As if I didn’t have enough insecurities at that time.
I’m certain that my mother was equally upset over my first communion dress, but there was nothing she could do; we just didn’t have the money to change it. When I made my confirmation several years later, I was really pleased with the outfit I got for that occasion. This time my mother had done forward planning for it, joining one of those savings clubs where you put money in over a period of time to buy an outfit. I was even allowed to choose the dress I wore that day.
* * *
My mother had a great sense of style, as I would come to appreciate when I got older, and there was a little bit more cash to go around. She never had money to splash out on new clothes, but she would take a trip to the best second-hand shops, or the markets in town, and sift through them until she found the most unusual, beautiful items for both of us. I inherited my mother’s passion for clothes and fashion, and I do believe I picked up her flair and talent for mixing and matching outfits.
Mother was also passionate about Irish culture.
Although we were poor and just getting by like everybody else in the neighbourhood (and probably the entire country), she gave us the opportunity to learn music and dancing.
Shortly after I started school she organised piano lessons for me with a teacher called Johnny Fox, who gave classes at his home on Sundrive Road in our area. I joined a group of other young children around my own age, and we’d sit on stools peppered around Johnny’s parlour as we waited our turn.
I would be sick with nerves as I sat rigid on the wooden stool listening to each pupil murdering some tune. Then I’d be completely overcome with terror when my moment came to step over to the piano, as everyone else in the little room watched and listened to the torture that I inflicted on the poor instrument.
Next came Irish dancing – and my mother could never have foreseen where that was going to take me in life. Seamas and Brian were the first to take up the dancing after it was introduced in their school, which was run by the Christian Brothers and located at the end of our road.
The Irish dancing teacher who ran classes there after school hours was a man called Maitiu Ó Maoiléidigh, or Matt Meleady. While Brian showed early promise as a dancer and soon developed a love for it, Seamas had little interest.
And if Seamas wasn’t interested in something, wild horses wouldn’t drag him to it.
When Matt Meleady organised a céilí dance, Seamas decided to make his statement about what he thought of those Irish dancing shenanigans. Seamas didn’t go to the dance alone. Full of devilment, he brought along his little pet … a white mouse. Then he waited for the moment he felt would have maximum impact, and let the mouse loose on the floor.
The tiny creature caused pandemonium when it was spotted by the girls as it scurried around amongst the feet of the dancers. Seamas fell around the place laughing at the chaos that ensued, and was promptly kicked out of dancing class forever.
Brian, on the other hand, took a real shine to the dancing, as did a couple of his mates on the road. Matt spotted Brian’s skill and encouraged him to join Craobh an Chéitinnigh, a class he ran for senior dancers at the Gaelic League headquarters over at 46 Parnell Square in the city centre.
I recall being very excited when Brian went on to take part in the All-Ireland competitions. Even though I was only seven at the time, I was conscious of the fact that this was a huge event for Brian to be involved in. I could see that my mother was very proud of him, and we all went to the train station to wave him off with the rest of the troupe of dancers.
Their destination that day was Belfast, where the All-Ireland dancing competitions were being held for the very first time outside Dublin. We were back at the train station again for their big homecoming, and they were all dripping with medals after doing exceptionally well in the various categories.
The following week Mum asked Brian to give his dancing teacher a message. She wanted the instructor to call by our house, which he duly did. When he arrived there was some small talk, and then my mother introduced me and told this stranger how much I enjoyed Irish music, and how I wanted to learn to dance. ‘Marie, play a tune for the man,’ my mother said, shooing me over to the piano. Even though I was mortified, I obliged.
The teacher politely applauded and was very complimentary when I finished. This gave my mother the opportunity to mention the real reason she had requested him to call in.
She asked if I could join Matt’s dancing class. What could the poor man say only ‘yes’?
My journey into the world of Irish dancing began at the tender age of seven in Matt Meleady’s class of junior dancers. Craobh an Chéitinnigh were the senior dancers, so Matt called his junior class Inis Ealga.
Of course, I was terrified starting off, joining all the other children in the beginner’s class. One of the older dancers, a chap called Patrick Elebert, taught me my first steps, the side step and one, two, three.
I settled in very quickly because I was enjoying it, but it would be a long time before I became proficient at Irish dancing and won some awards.
Despite his early success as a dancer, Brian eventually lost interest and gave it up. Seamas, meanwhile, was also on the move – out of school.
Even though he was very bright, Seamas had no interest in the academic life. My mother had a terrible time trying to get him to go to school and he was missing more often than he was there. Eventually the principal of the Christian Brothers School called my mother in to discuss his future.
Seamas had expressed an interest in becoming a chef, so the school principal said, ‘If he gets an apprenticeship let him take it up because that’s obviously where his heart lies.’
Not long afterwards Seamas left school at the age of thirteen and began his training as a chef.
Seamas was definitely the character in our family. He was tall, slim, handsome and very outgoing, with a wicked sense of humour, as the incident with the pet mouse would tell you. Later I would think how Seamas reminded me of the singer Frank Sinatra. He had Sinatra’s manner and the same bold, cheeky personality.
My mother obviously doted on Seamas and did little to curb his wild ways as a teenager. He was the only one in the family who got away with using the f-word in the house. Mother might frown or give him a dirty look if he was using bad language, but Seamas would respond with a barrage of more swear words, and she’d just throw her eyes to heaven.
But behind all the harum-scarum he was very kind and soft and had the best heart in the world.
Seamas gathered people like stray animals. After he began serving his time as a chef, he’d frequently arrive home with work colleagues. Some were people from other countries and he’d take them to our house for their tea.
As soon as he was able to afford it, Seamas bought himself an old scooter that would constantly break down or run out of petrol. He was a mad soccer fan and played with a local team. Every Sunday he’d head off to a match at different parks around Dublin city, sometimes taking me on the back of the scooter with him. Although my mother kept tight reins on me, I was allowed to go off on those Sunday morning adventures with Seamas.
He really was the golden boy in her world.
Brian was a lot more reserved and way better behaved than our Seamas, but he was a good character too. He was a very handsome young man with dark curly hair. Brian eventually gave up on Irish dancing before he achieved his full potential.
By then, of course, I had taken over the baton, after getting into a dancing class through him. Brian’s passion was also cooking and he got a scholarship to the Coláiste Mhuire Cookery School in Dublin’s Cathal Brugha Street. Later he worked in Dublin’s very exclusive Shelbourne Hotel on St Stephen’s Green as a chef. Then he moved to Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, where he opened up his own restaurant in the midland town.
When my last brothers left home in their late teens, one after the other, I finally had a bedroom of my own and was no longer forced to share my parents’ room. This was bitters
weet, because while I was excited to have a room all to myself, there was the sadness and loneliness of not having my brothers around. I really missed their voices around the house, and the interaction I had with them. But I guess every family has to come to terms with that empty nest syndrome, as it’s called in today’s world.
I sensed that my mother was lonely without them too, but at least she still had me. And when I think back to those early days in my life, I see how much effort she put into giving me the opportunities to grow into an educated young woman with some good social skills and talents.
Along with the Irish dancing classes, my mum somehow found the money to continue funding my music tuition. I have no doubt that she deprived herself of little treats in order to be in a position to give me those opportunities to become accomplished at music and dancing.
However, my young life felt like a constant struggle because of my chronic lack of confidence around people. I remember one time Seamas brought me into the restaurant in Pims Department Store in South Great George’s street in the city. Seamas put me sitting at a table and then he went off and returned with an ice cream. But I couldn’t eat it because I felt that all of the people in the restaurant were looking at me.
I was so introverted, and I still think that was the result of not being allowed to mix on our street with the other children during very important years of development as a young child.
I eventually gave up music after my mother changed me from Johnny Fox’s classes and enrolled me at the College of Music in Dublin’s Chatham Street, where I discovered that I was a child in an adult class. It also meant a bus journey into town. I stuck with it for a few years, but unlike the dancing I never felt comfortable doing the music.
When I first started off in Chatham Street the music lessons were private and on a one-to-one basis. But when I went to a theory class I’d find myself with other people and I would always be really self-conscious and a bag of nerves when I had to do the scale exercises and sing them out loud.
The reason I was in with older people is that I was actually doing quite well in music and had moved up to higher grades. But my stomach would churn as I waited my turn to stand up and give my little performance. I knew even then that one thing I would never be able to do is sing.
I also knew that I could never do a job like Aunt Em’s.
My Adventures with Aunt Em
Aunt Em moved from Artane to our side of the city after she was appointed district midwife in the Crumlin area. She then bought what I considered to be a posh house on Sundrive Road.
Her beautiful new family abode, with its lovely big rooms all tastefully decorated, was within walking distance of our home, and my mother would regularly send me over there on little errands.
This led to me getting quite close to Aunt Em.
I don’t know how it all began, but somewhere along the line I became her travelling companion whenever she was called out to deliver a baby. As a twelve-year-old child, this was quite an ordeal for me and an experience I would never forget.
The drama would start before we left the driveway of Aunt Em’s lovely home.
She had just taken up driving and had bought herself a little second-hand black Morris Minor car. But, as gutsy and stoical as she was in every other aspect of life, driving seemed to terrify the life out of her.
Sometimes we would sit in the Morris Minor for half and hour while Aunt Em sat sighing, fidgeting and fretting as she plucked up the courage to turn the key in the ignition.
Eventually, after several false starts, the car would bounce out on to the road like it had just been caught in some kind of whirlwind. After the unfortunate little vehicle roared into life, more often than not there would be terrible grinding noises as Aunt Em crudely stuck it into gear.
Finally, we’d hop along in mad spurts, with the engine often cutting out. Then she’d give it another go, putting the poor car through more torture. I’d glance over at Aunt Em from the corner of my eye and see her staring wildly ahead, her face as white as a sheet as we finally took off.
Here I have to spare a thought for all the women in labour who were anxiously awaiting the arrival of this midwife in those times, because Aunt Em certainly wasn’t the rapid response unit. The Morris Minor would crawl along the quiet city streets at four or five miles an hour, chugging and spluttering and often cutting out.
She really had no idea how to drive and probably shouldn’t have been out on the road. It was an endurance test for the two of us. I often wondered why I had to be there, but I guess she needed the company to get through her obvious fear of driving.
Sitting beside me in the car, in a stiff, straight position and with her face pressed against the windscreen, Aunt Em looked every inch the district nurse. She was dressed in her impeccable white uniform with a navy gaberdine over it. She wore a little round hat down to her eyebrows, and her slightly stern look was completed with glasses that sat on the bridge of her nose.
Lying on the backseat of the Morris Minor was her little black medical satchel, the contents of which were a wonder to me.
If I was one of her clients and I spotted Aunt Em coming through my bedroom door I think I’d be so terrified by the look of her I would give birth on the spot. Yet I heard so many stories throughout my life of her kindness to the young mothers, and how she would make return visits carrying gifts of food and clothes where she felt the need arose.
Although her blood pressure would be sky-high by the time we reached our destination, Aunt Em always seemed to quickly recover her composure as she slipped into her role as a midwife.
Sometimes I’d sit in the car, often for hours, while I patiently waited for the arrival of a new baby into the world. On many other occasions I’d be put sitting in the parlour of homes, watching basins of hot water going up and down stairs. I’d shudder as I heard the cries of women in the throes of labour.
That strange experience certainly put the fear of God into me about having children. When I’d eventually hear the cry of a baby I’d know that whatever was going on upstairs in the bedroom was nearly over and I’d soon be going home.
The return journey was another adventure with a very stressed-out Aunt Em, as she once again grappled with the challenge of controlling her car.
I don’t know how we got around the streets of our Dublin suburb without causing some dreadful damage to an unfortunate human or object, but by sheer luck or divine intervention Aunt Em never had an accident. It probably helped that there were very few cars on the road at the time, and that she drove at a snail’s pace.
Strange as it may seem, I never had a conversation with Aunt Em about babies, despite all the time we were together before and after she carried out her role as a midwife. What went on in the rooms of the houses that I spent long hours in as Aunt Em brought a new human being into the world wasn’t spoken of. She never educated me on how babies were conceived, what pregnancy was all about, or how a child was born.
Aunt Em never brought it up, and I never asked her, because that’s just the way it was in those times. It was left to my imagination – and that wasn’t a good thing. All I could think about was the roars of women crying out in pain upstairs in the rooms where Aunt Em went to work.
And I knew then that I was never, ever going to be a midwife.
* * *
The humiliation of being held back a year in primary school continued to be my motivation for learning and increased my dedication towards school and then college. After my education in Terenure, I went on to the College of Commerce in Rathmines. I was one hundred per cent focused on studying, and I was like a sponge soaking up everything that I was being taught.
My target was to be in the top three of whatever subject we were doing in college. My mother recognised my passion for education and she was supporting me financially, having got a job with St James’s Hospital as an ambulance assistant to bring in an income as my father was now too ill to work. When they went out on emergency calls, she would be the assistant
in the ambulance.
My poor father’s health was rapidly deteriorating and he really didn’t have much quality of life. There were periods when he would be seriously ill and very weak, and he was constantly in and out of hospital.
Watching my lovely father struggling with even minor tasks tore at my heart. Finally, at his lowest point, Dad was admitted to St James’s Hospital where my mother was working.
A week later he passed away peacefully.
I was just sixteen years old. Although I was heartbroken, as all of us were in the family, there was some consolation in the knowledge that Dad was now at peace and free of pain.
* * *
When I got my diploma after three years in the College of Commerce, I went for an interview for a job in the bank, where they told me that I was too young and to come back in a year. I wasn’t at all disappointed as I didn’t feel ready to go into the workplace. I was hungry to learn more.
So next I got a place in Caffrey’s Secretarial College, a commercial college on St Stephen’s Green in the city. I was now becoming a professional academic with the financial backing of my mother, who had continued working in St James’s after Dad died, but was now stationed in the admissions unit.
I was only a couple of months in Caffrey’s when they asked me to help out in their college office. They told me that as I clearly knew most of the course which I was studying, I could do some practical work instead.
Essentially they then employed me as an unpaid office worker.
When my mother discovered that I was working in the college she hit the roof.
‘What’s going on here?’ she asked angrily. ‘I’m paying for you to go to college and you’re working in their office for nothing!’
When I told the college about my mother’s objections they immediately put me back on the course.
I always recognised and appreciated the support I was getting from my mother, and the personal sacrifices she made to educate me.
Lady of the Dance Page 3