothers and nuns. He proved to be a diligent student, sensitive to being teased about having a Birmingham accent and having a slight squint. He excelled at the Irish language, which was taught outside the main curriculum. He was awarded a book prize entitled  The Tongue of the Gael by Tomás Ó Flannghaile. This book inspired him to explore the half-forgotten treasures of the Irish language, poetry and heroic folklore. In his final school year, Patrick achieved second place in the island of Ireland in the Senior Certificate examinations. 

Conradh na Gaeilge.

He was then employed at his school as an instructor in Irish and actively took part in Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), a voluntary organisation dedicated to promoting the native language, campaigning for its recognition in schools and publishing new writing. His evident spirit and fluency impressed older Conradh members, and he was elected to the Ardchoiste (executive committee) within a year. He had found his métier. 

It is widely acknowledged that the Conradh became a broad cultural movement which acted as a seedbed for political change. 

James Pearse died in 1900. Thus Patrick and Willie (who had trained as an artist) took over the management of the family firm. However, the firm went into decline because of poor financial management and  outstanding debts. Patrick managed to pay his way through an Arts degree in Irish, English and French at University College, Dublin. He also qualified as a barrister.   In 1903 he was appointed editor of An Claidheamh Soluis (Sword of Light), the weekly bilingual paper of the Conradh. It soon became evident that he wrote very finely in Irish and English. His work included editorials, orations, short stories, short plays and poetry.  In the following decade, he became the principal voice of resurgent nationalist thought.

Scoil Éanna.

Pearse worked tirelessly for the Conradh, travelling the country to promote new branches, visiting the Connemara Gaeltacht, not only  to learn from native speakers of the language, but to train many of them to teach the language to others. In addition to this pioneering work, he founded Scoil Éanna in 1908, a bilingual high school for boys. Two years later, the school moved to Rathfarnham, and Pearse opened a high school for girls, Scoil Íde. His ambitions exceeded his financial skills, however, and both schools struggled with debts. Nevertheless, he offered a wide creative curriculum which emphasised patriotism and the Irish language. The schools became the family business, involving his mother, Willie and his sisters. 

Rebellion.

Patrick Pearse was a key speaker at the inaugural meeting in November 2013 of Óglaigh na h-Éireann (Irish Volunteers), a civilian militia. Many of this militia volunteered to serve in the British forces in World War I (1914-18). They did so in the hope of Home Rule for Ireland as a reward. A minority of the Óglaigh planned an armed uprising in the cause of Irish freedom. Arms and help were sought from German military sources, on the basis that England’s preoccupation with the War was Ireland’s opportunity. The rebels’ plans were mired in confusion, a German arms shipment was intercepted, yet the Dublin insurgents decided to attack on Easter Monday, 1916. Thus Patrick Pearse was chosen as Chairman of  The Provisional Government of The Irish Republic (Poblacht na h-Éireann).   

 Turbulent years would follow in Ireland, involving the execution of the leaders of the rising, the imprisonment of hundreds of captives, the establishment of Dáil Éireann as provisional Irish Parliament in 1919, a violent war of Independence, a Truce, The Anglo-Irish Treaty and political independence in the form of an Irish Free State (December 6th 1922).

In remembering Patrick Pearse, the real and symbolic leader of an Irish Republic, we honour him in the name of all men and women who set the nation, or most of it, on the path to the freedom we enjoy today.

Our European Ash (Fraxinus excelsior)

  © 2016    by Victor Sullivan.

If this Ash Tree could talk! 

A fine old tree stands proudly at the east end of our garden, just as it did when my wife and I bought the property in 1970. The large, overgrown garden had been neglected for decades and it was some months before we succeeded in clearing an access path to the farthest end and finally touch the massive trunk of our Ash tree. We had been advised that the tree was the subject of a Preservation Order, a matter of little interest to us as we had no intention of felling it for firewood. 

During summer, the view towards the East from my bedroom window is partly obscured by our Ash tree's dense foliage but in winter, through its bleak, barren, lower branches, the impressive main entrance to Cork City Gaol can be seen. No longer operating as a prison, it is now a popular Tourist attraction, nevertheless it has a gloomy history. The very spot that I can see from my bed is the precise location of numerous public executions in the mid- 1800s. Such  events were a popular source of free entertainment and attracted large crowds of enthusiastic onlookers. Some mothers brought their children to witness the formalities and thus be memorably warned that a similar fate would await them if they were disobedient or misbehaved. Placing bets on how many kicks the hanged victim would make before expiring was a common practice at public executions. 

The date and time of each execution was advertised locally and consequently it was advisable to arrive early in order to be assured of a good position for a clear view of the performance. Not everyone wished to be 'too close' to the Hangman, some preferring a more distant over-view of all the onlookers and the focus of their attention outside the prison's main door.

Such an enthusiast was a small man of considerable athletic dexterity and grim determination, Doney. Doney loved the public Executions. He boasted that he had never missed one. He claimed to have established viewing rights from what he considered to be the best viewing position, high in his Ash tree to the south-west of the Cork City Gaol. It was then the only substantial tree in the area that was close to the front of the prison. 

Doney's tree was the much younger embodiment of what is now our respected Ash tree. 

The 'Respectable residents' who lived in the area near the Prison raised an official objection to the City Authorities complaining, not about the executions in public, but about the low class of people attracted by such spectacles. Their complaint was eventually taken seriously and in 1865 the last public execution took place outside the main door of the Cork City Gaol, presumably keenly observed by Doney from 'our' ash tree. Thereafter, executions were carried out inside the high walls of the prison, hidden from view. The 'Respectable residents' of Sunday's Well were no longer bothered by unsavory crowds of gapers and our Ash tree was never again required by Doney. 

© 2016    Victor Sullivan.  

DEORAITHE

DEORAITHE

Le Aodán Ó Sé    © 2015

Tá rabharta nua le taoide na himirce 

Imirce intíre is imirce thar lear.

Páil na hÉireann ag éirí plúchta

Is ag slogadh plúr na tuaithe.

Na mílte Gaedheal le céim ollscoile

Ag teitheadh leo ar fuaid na cruinne.

Ní le sclábhaíocht  ach le tóir ar

Impireacht dian an domhandachais.

Mar chúiteamh ar an rabharta daonna

Seo chugainn comharsain nua

Ildánach, ilteangach, ilchreidmheach

A n-iolrachas mar dhúshlán dúinn.

An saibhre linn a dtuirlingt  orainn

Mar fuilaistriú ar chlanna Gaedheal

Fad is a bheidh  ár muirear féinigh

Ag spaisteoireacht i bhfad i gcéin?

MIGRANTS

There is a new migratory tide around us

Internal migration and migration overseas.

Ireland's metropolis ever more congested

As it swallows the best of our youth.

Thousands of our are graduates fleeing

Back and forth across the globe

Not as deportees or penniless labourers 

But as cogs in capitalism's world empire. 

To compensate for this human exodus

Here come new neighbours to our shores

Talented, multilingual, of all faiths and none

Startling and challenging our parochial core.

Are we not richer for their arrival?

Will they be a blood transfusion to our nation?

Meanwhile our loved ones stroll down foreign boulevards

And flicker occasionally on Skype.

Who was Johnnie Gill? Chapter 21

By Victor Sullivan © 2015       The Wedding Gift

Johnnie was genuinely upset by the consequence of his own carelessness, frightening May so severely on the occasion of their first unfortunate meeting. He was determined to improve his relationship with May, but how best to go about it?

Wedding presents were traditionally either decorative and useless, or mundane, practical, useful things. His gift would have to be exceptional, useful, long-lasting, conspicuous and above all, DIFFERENT. Furthermore, his wedding gift would have to give little or no pleasure to his unpleasant brother while being the absolute life-long delight of his wife. If May's prolonged appreciation of his wedding gift could be a thorn in Richard's backside every time he saw it, so much the better. But what could achieve such a profound specification? 

The solution presented itself as he was having a sorting-out session in The Cell, a month before the wedding, at the fervent request of his mother. He was packing things into a box; his books, his documents and what his mother referred to as 'his flithers.'  A tattered page slipped out from among 'the flithers' and slithered onto the floor. The perfect solution to his problem! Doubtless it would be the most expensive gift May would receive on her wedding day, but thanks to careful management of his his various enterprises, money was not a problem for Johnnie. 

When he first acquired a reputation for repairing sewing machines, Johnnie had occasionally been asked to procure machines for other dressmakers.  He ordered them from the Singer shop in Cork and was pleasantly surprised to receive a generous seller's commission on the sale of each one. All such machines were of the treadle type as they were for professional dressmakers or tailors. The page of the catalogue that had fluttered onto the floor in such a timely fashion did not show a treadle model but a portable, table-top, hand-operated machine.

Johnnie wrote to Singer for the latest catalogue from which he ordered the table-top model, specifying the posh version that boasted a white ceramic crank-handle among its special, attractive features.[ The Author can vividly remember being allowed to wind bobbins on that sewing machine with the white ceramic handle. ] The order included several spare bobbins plus dozens of reels of silk, linen and cotton thread in a wide variety of colours. The machine was enclosed in what was morbidly termed its 'coffin-style' carrying-case. For the journey to Castletown Bere it was additionally protected by a wooden crate. It was sent by rail to Bantry and from there by sea on The Lady Elsie.

Johnnie met the little coaster as it docked at the pier and waited while the passengers disembarked. He asked the man at the gangway to bring him the expected crate addressed to Mr. Johnnie Gill. 'HANDLE WITH GREAT CARE.' was painted on all four sides and 'THIS SIDE UP' on the top. The man gingerly landed the crate on Johnnie's donkey-cart.

"What is it?" he asked with genuine interest.

"Dúlamán!" Johnnie replied as he set off with his crate. "And the very best quality Dúlamán it is too!" he added, leaving the crew-man of The Lady Elsie scratching his head.

Johnnie's next problem was deciding on the most appropriate method of delivery of the sewing machine to the bride. Was there some protocol to be observed in such circumstances? Delivery to her new home or to her childhood home at Adrigole? His bridegroom-to-be brother unwittingly decided the matter for him when he bluntly asked Johnnie not to attend the wedding or to appear at the celebrations. 

"I don't want May upset by your presence. She still hasn't recovered from her first meeting with you."

Johnnie had been expecting such a request and understood the reason for it but he pretended to be surprised, deeply offended and distressed by his brother's demand. Now he knew exactly when and how the sewing machine would play its spectacular part. It would be his proxy, his representative, his ambassador, acting on his behalf. 

Two days before the wedding, Johnnie made an early-morning visit to the Hotel to deliver the carefully wrapped mystery item. The Hotel proprietor agreed wholeheartedly with the idea of a pleasant surprise for the bride and said he had always admired the Gill family and he would be honoured to co-operate. They worked out some strategic details, Johnnie expressed his thanks, left the hotel and turned Ribbon's head towards Eyeries. To be conspicuously absent, as requested by his brother, would be his next contribution to the occasion.

On 3rd May, 1902, Richard Gill and May Harman were married. After the church formalities, the small group of relatives gathered for a family celebration in the Hotel in Castletown Bere. Unlike most weddings, it was a rather sombre event as the Gill family was still formally in mourning following the death of the bridegroom's father. Old Thomas Gill, had died in the last week of the previous November. Nevertheless, there were the usual speeches and toasts. 

Whisperers questioned the presence of a first cousin acting  as Best Man instead of the bridegroom's brother… but that would mean Johnnie… Johnnie would have been able do the job in spite of his handicap and he would tell some very good yarns… Why not Johnnie?

But where was he? Why wasn't he present at his brother's wedding? Surely he ought to be there on such a special occasion. Could he be ill? Could Richard have warned him off…? Nobody seemed to know.

The wedding cake, having been first stabbed ceremonially by the Bride and Groom, was then sliced into precise segments by the waiter and distributed to the guests. That was the moment when the Hotel proprietor chose to make his dramatic entry to the dining room, pushing a serving trolley on which something large and rectangular was hidden under a plain white table-cloth. The buzz of conversation died as all eyes focussed on the mystery object.

"A special delivery for the Bride!" announced the proprietor, bowing to May and quickly sweeping the white covering from the trolley with a flourish, revealing a high quality box. A lady's workbox perhaps? The Hotel Proprieter, after an appropriate delay for dramatic effect, reached out, released a catch and lifted the cover off. The Singer Portable Sewing Machine was revealed, generating gasps of surprise and admiration. The card inside was read aloud: 

"To May from Johnnie" 

The announcement was met with a round of applause and the machine became the focus of everyone's attention. Few, if any, of those present had ever seen a portable sewing machine and they crowded around it. May, in tears of delight and possibly some other emotions, wanted to thank Johnnie and sent the hotel staff searching for him but without success. Word of the wonderful wedding gift the new Mrs. Gill had received from Johnnie Wheels spread around the town and beyond. For months following the wedding, women calling to the Gill's farmhouse would ask to see the sewing machine. May was always pleased to take it down from its conspicuous place on the shelf beside the stairs and show off her machine's impressive features and abilities. 

Such demonstrations sometimes led to an order for a sewing machine and Johnnie secretly shared the commission with his sister-in-law.  What May's husband, Richard, didn't know about wouldn't trouble him; also, what May's husband didn't know about he couldn't claim, demand, get his hands on, and drink! 

Even with such mutually advantageous, secret transactions between them, try as she might, when in the presence of Johnnie, May could not overcome her irrational sense of unease and foreboding,…or  fear … or discomfort? …  and all those words failed to describe May's feelings. Johnnie tried to understand. May tried to understand. They talked about it. Johnnie decided to reduce his presence in the house for May's sake. He abandoned The Cell upstairs completely, stating that he preferred to sleep in the kitchen on Eureka, beside the warm fireplace with the dog for company. He would transfer all his 'thingamebobs and flithers' to the workshop. May felt guilt, gratitude and relief all at the same time. She had enough to do running her new home and the many farm chores that came with it, without having to bother about Johnnie. Her mother-in-law was becoming very feeble and was muttering about not liking to sleeping downstairs in the parlour as it was not agreeing with her troubles. Marriage was not the bed of roses May had hoped it would be!

Soon the first baby was on the way. That sewing machine would be very useful!

  

Who was Johnnie Gill? Chapter 20

 by Victor Sullivan  © 2015       A girl from Adrigole

1901, October.

May Harman, an intelligent, pretty, twenty-year old girl from Adrigole,  watched a cripple drag himself towards her, along the muddy main street of Castletown Bere. She had heard of his existence and knew that he had been badly injured when a child but it was the first time she had actually seen him moving along on some sort of trolley. She experienced a shudder of anxiety, mixed with revulsion as he drew closer and she stepped quickly into a shop door-way to avoid meeting the muck-spattered freak on wheels. The shop-keeper was about to ask what she wanted from his shelves when he noticed Johnnie passing outside and he understood immediately. Most women avoided getting close to Johnnie. Some men avoided him too.

"Ah! That's only Johnnie Wheels. He's fairly harmless. But don't ever cross him. Clever divil he is; he understands complicated gadgets like sewing machines and fixes them for all the dressmakers and tailors."

"But he's filthy!"

"So would you be, missy, if you had to drag yourself around through all the cow and horse-dung down there on the ground, as he does."

"He makes my skin crawl. Ugggg!"

"Say a prayer for him, missy. His must be a very hard life. He can't walk and 'tis said he can neither sit or stand. Dreadful way to have to live, dreadful altogether isn't it? 'Twas a mad sheep that attacked him and crippled him when he was only a young boy."

May continued on her way to the dressmaker, hoping that she would not encounter Johnny Wheels again. Her visit to the dressmaker was for what she hoped would be the final fitting. Although May was quite a competent seamstress and had considered making the dress herself, it was for a very special occasion and best left to the professional dressmaker. It was for her first formal visit to the home of the man that her father had arranged to become her husband. The match had been agreed and, being a farmer's daughter, the prospect of becoming a farmer's wife appealed to her. As May entered the dressmaker's shop her eye fell on the sewing machine near the window and the very notion of it being repaired or even touched by the crippled creature that she had encountered on the street seemed crazy. Surely not! How could anything so filthy and horrible have anything to do with a machine that could produce such neat stitches on those beautiful, fine fabrics or spotless white linen. But her own new dress would have been made with that machine! 

May put on the unfinished dress. As the dressmaker worked her way around her creation, making minor alterations with pins here and there, May asked bluntly, 

"Is it true that the cripple, Johnnie Wheels, repairs sewing machines like the one you've got here?"

"Oh Johnnie! He's great with the sewing machines. I'd be lost only for him. Only last week he was in here giving my machine the once-over as he called it.  Fluff builds up in all sorts of places in the machine and that can cause problems. I'd be scared to open it up myself and poke about in its innards. I was working on your own dress when he called in last week."

May looked down at her dress and shivered slightly. She half-expected to detect streaks of cow-dung on the fabric but failed to see any.

"Was my dress on the machine while he was here working on it?"

"Ah no! Johnnie always makes me clear away all my work before he gets going on the machine. Then he opens it up and picks out all the fluff before he oils it. He gets fierce fussy about cleaning it and polishing it afterwards. I have to keep scrap strips of all the different materials I use for him so that he can test the stitching on them all. He's fussy and funny at the same time. He tells some great yarns while he's working."

Regardless of how fussy and funny Johnnie might be in the opinion of the dress-maker, May was relieved to learn that the freak on wheels hadn't been pawing her new dress with his cow-dung-coated fingers. May left the dressmaker's shop having been assured that the dress would be ready for its final try-on in two days. She went in search of her father and found him, sitting in the pony trap, reading one of the two local newspapers, The Southern Star.

"Well?"

"Two days more." May replied as she untied the pony's reins and passed it to her father before climbing in beside him. On the road back to Adrigole they talked about matters in the Southern Star. May never mentioned the crippled man she had seen with the wheels under him, who could fix sewing machines.  If she had, she might have been better prepared for what followed. 

May's father, aware of his obligation to find suitable husbands for his daughters, had made discreet enquiries and a situation developing to the west of Castletown Bere had caught his attention. A fairly decent farm with a substantial area of commercial peat-bog attached would provide security for his daughter, May. The current half-blind owner was elderly and his wife was becoming quite feeble. The couple's son who worked the farm was in his forties and could probably do with a good, young woman in the house. Letters were written and a visit was arranged.

1901, November. 

 On a fine Sunday afternoon in early November, May Harman accompanied her father in the pony-trap, to meet her future husband. Traditionally, they could expect an invitation to 'walk the land' and had brought their boots for that opportunity. Richard and his blind and feeble father came out into the lane to meet them while his mother waited at the door. May's first impression of the younger bearded farmer who approached her with hand extended, was that he looked older than she had expected.  'Getting on in years,' would be appropriate, she thought. Richard's mother welcomed the visitors and invited them in for tea 'after they had walked the land.' Old Thomas Gill declared that as he couldn't see much any more and would prefer not join them. In truth, he was no longer able to walk far, 'his years had at last caught up with him.'  

May, her father and bridegroom-to-be, Richard set out to view the farm.The livestock consisted of one friendly black and white sheep-dog, a couple of cats, a herd of dry cattle, twelve milking cows, some calves, two pigs, poultry, ducks, a large flock of sheep and one goose. ("there were two but a fox got the other one!"). They walked the farm boundary, part of which included a small river. They saw the large area of peat-bog where cutting rights were sold as measured strips to neighbours and even to some families from the town, who then cut and saved their own year's supply of fuel. From the high, moorland part of the land, the view of Berehaven harbour, Bere Island and beyond it to Mizen Head, was magnificient.  To the west lay the Atlantic Ocean. As they returned to the farmhouse for the promised tea, May, delighted and excited by everything she had seen, was struggling nervously to retain her composure. Richard and her father were getting along well together as they discussed cattle and sheep and the prices they made at the last fair. She, the future Mrs. Gill, would behave properly, politely, respectfully at all times. On reaching the open farmhouse door, May removed the first of her muddy boots, stooping down to replace it with a retrieved shoe. She began to tie its lace.

From the darkness inside the kitchen, at floor level, a large, scrupulously clean hand was suddenly thrust straight towards her in greeting.

"Hello, I'm Johnnie!"

Raising her eyes from her shoe-lace, May saw the hand and a leering face mere inches from her own face. Her piercing scream of sheer shock and terror echoed through the house. It was a moment in her life that she would never forget. Even in her old age, images of that utterly unexpected, face-to-face, close-up, first meeting with Johnnie occasionally disturbed her sleep.

Johnnie was every bit as shocked and distressed by the pretty visitor's reaction. He had meant well. He was just being friendly and welcoming. He apologised profusely to the girl for frightening her so severely. But damage had been done. Richard was furious and, but for the presence of the important visitors, Johnnie would have felt more than the mere chill of his brother's hatred. But nobody had bothered to send Johnnie word about what was about to happen at the Gill farm. He had not been back to his home, or even to the workshop to assemble chairs, for two weeks. The possibility of matchmaking had never crossed his mind. 

He had untackled and stabled Ribbon as usual and then entered the farmhouse on Eureka. There he had found his ageing mother preparing the table in the rarely used parlour, setting out her best china. She simply said that visitors were out walking the land and added that he had time to get rid of Eureka and make himself clean and presentable before they returned for tea, when he could introduce himself to the two visitors from Adrigole. 

Which, he did, with such disastrous effect. 

Johnnie didn't linger for the formal tea. He deemed it prudent to go on an urgent mission to Allihies, or to Bantry, or to China or Russia or to…  somewhere… anywhere!!  

*************

Two weeks later, on on  24th November, 1901,  Johnnie's father, blind Thomas Gill, died peacefully, aged 83.  Johnnie was 31. He followed the funeral procession in his donkey-cart as far as the graveyard beside the North Road, Castletown Bere, where he remained on the roadside, outside the cemetry wall, where he was closer to the grave than most people, as the family plot lies immediately inside the roadside wall. He heard the soil and stones fall onto his father's coffin. He would join his father and Ada and other family members in that same plot some day. But not yet!

  

[1] May Harman was the author's Grandmother