Timmy Conway - Mam

It was a labour of love. As I wrote it I often felt she was sitting beside me. Most of the stories were already in my head and the discipline of writing the book helped me expand and capture her extraordinary life.  I sent the book around the family members to ensure I was correct in the important aspects of her life. The poems at the close of the book summed her up.  I took my time and listened internally to the various exchanges.  I found the pictures in all sorts of places including the backyard of our old home.

This is the story of the life and times of my mother, Mary Conway-Behan. Mam was never famous. She will never figure in the history books. But in her own way she is one of the many unsung Irish heroines of the last century. She was one of those little-known Irish women who battled against prejudice, adversity and hard times to make a living and give her children a good start in life. Mam suffered the trauma of losing her beloved husband. She raised a large family when there was little money around, and built up her own business through extreme hard work and the force of her own personality. And all this happened before feminism or women’s liberation was ever heard of.

She wasn’t unique. There were other women of great generosity and enterprise like her in the provincial Ireland of the 20^th century – women who developed their own business concerns in a male-dominated world, while raising a family at the same time; women who suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune but never gave in; women who cared deeply for their families and for their communities and who kept going until the end.

Mam, who began life as Mary MacNamara, was born in 1916 into a farming family in West Clare. Her mother was a teacher and her siblings were high-achievers. One became a priest, while two others served as a doctor and dentist respectively in the British forces during the Second World War. Unfortunately, Mam did not do well at school – she was highly intelligent but suffered from what is now known as dyslexia. So a possible career as a teacher was closed to her. Her mother arranged for her to enter a convent – but the Reverend Mother apparently thought that Mam’s high spirits did not fit her for convent life and, thankfully, my mother was asked to leave. That long-forgotten martinet of a Mother Superior did me a huge favour – I would never have been heard of, had my mother stayed within the cloister.

Mam’s mother tried to arrange a marriage for her with a wealthy, older farmer – but Mam wasn’t having any of that. She met a travelling salesman, Christy Conway. They fell in love. Her own parents didn’t approve, and her mother refused to provide a dowry. But Mary and Christy got married. I still have the wedding photos – and people remark on how beautiful Mary was as a bride in those far-off days of the 1930s. She retained her beauty and dignity right to the end of her days.

The young bride went to live in Christy’s home town of Naas. Moving from the farmlands of the rugged west coast to the plains of Leinster was quite a culture shock for the young woman. But the great thing was, they really loved each other, and got on marvellously together.  That was all that mattered.

I myself was born during the Second World War. Unfortunately, later in the 1940s, my father died. The young widow was left with five young children. She bravely kept the family together, refusing to farm any of us out. She took on my father’s business, even learning to drive a car, although she never mastered reverse. Probably only a small minority of Irish women drove cars in those days. Taking on the role of breadwinner was quite a challenge. She had to balance the demands of looking after a young family with getting up early in the morning to drive to the vegetable market in Dublin, prior to doing her rounds of shops around County Kildare to sell her wares. She even started her own shop in Naas.

How she had the stamina to keep going, I do not know. She never complained about her lot. She just did what she had to do. She married again, this time to another very good man, Will Behan, and was blessed with a second happy marriage. She had two further children with Will, but tragically was to be widowed for a second time.

So this book is not about famous people. It is primarily about an ordinary woman with extraordinary ability and feistiness, who had extraordinary commitment to her family, to her business, to her neighbours and community, and to her strong religious faith. It is a glimpse into the life as lived by one family in the early to middle years of the last century in provincial Ireland. And it is my tribute to the great, generous lady who passed on in 2003 at the age of almost 90…

(c) Timmy Conway, December 2011. 

In a political career spanning more than thirty years, Timmy has served Kildare and Naas in the following capacities:

Member of Seanad Éireann (three terms), Mayor of Naas (two terms), Chairman of Kildare County Council, Councilor for Naas & Kildare, Chairman of County Development Board, Chairman of Kildare Health Committee, Vice Chairman of Vocational Educational Committee

 Timmy has played a major role in achieving the following:

 Affordable Housing

 Development of Naas to the point where now there is a job for everyone

 Founder and driving force behind the Naas Youth Parliament

 Building of Millennium Park

Timmy has an Accountancy practice in Naas with his two brothers Donie and Chris. Timmy is also an extremely talented writer who has published six Poetry books, along with a Christmas CD and three novels. He lives with his wife Catherine and their five children at Thomastown, Naas, Co. Kildare, Ireland.