Even on Days when it Rains

by Julia O'Donnell

  When I was a young girl I was always very good at scavenging an extra bit of food. There was an old couple and their bachelor son who lived nearby to our cottage. I knew the time they had set for their dinner, so occasionally I’d drop in for a visit coming up to it. I’d sit in the corner, watching the fish sizzling over the fire. The people in the house seemed to enjoy having my company, but I was only there for the grub. I’m not certain if they ever noticed that the time of day I called happened to coincide with their main meal.

  ‘Would you eat a bit of fish?’ the old lady would always ask.

  ‘Is there a bit to spare?’ I’d have the cheek to ask in return.

  ‘Ah, sure, your name is on one of them,’ the woman of the house would laugh. Maybe they knew my game after all.

  We always had a nice big fire in our home, and sometimes we’d sit around it at night eating crab toes that my mother would roast for us over the coals. Mother always made a pot of cocoa at night, and she’d leave it sitting in the hot ashes. Then, just before going to bed, we drank that delicious cocoa. Before we went to bed in the winter, my mother would heat the lid of a pot in the hot coals. Then she’d wrap a blanket around it and use it to warm up our beds. There were very few luxuries during those harsh times, but a cup of cocoa and a hot bed on a cold winter’s night was heaven on earth to us. She was a thoughtful mother, and even though the times were hard she tried to give us little comforts. It’s those acts of kindness that made us realize just how loved we were in that island home.

  As I got older, my day during the summer would start at 3.45 a.m., when I got up to cook breakfast for my father and some of the other fishermen before they set off to haul in the lobster pots from the sea. It was a simple breakfast of just two boiled eggs for each man. There were no big fry-ups in those days.

  ‘Thanks, Julia, you’re a great wee girl,’ my father would say as he left the cottage and headed off out into the darkness.

  The men went off to fish at that very early hour of the morning so that they could make two hauls on the same day, the second one taking place in the evening. When they left in the morning, I didn’t hop back into bed to catch a couple more hours of sleep, even though I was quite entitled to do just that. I loved working in the home, so I would find something to occupy myself before the sun came up. Sometimes I’d churn buttermilk, and I’d have the butter ready before my mother got out of bed.

  ‘God, Julia, you’re a great wee worker,’ my mother would say.

  Those few words of praise from Mammy were worth more to me than all the money in the world.

  Later in the morning I’d strap up the donkey and go away to the mountain to draw a load of turf for the fire. The turf had already been cut, dug out of the ground, dried and stacked. I’d take a couple of loads back to the house to keep the fire burning for cooking.

  The well for drinking water was a long distance from our home, so I’d have to make several trips a day to fetch it in buckets. I’d fill a wooden barrel that sat outside our door. The barrel was never allowed to run dry in the summertime because the heat of the sun would split the wood. So I had to make sure that it was constantly topped up.

  There were two wells, one for drinking water and another that was used for washing tatties and clothes. It was no easy task to retrieve the water from the wells. I had to get down on my knees with a wee saucepan and scoop it up to fill the bucket. It was a chore that seemed to take for ever. Everyone on the island used the same two wells, so you’d always have neighbours waiting their turn. Despite this, there was never any friction. No one was in a hurry. There was no one watching a clock on Owey.

  There was no church on our island, so we had to go to the mainland in a currach to attend Sunday Mass as well as for funerals, weddings and baptisms. We did, however, have a little schoolhouse, which was built in 1911, and two teachers. I was just four years old when I started my education there, but it wasn’t traumatic. The school was close to my home, and I was surrounded by children I knew, because living on an island we were like one big family. There was no such thing as a school uniform. But I did have a good cardigan and skirt and neat, short hair. I probably didn’t look any different from all the other little people in the room that day. No doubt I was aware that I was going into a strange new world. I’d never been in the same room with so many children before. And we all had to listen to and obey the adult standing at the top of the room. He was called Teacher. I have no real memory of those early years in that little schoolhouse, so it can’t have been too bad.

  As I got older and was expected to absorb all the information that the teachers tried their best to get us to learn, I’m sure I let them down many times. I have no doubt that they were frustrated with me. I was bright and should have been a better pupil. It’s just that I didn’t have any enthusiasm for what school had to offer. I have to confess that I didn’t have the same dedication that I applied to my work in the house and on the farm. This, of course, occasionally got me into trouble.

  There were forty of us in the school, and the two teachers ruled with a stick and a strap. I never had a great interest in lessons like history, geography and maths. And I have to admit that I spent my time copying answers to mathematical questions from some of the others. I was never going to be a star student, that was obvious to the teachers. And I did get some beatings. Today I hold no grudges against those teachers. Whatever punishment I received was through my own fault. And corporal punishment was quite acceptable in those times. There was no such thing as running home and complaining to your parents. You wouldn’t tell them that you had got a hammering because then you’d be admitting that you had done wrong. If you learned your lessons and did what you were told, you wouldn’t get a beating. So I have no one to blame but myself for any hammerings I received from the teachers.

  I didn’t get regular beatings, but there was one day I got 84 slaps between my two hands; that’s something I’ve never forgotten. I was studying to receive the sacrament of confirmation at the time, but I hadn’t bothered to learn my catechism. My turn came to be asked a question, and I hadn’t a notion what the answer was.

  ‘Julia McGonagle,’ the teacher said with a raised voice.

  I lifted my head after several seconds of silence.

  ‘Come up here this minute.’

  I left my desk and shuffled to the top of the classroom.

  ‘If you had bothered your head to study your catechism last night you’d know the answer. Now I’m going to give you something to remember.’ The teacher had clearly lost his temper with frustration; his face was red with rage as he reached for the long leather strap.

  I held out my right hand and took my punishment. It seemed to go on for an eternity.

  The teacher stopped and glared at me. There wasn’t a tear to be seen in my eyes. I had accepted what had been dished out to me with courage. I was feeling proud of myself when he nodded and said, ‘Now the other hand.’

  Well, I nearly died on the spot at the thought of having to endure the same pain again on my left hand. But I had no choice and slowly put out my hand and took my beating. This time round, the teacher was certain that I had learned my lesson. Tears welled up in my eyes.

  It was cruel, certainly, by today’s standards.

  One of the teachers was from the mainland, and he’d come over to the island to give us classes. We’d be cheering with delight on days when the sea was too rough for him to make the crossing. In the winter months there were days when no boat could travel back and forth. That was always good for us children. We didn’t realize at the time that they were probably the best days of our lives. Try telling that to any child. It’s only in adulthood that you realize those things.

  God forgive us, but we used to be delighted if somebody not related to us died during the school term because that meant no school. You’d be laughing if you heard that a distant relative had died because you’d have three days off.

  No one was ever buried on the island. Their remains were taken over
by boat to the mainland, and then six men would carry the coffin from the port on the two- or three-mile journey to the chapel, then on to Cruit cemetery after the funeral Mass. Before that, the deceased were waked on the island for two days, and, believe it or not, there was always great fun at a wake, particularly at night. People would be telling stories, and there would be a lot of trick-acting going on among the younger people. I remember how there used to be a quiz and if a girl missed a question she had to kiss some old man at the wake. That was funny, ’cos none of the girls wanted to be kissing an old man.

  The corpse would be washed and laid out on a bed. White curtains would be hung around the bed and three black crosses placed on the covers, one to the left, one to the right and one in the centre. Then a boat would be sent to the mainland to fetch a simple wooden coffin. The body wouldn’t be put in the coffin until the day of the funeral.

  Anyone who could leave the island would attend the funeral. You’d be sad seeing someone from Owey going away in a coffin.

  There was one couple on the island who were always fighting. They didn’t have a happy marriage but had stayed togther despite their differences. Eventually, the wife died. It was the general custom that when a coffin was leaving a house it was carried out feet first.

  ‘Wait there a minute!’ exclaimed the widower as a group of neighbours struggled to manoeuvre the box out of the little cottage.

  The coffin bearers halted on the spot.

  ‘Turn her round so that she can see the inside of the house as thank God she won’t be coming back,’ the widower added with a smug smile.

  As there was no electricity or central heating in the schoolhouse, we all went to school with a sod of turf under each arm in the winter for the solid-fuel fire in the classrooms. We went home for our lunch in the summer, but during the winter we were kept in, and the teachers gave us cocoa with loaf bread and home-made butter. There was a lovely taste from the butter; you wouldn’t get the like of it today.

  In those days when locals had calves they’d kill them, cure them and then share the meat among all the houses on the island. The calves weren’t worth any money on the mainland at the time. A local called Andy Shamie killed a calf one day and, like his neighbours, shared it with kin community. It meant that every home had meat to eat during the week instead of fish. We all went home for our school break and had our dinner, as we called the midday meal.

  When we went back to school, the teacher came into the room, took a match out of a matchbox and started picking his teeth.

  There was one cheeky little fella in the class who always had a comment to pass, even when he wasn’t asked for one. ‘Sir, I know what you’re picking out of your teeth,’ he shouted up at the teacher.

  ‘What am I picking out of my teeth?’ the teacher asked.

  ‘A bit of Andy Shamie’s calf,’ the little fella replied.

  The class laughed.

  The teacher turned to the boy who’d made the smart comment. ‘Come up here now,’ he said, reaching for the leather strap, ‘and I’ll give you something you won’t find so funny.’

  I’m sure the boy in question has never forgotten Andy Shamie’s calf.

  During schooldays you’d get home around 3 p.m., and then you’d go out to do your work on the farm. Or we’d have to go down to the sea, when the tide was out and the rocks were exposed, to pull dulse, a seaweed that was edible and full of goodness. We’d head off in a currach with my father and gather as much dulse as we could by climbing over the rocks along the coast, maybe three or four bags at a time. It was very hard work, but it contributed to the family income as my father would sell a sack of dulse on the mainland for half a crown.

  The spring work on our little farms started on 18 March, the day after St Patrick’s Day. And you did whatever was laid out for you without question. Some days we’d be sent off to the sea to gather winkles among the rocks. At that time of the year it was always very chilly, and that was a hard job, sifting through the rocks in the freezing-cold weather. My mother used to give us old socks, with the toes cut off, and we’d wear those gathering winkles. They were to keep our feet warm, but our toes were exposed so that we’d be able to get a grip on the rocks and not fall as we went about our work. We moved fast to keep warm as we gathered the winkles in a bucket. We had to fill a large sack and that was then sold, fetching 1s 6d. If we gathered two bags of winkles it was considered to be a good day’s work.

  We used to run and work barefoot on the island during the summer, but my father would buy shoes for us at Hallowe’en. ‘Them has to do yez now till April,’ he’d say.

  But as I got older I’d be secretly away dancing on the island at night when I was supposed to be sleeping, and I’d wear the soles off those shoes.

  My father never got angry. Instead, he’d salvage old tyres off bicycles and use the rubber to make new soles for our footwear. ‘Now,’ he’d say, passing over his handiwork, ‘good as new, though I don’t know how you wear them out so quickly.’

  Oh, the guilt I felt then about my secret excursions into the night.

  chapter three

  * * *

  Mass, a Hooley and Poteen

  SUNDAY ON THE island was a mixed blessing. Apart from the milking of the cows, the Sabbath was strictly a day of rest on Owey. You were forbidden from doing any fishing, knitting or other jobs that weren’t essential. It was also the only day that children would get to wear their ‘good’ shoes. We were only allowed to wear them for Mass in the village church on the mainland.

  Without fail, unless there was sickness or stormy weather, Sunday involved a trip in the currach to Mass in the little chapel at Cruit.

  I have a very strong faith today, and my religion has been a great comfort to me throughout my adult life, but in my young days on the island it didn’t have the same appeal. In fact, there were times when I found it to be a very hard discipline. In order to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion at Mass at that time, you had to be fasting from midnight the night before. Mass was at 11 a.m. on a Sunday, and I dreaded that trip in the wintertime. You’d leave the island just after 9 a.m., starving because breakfast wasn’t allowed, and everyone, adults and children, would be dressed up in their Sunday best. Myself and my sister Maggie had only one pair of Sunday shoes between us. On the day that I’d wear them she’d stay home to mind the cows.

  All of us children would go down to the currach in our bare feet as we weren’t allowed to put on our good shoes until we reached land on the other side. In hail, rain or snow we went barefoot to the currach. The adults would get into the boat, and then we had to push it out into the sea for them. Afterwards, I’d sit there trembling with the cold and my feet would be like two lumps of ice. I’d glance down at them as the boat bobbed up and down on the waves during the half-hour ride, and they’d have turned blue from the cold. When we reached land it was our job to jump out into the sea again and pull in the currach. All the adults would then get out and we’d walk the 3 miles to the chapel, the children still suffering in silence as we plodded along in our bare feet. We wouldn’t be allowed to put on our shoes until we were just below the chapel. None of our parents saw any harm in us going without shoes for that weekly outing to Mass. We were young, strong and healthy, and shoes were not easy to come by as money was so tight. It was most important to take care of our shoes for Sunday Mass, so a little bit of hardship just had to be endured for that purpose.

  Mass usually lasted for about an hour, during which time you’d start to feel a tingling sensation in your feet again as they warmed up. But then, just as you were enjoying the pleasure of that, you had to remove your shoes and start the torture all over again on the trip home.

  At least on the return journey you’d be looking forward to what was awaiting you back at home. As soon as you got out of the currach you’d smell the cooking. Whoever stayed behind would have the meal well under way by the time you returned. And I can tell you it was very welcome when you hadn’t eaten since before midnight on
the previous day. The food would consist of wee chickens we’d have reared, or of mince, and carrots, onions, turnips, cabbage and potatoes. The potatoes would be smothered with home-made butter, and the whole lot washed down with fresh milk. That was a feast you’d really enjoy after the morning’s excursion.

  On Sundays when you couldn’t make the sea crossing, two rosaries were said in every house on Owey, the first one at 11 a.m. to coincide with the Mass. My mother headed the rosary in our home, and on a Sunday she would end it by saying, ‘I offer up the rosary this day with the priest’s intention that we may gain the benefit of the Mass.’ On Sundays and on every other day of the week, there was a rosary said at 10.30 or 11 p.m. before we went to bed.

  My father was very religious and would go down on his knees to say his nightly prayers before getting into bed. As soon as he awoke the following morning, the first thing Daddy would do was get down on his knees again and say his morning prayers. I firmly believe there was a lot more devotion to God in those days.

  It was the custom for children to visit every home on Owey Island on Easter Sunday – and you’d get an egg in each house, unless, of course, the family had no hens. You could keep all the eggs for yourself and eat them until they ran out. That was a real treat because normally the island children wouldn’t get an egg to eat for breakfast as they were sold to the shop on the mainland to pay for the groceries. I remember how some families would have up to three dozen hens and, of course, a rooster. The rooster was the king of the flock. He was like a father to his children, and the hens had to obey his orders. Sometimes an egg would have two yolks, so that would be a double treat. All of us children felt it was a terrible shame that Easter came only once a year.