It wasn’t all religion and prayer on the island, though. There was a lot of fun to be had too. As I got older, I lived for the third Sunday of the month. Every three weeks, on that day, a hooley was held in our local school. It was a day to forget all about our troubles, our worries and our hard times. It was a day to let our hair down and be free to enjoy the music and the dancing. Lots of people, including the local priest, would travel over from the mainland for the day of festivities, and nobody ever went away hungry.
Everyone on the island would work together preparing food for all the party-goers. All the women would bake bread with flour, and sometimes raisins would be included among the ingredients. The bread cakes were baked in an oven set amid the hot coals on the open hearth fire. You’d put a lid on the oven and coals over the lid. And that bread was the most delicious you ever tasted when it was served up with tea.
The schoolhouse, which had been cleared of desks, would come alive to the sound of the tin whistle, melodeon and fiddle that day; it was the greatest music you ever heard. All the adults and children flocked there to enjoy it, and it was a real celebration of life. The Irish dancing was just so exciting to watch and do; there was hardly a person on the island who couldn’t do the steps. Long before anyone had heard of Michael Flatley or Riverdance, it was a huge part of our lives. We all learned to keep in step, and you’d be laughing with the joy of it as you kicked up your heels. It was definitely the highlight of every month.
Every 23 June was the annual summer party on the island. We always had a big bonfire on that night and everyone, young and old, would gather round it for a singsong. St Patrick’s Day was another great day of celebration, of course, and we’d all leave the island for various events on the mainland. The day would start off with Mass in Kincasslagh, and then we’d enjoy the local band competition before going on to nearby Annagry for a dance at night. We all got 2s 6d each to spend that day. Sometimes we had a few pence left over to take back home. None of the young folk drank alcohol. It was 3d into Gandey’s dance hall. We got our tea in Mary O’Brien’s in Dungloe for 6d, which was our food of the day. There was always a lot of fun, so we looked forward to that day all year.
The night before St Patrick’s, everyone would prepare their best clothes. All the boys would have their white shirts starched and ironed, and lovely ties laid out to complement them; their shoes were so well polished you could use them as a mirror, and their hair would be slicked back and styled with some kind of gel.
One St Patrick’s Day my cousin Jim McGonagle was in tears because his granny had died. He wasn’t heartbroken because she had gone … it was the fact that his big day had been spoiled as he couldn’t go to the dance! I was left to take care of the house while his mother and father went to the wake. Our granny – his other granny – was living in the house and Jim turned to her and said, ‘Isn’t this terrible? Had she no other day to die, only today? Look at all my clothes ready there for the dance, and now I can’t go. This is shocking. Couldn’t she have waited?’
Granny never said a word. She could see that Jim was taking his disappointment very badly indeed.
Then he looked up at Granny again and whinged, ‘I suppose you’ll die next Easter and spoil that day for me too.’ And he was being serious.
Granny never said a word, but I suspect she was laughing her heart out inside.
There was no crime on Owey, but every now and then the Garda would come over from the mainland looking for poteen, which was the island’s whiskey and which was illegal to distil. Barley was grown for the making of poteen, and potatoes would be used on occasion. The men enjoyed their sup of poteen particularly when there was a dance on the island. They’d all be drunk on nights like that.
Poteen was also another source of local income as it was sold on the mainland even though it was against the law. But no one on the island ever saw any real harm in it. They always said that it should never have been outlawed. Well, I suppose when it comes to drink, some people never see any harm in it, especially the men. That’s not to say, however, that they weren’t aided and abetted in their illegal brewing and storing by their womenfolk, my own mother included.
There was always a danger that the Garda would slip on to the island and pounce on the illegal distillers, so the poteen-makers became very inventive in the way they hid or camouflaged their precious liquid. A big copper device, known as a worm, was used to make the poteen. One time when the Garda came sniffing around on the island, my mother hid the worm for the poteen-makers under a heap of manure, and the police never found it.
There was a local man, a big fella with a long, shaggy beard, who had his poteen in a huge barrel outside his cottage. When he heard the Garda unexpectedly coming over the bay one day, he flew into a panic. How was he going to hide his illegal brew? As the distressed poteen-maker thought about the imminent threat to his cherished supply of alcohol, he realized he had few, if any, options. The one that stared him in the face was one he didn’t want to contemplate. It seemed that the only way to stop the Garda catching him with the poteen was to turn the barrel over and pour it out. That would break his heart after all the hours and hard work he had put in distilling the drink. As the very stern-looking Garda approached his cottage, the huge man hopped up on the barrel to keep his secret store away from their senses. His ploy worked, and the lawmen passed on without spotting the poteen right under their noses. They obviously thought the man was sitting on a barrel of water. He was feeling very smug until he tried to get off the barrel. To his embarrassment he discovered that his big, fat backside was stuck in it. He couldn’t draw attention to himself by shouting for help, so he had to sit there for hours until the Garda were gone and he was able to alert the neighbours to his plight. Then it took a couple of amused local men to prise him off his poteen. He never did live that incident down.
Some people used the poteen as a form of medicine. They’d even give it to their children as punch. Hot poteen, which was made with milk, butter and sugar, was given to children to sip as a cure for colds and flu. Taken in this form it was even said to be good for rheumatism. Some women on the island swore it kept them in good health right through their old age.
It wasn’t just for poteen that the Garda would occasionally come calling to the island. If you kept dogs, they’d be checking that you had a licence for them. Whenever we saw the Garda coming, someone would take the dogs away to the hills and keep them out of sight until the Garda were satisfied that they’d seen all there was to be seen.
One day, however, a neighbour was caught without a dog licence. We were all out digging tatties when we saw the Garda coming to serve the summons, so we quickly gathered a heap of stones and went down to the shore where their boat was set to come in. As soon as the Garda got near to the shore, a whole crowd of us started throwing stones at them until eventually they gave up, turned the boat round and went away. That summons was never served.
At night on the island we’d go visiting other houses, and as children we’d sit and listen enthralled as our elders regaled us with wonderful stories of times past. The old people also terrified us with great ghost stories that had been handed down from generation to generation. They were so scary and realistic that you’d be rattling with fear on the way back home. We used to take a burning sod of turf out of the fire in the house we’d been visiting and stick a wire in it; that was our lantern to show us the way home.
The roads were good on Owey because we eventually got grants from the council to keep them maintained. They were stone roads, and they snaked their way round the island. Owey was well looked after by everyone, and a fine, manicured garden on a grand estate wouldn’t have matched its neat appearance.
There were also grants available for the roofing of houses. My father availed himself of one to slate our thatched cottage. To qualify for a grant, you had to be able to speak Gaeilge, the Irish language. My father first got a grant to slate the roof over the bedroom. Some time later, he applied for another grant to slate
the roof over the kitchen.
The grant man came over to the island and asked my father, ‘Have you any Gaeilge?’
‘Well,’ replied my father, ‘I had enough to put a roof on the room, so surely to God I have as much again as would put a roof on the kitchen.’
The tall and very important-looking grant man sucked on his cigarette, removed it from his lips and burst out laughing, creating a cloud of smoke.
My father was promptly awarded the grant money without having to answer any questions in the native tongue.
As we got older, myself and four of my friends, Sheila Sharkey, Agnes Dan Sharkey, Georganna and Barbara, would entertain the whole island by staging little shows we created ourselves. We even provided the seating using fish boxes and planks of wood. With no radio or television on the island, we always got a full house. Even the priest on the mainland would visit to see our performances, and we were always nervous when he was there for fear of making a mistake in front of him. Everyone revered the priest in those times.
There was one occasion when we decided to do a really elaborate production with lots of costumes, so we headed off on a round of the houses to gather the various items of clothing we thought might suit the scenes and characters we had devised. One sketch required an old-fashioned pair of drawers which went down as far as the knees and had elastic just above them and at the waist. We enquired in all the houses to see if any still existed, but our search was in vain. There was an old lady who lived way up on the mountain, so we headed off to see if by chance she had a pair. We went up to the house and explained our strange request, how we were looking for bloomers that had elastic at the knees. The wee, round lady, with grey hair peeking out from underneath her black headscarf and a face etched with lines, stood in her doorway looking deep in thought.
‘Och,’ she eventually said, ‘I have a pair surely.’
‘Could we take a loan of them?’ I asked.
‘Och,’ she replied, ‘I couldn’t do that. I keep them for the day of the priest.’
Twice a year the priest would come over to the island to do the Stations of the Cross, hear confessions and give out Holy Communion. The old lady only had the one good pair of knickers, so she kept them for those special occasions. Despite our disappointment, we saw the funny side of that situation.
We had good laughs, but there were sad times too. I recall the fear and terrible mourning that swept the island one time when a boat that was fishing herring went up on the rocks and all the fishermen were missing. It had such an impact on the island that I never forgot it. One of the men was from the island, and there were two fishermen from the mainland. My brother James was part of the search party, and it was he who found the body of the Owey man in the sea. He put his boathook into the water in the area where the tragic accident happened, and it caught the poor man’s oiled clothing. When they pulled him into the boat, he was dead. The death cast a terrible dark cloud over the entire island for a long time. The sea can be so cruel by times. People spent many more days searching the shore around the island for the other bodies, but they were never found. Fortunately, they were the only fishermen who ever lost their lives on the island in my time.
I went to school on the island up to the age of 14, and that’s when my formal education ended. There was no second-level schooling, so from then on you became one of the family earners.
For me, that began even before I left school, when I went into service to a family on the island. I was only 13 at the time, but I was expected to do the work of an adult during my holidays and after school. It was hard labour, and you wouldn’t dare complain to anyone about it. I was getting paid for my service, and you got nothing for nothing. And I only got the job because the family knew I was a hard worker.
My service started on St Patrick’s Day and didn’t come to an end until Hallowe’en. One of the major tasks they set me was to sow the potatoes. I had to dig out the drills with a spade, and that was no easy job. It was like cutting through concrete at times. I had blisters on my hands and my back was aching, but I never gave up. I kept on working my way through the ground from morning until the sun was going down. Eventually I had dug out rows and rows of neat drills. A big, strong farmer would have been hard-pressed to do this job. But even at that age it was a normal job to me. I had always done this kind of yearly work at home. When I prepared the ground, I then planted each of the seed potatoes by hand – rows and rows of them. My whole body ached at the end of each day. When I went to bed at night I went out like a light. The only thing to look forward to at the end of a hard day’s work like that was bed.
Next I had to strap two creels over a donkey to manure the potatoes. Digging out the mound of manure was hard work – and stinking – and forking it into the creels nearly crippled me with pain. But I did enjoy working with the donkey because he was a lovely old animal. And, despite what they say about donkeys being thick, he worked well. After filling the creels, I’d take the donkey across to the area where the tatties had been sown. I had to be careful that the donkey didn’t trample on the drills, but he seemed to know where to step and where not to. I’d pull the strings of the creels and release all the manure. Then I had to spread the manure across the drills to feed the potatoes and encourage their growth. Finally I’d take the donkey back to the stack of manure and refill the creels. I did that over and over until the job was completed. And I did it all in my bare feet, which meant, of course, that they really stank. I had lots of cuts and scrapes on my feet and legs as well, but, in all honesty, that never bothered me because I was used to it on the island. Reflecting on it today, I don’t know how I endured such back-breaking work. The aches in my poor limbs are a constant reminder of those hard times.
It wasn’t all bad, though. One of the jobs I really loved was looking after the cattle in the evening up at the mountain. I’d go to check and make sure they were safe and hadn’t fallen over a cliff. It was a really peaceful and relaxing time, and I enjoyed the peace and tranquillity up around there.
The turf-cutting, wasn’t so easy, however. I’d be sweating in the heat with flies swarming all over me. Some members of the family I was working for would cut the turf and throw it out of the ground, and I would catch it and stack it. This would go on for hours, and it was very, very hard work, especially for a child, never mind the fact that I was a girl.
Later in the year, when the potatoes had grown and were ready to be harvested, it was my job to gather them after they were dug out. I had to do this on my hands and knees, collecting them up into a basket that I pulled along behind me. A pit was dug out of the ground and the tatties were stored there. They were covered with hay to protect them from the winter frost.
I worked right through the summer, and it was a long, hard time. And then in the autumn, I would go to the farm and do the chores immediately after I’d finished school and all over the weekends. At the end of my service, I was handed £2 10s by the family, which was a lot of money in those times. I handed that money over to my mother, and it went towards supporting our family. You’d never dream of keeping any of the money to spend on yourself.
The biggest trauma in my life at that stage occurred when I went into service as a housekeeper after leaving school. The job was with a family in Derry, and it was to be the first time that I would be parted from my mother and father. I was only going on 15, and I was sick at the thought of leaving home.
Although my mother and father had no idea how bad I was feeling, I would cry myself to sleep in the weeks before I left. It was the worst time of my young life. The people I was going to work for were strangers to me, and I had no idea what shocking fate lay in store.
I didn’t want to leave home. I didn’t want to go and live with strange people. I realized, of course, that there was nothing I could do about it. That’s the way it was in those times. You had to go out, make your own way in the world, and support your mother and father, even at that tender age. But knowing that what you were doing was necessary to help your p
arents make ends meet didn’t ease the pain of being separated from them.
I was heartbroken when the time came to leave. I loved Mammy and Daddy and my little island home. I had no idea how long I’d be away or when I’d see my mother and father again. I tried to be strong in front of them, but it was no use. Nothing could stop the flood. I just broke down and sobbed my heart out as I walked away from the house carrying my little case. Glancing back at my mother and father, I could see that they were very upset too. It was heartbreaking for them to see their offspring leaving the nest, heading off into the big world and out of their care and protection.
I sobbed all the way to Derry. I’d never felt so alone. But by the time I reached my destination, I had calmed down a good bit. The man meeting me off the train was called Mr Foley. I was easy to spot on the platform, as I must have looked like a little lost soul standing forlornly with all my worldly possessions in one little case.
‘You must be Julia,’ said a tall gentleman in a smart suit.
‘Yes,’ I replied meekly.
‘Well, now, let’s get you home for a nice up of tea,’ he said.
I would soon discover that the Foleys were two of the loveliest people imaginable. The wife was a sister of the bishop of Derry, Dr Farren, and she was partly paralysed from a slight stroke. Her husband was a former policeman. He was so nice that I couldn’t imagine him ever arresting anybody. I sensed straight away that Mr and Mrs Foley were a kind and considerate couple, and I wasn’t wrong. Within a couple of weeks the pain of separation from my parents went away as I settled into my new regime. And I realized that I had found a home away from home. It was a grand, big house with lots of beautifully carved furniture. Expensive-looking ornaments decorated the rooms. I had been given a lovely, wee room with a very comfortable bed. This was no hardship.
Poor Mrs Foley had lost all of her independence as a result of the stroke, so one of my main responsibilities was to help her with her personal needs. It was very demanding work, but the fact that she was such a nice lady made it easier. I’d assist her to wash and dress every morning before breakfast. Mr Foley would then team up with me, and the two of us would carefully carry her down two flights of stairs. You could see the sadness in Mrs Foley’s eyes at the loss of her independence. Yet in all the time I worked for her, I never heard her complain.
Even on Days when it Rains Page 4