Living in the Past: A Northern Irish Memoir

by Arthur Magennis

  When the war broke out the radio was everyone’s link to the rest of the world. My mother would turn it up in the morning, I think to waken us all up to get ready for school, and I used to lie for a while listening to the progress of the war. When Churchill proclaimed that Britain was fighting for the freedom of small nations, we would all roar with laughter and shout at the radio, “What about this small nation?” And when the British army was forced to withdraw and Mr. Churchill made his “Fight on the beaches” speech, I wrote a two line poem in my exercise book.

  We will fight on the beaches, our great leader said,

  But don’t you dare defend yourself if on your land we tread.

  Some people were pro German mainly because they didn’t understand. They imagined Hitler coming on a white charger and setting us all free. Jim Joe Hughes was very pro German and he and my father had such arguments nearly every night. My father would get very red in the face trying to reason with him. Jim Joe said that under Hitler’s socialist regime all land would be divided up in equal shares to everyone and we would all work for the common good. I think he confused Hitler’s socialist regime with communism. My mother used to say, “Don’t argue with him,” but as soon as Jim Joe started the battle would commence again.

  Lord Haw Haw was eagerly listened to. He was the German propagandist and we would all gather round the radio in the evening to hear him. All we wanted to hear was a mention of Northern Ireland and when he said something like, “What about the downtrodden people of Northern Ireland?” we thought, “Yes, somebody cares. Somebody out there knows about us.” That gave us hope.

  I don’t think there was any Irish history taught to the Unionist children or, if there was, it was doctored to suit the situation. The English people knew very little Irish history. At the time of the recent troubles, most people hadn’t much knowledge of what the fighting was about. In a television programme about Northern Ireland one evening, some Ulster Protestant school children were being asked questions about their history and they all thought that they were the indigenous population and that the Irish were the usurpers.

  Just before the war was declared a few people from Coalisland, fearing conscription, hightailed it across the border and joined the Irish army, but also a lot joined the British army. A family near us, called Rush, lost their three sons, Peter, Barney and Patsy. Patsy was my age and I knew him very well.

  But the preparations in Dungannon continued. We would hear the air raid sirens practising every day when we were in class and learned to distinguish between the air raid warning and the all clear.

  Air raid shelters began to appear all around us, built with reinforced concrete. The first one I noticed was in Church Lane and there was the blackout, of course. Car headlights were covered with a black material with a small hole about two inches by three inches, through which a tiny beam of light shone and was all the driver had.

  There wasn’t much bombing in Northern Ireland, except in Belfast, which was very heavily bombarded. The most exciting thing that happened for us lads was that a new cinema opened up in Castle Hill. Before that there had only been the Astor in George Street.

  On my first day at the Academy, a little chap called Bill McCann from Cookstown told me at lunchtime to come to a shop halfway up Church Street on the other side from Murray Richardson’s, the stationer’s, where we got a cup of tea and I don’t remember what else, but maybe biscuits, but he also told me I could get broken biscuits at half price in Burton’s at the corner of Church Street and the Square. Bill was definitely my financial adviser.

  The principal, or headmaster, of the Academy was Father McKernon, a larger than life man who amazed us with his eccentricities from the beginning. He taught us Latin and we never knew what to expect when he came into the class. One day he said, “I don’t feel like doing anything today so I suggest we all sleep.” Everyone had to put their heads on their arms and sleep and if they didn’t he would call out their names.

  He had his car parked outside the classroom window and some days he would stand their admiring it for a long time with his hands deep in his soutane pockets, and he would carry on a conversation with any of the boys about him, particularly my friend Bill who sat next to me.

  “Bill McCann,” he would say, “Do you think that’s a very posh car?”

  “Yes, Father,” Bill would naturally reply.

  “Who do you think a car like that would belong to?” was the next question.

  “You, Father,” Bill would say.

  “No,” he’d reply. “Wouldn’t you think it belonged to Chinny Davidson. That’s who you would think, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  I surmise that Chinny Davidson must have been a rich businessman or entrepreneur, but I had never heard of him before.

  Father McKernon also had a parrot in a cage and some days he’d bring it into class. The parrot spoke exactly like him, which was with a nasal twang, and many times we were scared out of our wits by Father McKernon’s voice right behind us, as he had a habit of leaving the cage in different places in the garden, perhaps to let the parrot get the sun.

  He also had a wire fox terrier called Rory. Often you would hear Father McKernon calling “Rory” only to find it was the parrot speaking.

  In front of the door of his residence was a little wood with lots of tall trees and shrubs. When we came in we cycled around it to the bicycle shed. If we were late we might hide in the wood until the second period as that was when Father McKernon did the roll call. But the first morning I tried the wood I got a shock when I heard Father McKernon’s voice shouting, “Come out of the bushes; come out of the bushes.”

  I was just about to do that when the boy who was with me, said, “It’s the parrot,” and, sure enough it was.

  Dungannon parish chapel was just a hundred yards past the Academy, and on Sunday mornings Father McKernon would say one of the masses there. On the morning when the priests’ dues were collected, he had his own unique way of extracting money from the congregation. Normally, the priest would walk beside the altar boy who had a tray for collecting the donations and the altar boy would call out the name of the donor, such as, “James O’Brien 5/-,” and the priest would repeat it in a loud voice.

  Or that was what he was supposed to do, but Father McKernon would pause and say something like, “He could afford more than that,” or something similar. Of course, the congregation looked on it as a bit of light relief, except for poor Mr. O’Brien.

  So that was our headmaster, with his two assistants Rory and Polly and, of course, his shiny new car.

  As the war progressed and food became scarcer, rabbits became very popular as a source of meat. When I realised that I could get one shilling each for a rabbit I bought snares and, under Charlie’s instructions, I set them all over the farm and moss. In the mornings I would set off running before school to check my snares and often I was late for school as my snare area got bigger.

  Ferrets became very popular, as well. Rabbits were terrified of ferrets as they could go into the burrows after them, so the rabbits had no safe haven. The ferrets were really pets; they would go to sleep in one’s coat pocket or anywhere that it was warm and were easily fed and cared for.

  When a ferret was taken to a rabbit burrow it would disappear down a hole, and if rabbits were inside they would come flying out, terrified. They would be caught by putting rabbit nets over the holes or shooting or killing with dogs. The nets were the best, of course, but at the beginning we weren’t that sophisticated.

  Sometimes the ferret might kill a rabbit in the burrow. If it didn’t come out again, then we had an idea that that is what happened. When the ferret had had enough to eat he would fall asleep underground, and they are very good sleepers so there isn’t any point in waiting.

  The first time this happened I was with a boy called Michael who owned the ferret. Michael knew not to wait around and said he would come back the next day when he would meet me at the burrow in the morning. When he ca
me he had a piece of fried bacon tied to a piece of string and he placed it at the entrance to the burrow. Very soon the ferret appeared, blinking in the daylight, and he popped it into his box.

  I sold my rabbits to Murphy the Beef man, as we called him, who called every Tuesday evening and more or less twisted my mother’s arm until she went out to the van and bought something.

  “Come on away over, Mrs. Mac,” he would say.

  “No, I don’t need anything, Mr. Murphy.”

  “Och, sure you don’t know until you’ve had a look. Come on away over.”

  In spite of all her protests he won the majority of the battles and my mother would return with at least a pound of sausages. I would be waiting with my rabbits and he would give me a shilling each.

  Once a weasel or something had eaten the head off a rabbit but he still gave me 9d for it. I liked my mother to go over to the van because if it was bad weather, or raining hard, Mr. Murphy might not bother opening the van.

  “Away with you. I haven’t the time,” he would say and I’d be left with the rabbits.

  If it was wintertime the rabbits would keep for a few days, but in the summer it was more difficult. Then I heard at school from another entrepreneur that Fairburns in Dungannon was paying 1/6d for rabbits. So I put them in a sack and got the bus from Tamnamore corner, three-quarters of a mile away. The return fare was only 4d. When I got off the bus I had another mile to go but I thought it was worth it, and so it was.

  One day my sister Mary, who was on her summer holidays from boarding school, had arranged to meet some school friends in Dungannon. She was outside the stationer’s shop in Church Street and when she looked down the street she saw me coming towards her.

  When she got home she said, “Oh, Mammy, I had such a narrow escape. I was outside Murray Richardson’s and when I looked down the street I saw Arthur coming with a sackful of rabbits on his back. I had to rush everybody back into the shop and buy a pen that I didn’t need and keep them inside until he was gone.”

  I went once a week with my rabbits in the wintertime but in the warm summer weather I had to go twice a week. Once I thought my rabbits were fine and I set off on the bus but in a short time I became aware of a smell and on investigating I found that it was the rabbits. Soon the conductor came past me and stopped and looked at me hard.

  “What have you got in that bag,” he asked.

  “Rabbits,” I replied.

  “Well, you’ll have to get off or else throw your rabbits off,” he told me.

  So, off I got. It was out in the country so I emptied my rabbits out on the roadside. I knew the one it might be as I had taken a chance with it. I threw the rabbit over the hedge and the rest were fine. I got the next bus into Dungannon and all was well.

  Even once I started at the Academy I still liked to call into Hughes’ after school. As I grew older so did Eileen and, naturally, her boyfriends became more mature. I remember one Sunday afternoon a quite fat solicitor arrived from Dungannon, who seemed to have over-indulged himself with a liquid luncheon. Eileen wasn’t at home so Peter took him down to the parlour, gave him a drink and asked my sisters, Mary and Kathleen, who were in the house, to go down to chat to him. Kathleen told us, “Mary chatted away to him about the beauty of the sun shining on the heather until the poor man’s eyes started to close. Finally, he gave us money to go and get sweets. He was gone when we came back.”

  Another time, Mary or Kathleen had to help Eileen out when she had double dated, by getting one man out of the window while Eileen held up her unexpected visitor in the hall.

  One particular night, Eileen had a date with a taxi man called George, whom Peter knew quite well. George was late and Peter didn’t know he was a date. When he appeared Peter gave him what for.

  “Holy boots, what time do you call this? She’s been waiting for ages.”

  George just smiled and apologised.

  It was about this time that the house where Eileen was nanny was visited by a burglar. Eileen was alone with the children babysitting when a man appeared from nowhere and he said, “If you show me where the jewels are kept, I won’t harm you.”

  “I’ll give you jewels,” said Eileen and she lifted a cut glass tumbler from the sideboard and hit him over the head with it, then called the police. Her photograph appeared in the paper the next day. That was Eileen.

  Chapter Ten

  There were so many characters in our neighbourhood. Nearly everybody developed their own little ways and habits, most of which were amusing and enjoyable.

  My cousins, John, Joe, James and Ellen, lived with their mother, Maggie Magennis, my Uncle Peter having died prematurely. Maggie was of the old school and still wore a shawl when going out to town or to church. A few older ladies did still wear shawls and I can also remember Jemmy Campbell, The Hat, sporting a fancy green coat – perhaps, it was called a frock coat – very ornate and gathered at the back with pleats and buttons. It was his Sunday coat and he had a special bowler for Sunday, as well.

  Maggie was a shy person who was kind and friendly to talk to, but had an unusual way of telling anything. She didn’t like naming people or things, almost as if that was too open and easily understood. I wondered if it was something to do with the British occupation. Maybe she had been told to be careful with names and what she said, just like in war time later when “Don’t forget that walls have ears” posters appeared. At any rate it made her very amusing. She would walk to Coalisland and back, carrying her shopping, and that was about three miles away. Then she would tell you, “I got a bit of thing for him, went to him with the hat, them ould dogs.” As her eyes were always running, she would be rubbing the corner of each eye alternately with her fingers, right and left, punctuating each phrase.

  Frances would translate for me when I told her. She said, “She bought cheap meat for John’s dogs, from Tomney the butcher, who always wears a hat, and she is fed up with John’s dogs.”

  She never referred to any of the boys by name, she called them all him or he, and the boys did the same, but I think she referred to her daughter as Ellen. This was very confusing and I never knew to whom any of them was referring. I found that each got impatient and angry if I pressed the point, as if I was just being obtuse, so I learned to settle for an educated guess.

  Maggie didn’t own a radio but we had one that sat on our window sill. One day she asked me, “What did that old boy in your window say about the weather?”

  In later years, when there was only John and James left, my brother Shamey told me that he used to press John when he said him meaning James, to make him say the word James.

  Shamey would say, “But who, John, who do you mean?”

  And then he would explode with, “James,” as if he were having a tooth pulled.

  Everybody walked or cycled to the towns, which, as I’ve mentioned before were three and seven miles away, as we didn’t have any public transport until the war started and then things began to happen.

  Maybe we weren’t worthy of such luxuries, but war changed all that. Soon the countryside was covered with troops training, a new aerodrome was being built along the lough shore and everyone had a job either at the aerodrome or rebuilding in Belfast, which was heavily bombed.

  Petty hates had to be forgotten and a bus service began from Derrytresk to Dungannon via Coalisland. Oh, there was some excitement then, even though it only ran one day a week, on Thursday. The old ladies never missed the bus and the tales that followed those trips were good entertainment.

  On the first day there was a lady called Jane and when the conductor asked her what ticket she wanted, she said, “There and back.”

  Still in a good humour, as it was early in the day, and he had no idea what naivety he was going to experience, he said, “Oh, we’ll get you there and back all right, but where are you going?”

  “I’m going with you, so I am,” says Jane.

  “To the town, then,” he said.

  “I am,” said Jane.

 
“Is it Coalisland, then?”

  “No, it’s not the Island. Sure, I could walk there,” said Jane.

  “You’re going to Dungannon, is that it? That will be 1/3d then.”

  “No, it’s not. I’m not going all the way – just nearly there.”

  “Where exactly is the stop you’re going to?”

  “Here as you go in, on the left,” said Jane.

  “Is it a shop, you’re going to?”

  “No, it’s not,” said Jane, with a tolerant smile and wondering at his stupidity. “It’s a…” and she looked over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “It’s a bank,” she whispered.

  “It’s the Northern Bank – that’s where you’re going. There’s a stop right outside it,” said the conductor.

  It seems Jane was embarrassed. People kept their affairs very quiet. Even to have a bank account would be a well guarded secret. Somebody might get the idea that you had money and that wouldn’t do at all, at all.

  She got her ticket and was very subdued for the remainder of the journey. When Jane got off the bus with her travelling companion, she said, “You go and do your business and I’ll do mine,” and she waited until the coast was clear before entering the hallowed portals of the Northern Bank. To have been a fly on the wall at the counter would have been a treat.

  That bus was full up every Thursday and later the service was extended throughout the week.

  Dungannon was a good shopping town with shops such as Alexander’s drapers and Fred W. Robertson hardware in the Square. My father had accounts in these two shops, as he bought clothes and farming implements from them to retail in his shop.

  Across the road was Marshall’s Chemist next to Burton’s Confectioner and McAleer’s Hotel on the corner of Thomas Street, which Eileen had often mentioned in her accounts of her soirees.