Mining Memories: Then & Now
Full Circle, Maria Marshall
I drive along the uncongested country roads soaking up the scenery -- green animal-dotted fields and rolling hills of patchwork greens and golds -- and reflect on how I came to be in County Kilkenny, in the heart of Ireland.
My youthful memories are set against the busy streets of Shepherds Bush, West London, where I was born into an Irish family in 1935. A noisy, dusty working-class area but with the beauty and shade of mature plane trees. Loftus Road was wide and pleasant because the multi-occupied four-storey Victorian houses were originally designed for middle-class families with servants. There were small basement gardens at the front and long gardens at the back, which we enjoyed viewing from our top-floor rooms, though we could never set foot in them.
Thoughts of Ellen and ‘Inter Cert’ Past, Margaret Clayton
She walked from the car in that purposeful way so familiar to me, unruly red hair tied into submission. No school bag today, just pens in every colour, ruler, tissues, water, lunch money and her phone. The forecast was promising a warm eighteen to twenty one degrees. Eleven year old Niamh trotted behind, the burden of her fifth class books slowing her reluctant progress. ‘Three more weeks', she moaned, 'The secondary are already on holidays, it’s just not fair'. As I checked the rear view mirror Ellen was turning to chastise her, as only big sisters can.
I have measured out my life in school terms, I thought, recalling J. Alfred Prufrock, the T.S. Elliot character so unloved by my entire Inter. Cert. class. The radio couldn't hold my interest today. I recalled lines from the Shakespearean sonnets we learned by heart: 'Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end.’ They seem to be off the syllabus these days; what a pity I thought, remembering Miss Mitchell, from Manorhamilton who taught English and French to Intermediate Certificate Girls in the Convent of Mercy, Roscommon, in 1974.
It was the year of ‘Abba’ and 'Waterloo', who, according to Miss Mitchell, were over-rated. Her own favourite, she confided, was 'Après Toi' by Vicky Leandros, the 1972 winner for Luxembourg. In a weak moment, the normally prim French teacher was persuaded to sing it for us. Even today, thirty-six years later, Inter Cert French, Miss Mitchell from Manorhamilton and Vicki Leandros are forever associated in my mind.
Read more: Thoughts of Ellen and ‘Inter Cert’ Past, Margaret Clayton
Cathair Caim...a memoir
During my early schooldays, some of the happiest times of my life were spent in Cathair Caim in the home of my Uncle Miah (my father’s brother) and his wife, Auntie May. The following are some cherished memories of my time there in the 1950s.
One of my earliest memories is saying the rosary at the Grotto. It was usually dark and often raining. Sheltering from the rain under Auntie May’s coat, I peered out. I could barely see the neighbours, wearing caps and coats with collars turned up against the driving rain. It was amazing to listen to the chant of the Rosary being recited. I particularly loved the prayer, said at the end of the Rosary, called ‘Good Night to Our Blessed Mother’.
Titanic Sailed Without Him...by Norah Bohan
Lovely Leitrim, Ireland 1912. ‘The land of Saints and Sages where the Shannon waters flow’. For some, life in this beautiful but poor part of Ireland, was as challenging then as it is now 100 years later, in 2012.
Was it hardship that prompted James Bohan to think of leaving family and friends to travel to America, as many are doing today?. Emigration no more a lifestyle choice in 1912 than 2012, instead a means of finding work, opportunity, a better life.
James was born at the end of the 1880’s. The 1901 census shows him, aged 20, living in the small village of Cornulla, many of the thirteen houses there populated by his kinfolk, including Patrick Bohan, his first cousin and great friend, born the same year as James.
At the beginning of 1912, we find these young men starting what was to be a year of great change for both.
James making his plan to emigrate, Patrick about to set a date for marriage to Maria Heslin, from the nearby village of Aughavas. Neither man knew as they quietly made their plans, that life changing events would align for them both in April 1912. James set to travel on The Titanic, from Queenstown (Cobh) on April 11th, Patrick to be married just four days later on April 15th.
Electric Light by John Tackney
The rain-laden sky outside filled the north facing room with shadows, umbrae and penumbrae shapeshifting. The oil lamp on the dresser, absolute king of the night, in the rain sodden gloom of mid-morning, flickered ineffectually, it’s red yellow light a mere sideshow in the brooding chiaroscuro of a wet day. A knock on the door, a stranger entered, rainwater dripping off raincoat and southwester hat, assuming and presuming shelter from the steady deluge outside. The summary drama of the unannounced entrance quickly dissipated into the ordinary as the stranger struggled to steady a strange totem like complexity he was carrying to lean against the wall.
“A theodolite”, he explained, a devise for measuring angles of elevation, used by engineers and surveyors. Theodolite.
For days afterwards, a symphony of metallic janglings sang in the syllabic hinges of that strange new word. The visitor, a surveyor, was stepping the small fields, plotting the lines the electricity poles would take. It was 1956 and rural electrification was marching across the parishes sweeping out the dark corners from where ghosts had long lorded over the collective psyche, diluting the half-light where fairies danced, where paraffin was the incense perfuming the long dark nights.
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