When I was approaching my thirteenth birthday my parents spoke of buying me long trousers and when the day came for trying them on I was thrilled at how they concealed my skinny legs and how easy it was for me to adjust to my new image. One Saturday evening my mother asked if I would cycle to Aunt Mary’s and bring her a dozen eggs. Our hens were over-producing and my aunt would appreciate a few extra eggs. I asked if I should take my accordion with me and play her a few tunes. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘She would love to hear you! Don’t forget to play “The Kid on the Mountain”. It’s one she’s fond of.’ And so off I went along the Mill Road to Daingean.
When I leaned the bicycle against the gable end of my aunt’s house I removed the accordion from where it hung in a sack on the left handlebar. The eggs were also in the sack. I was about to knock on the back door, when it opened suddenly and I saw my aunt standing there with a look of surprise. She said, ‘Pat,’ and then yelled, ‘Hooee! Hooee! When did you start wearin’ the long trousers?’
‘About a month or so ago,’ I replied.
‘Come in, come in, and I see you have the accordion with you. Hooee! Hooee!’ ‘Aunt Mary,’ I said, ‘my mother gave me eggs to give you.’
‘Oh, lovely, lovely. Your mammy has a heart of gold, and you are a great lad for bringin’ them to me. Sit down here next to the range and I’ll boil the kettle.’
My aunt was all alone and her children were away on various errands or playing somewhere with other children. Her husband Mick was at work in charge of a bagger on Clonsast bog. Clonsast was another developed bog area that mass-produced bricks of turf for Bord na Móna. At that time Mick was working three eight-hour shifts. He was working the four-to-midnight shift when I visited my aunt. ‘We have the house all to ourselves,’ she said, ‘and when we have a sup of tea I’d love to hear a tune.’
Before I finished my tea I reached for the accordion and began playing ‘The Kid on the Mountain’.
‘Oh, ho!’ she said, ‘it’s better yer gettin’.’ I started on a reel and she shouted again, ‘Oh, ho ho! I can’t sit still! Oh ho!’ And then she began to dance and pulled her dress up over her knees. ‘Yow! Yow! Yow!’ she yelled. I could feel myself begin to sweat from the hot tea but didn’t stop while she hopped and glided around her tiny kitchen. She was the liveliest woman I ever met and dancing was her favourite form of expression. I played many more tunes for her while sometimes she sat quietly looking at my fingers or smoking half a cigarette. In between when she caught her breath she would shout and dance more, depending on what I played. She also liked waltzes and would waltz with a broom when I played one. She told me to take a rest while she opened a drawer in a cabinet and took out a biscuit tin. She put some biscuits on a plate and said, ‘Pat, if ever a lad deserved a biscuit, it’s you!’ When I heard this I felt very gratified. She always made me feel like this, and would invariably include me in a little small talk when adults were gathered. Suddenly she said, ‘Did you hear the Gallowglass Céilí Band is comin’ to Daingean at the end of the month and are due to play at a dance in the courthouse?’ I hadn’t heard. ‘You should tell your Mammy,’ she said. She had surprised me and I could see that she was delighted to be the first to tell me the news.
As twilight approached I began to feel edgy and said to my aunt, ‘I want to head home before darkness.’ I was nervous about cycling alone on the Mill Road because of the ghost stories I had heard. My aunt was very sympathetic. ‘If you leave now, you should have enough light to get home.’ So once again she saw me to the front gate and as I cycled away I turned and waved goodbye. I was home in twenty minutes with news about the Gallowglass Céilí Band.
14
The Gallowglass
It was the end of August when the dance was scheduled to be held in Daingean and many people were looking forward to hearing the Gallowglass Céilí Band. My mother talked to my father about both of them going but he insisted that she take me so I could hear the music and watch the accordion players. Like most bands in those days, the Gallowglass had two accordions, one fiddle, a saxophone, piano, drums and a bass fiddle.
On the night of the dance we cycled to Daingean and leaned our bicycles against the side of the courthouse, which, as well as serving as cinema, dance hall and courthouse, had other rooms for official town business. In front was the town square which was appropriated as a car park, but on occasions was an ideal spot for travelling carnivals or amusement exhibitions.
We bought our tickets and moved towards the inside door of the hall, but all the cinema seats were taken and the dance floor was thronged with people sitting along the side walls while others were dancing. My mother beckoned me towards a stairway in the foyer area and we climbed to the top. I saw two rows of seats beside the front section and two of them were empty. It was our chance to get a full balcony view of the band. The front wall of the balcony was high enough for me to rest my arms on while sitting on the edge of my seat. I could see my mother was sitting in the same way, and once in a while she would sit back in her seat and listen to the music. The band were all dressed in black suits and white shirts with dickey bows. My mother had bought a programme, a four-page booklet with photos of the band and the names of its members. The band was from Naas, County Kildare and its leader was Pat McGarr, who played a piano accordion. Pat’s sister Kathleen was playing a fiddle and a young red-haired fellow was playing a three-row accordion. I read in the programme that he was Tony O’Dowd from County Cavan. We had a great view of the dancers and saw many people that we knew. I had never seen such a spectacle of enjoyment and the sound of the music had my full attention. There were waltzes, haymakers’ jigs, military two-steps, barn dances, ‘The Siege of Ennis’, ‘The Waves of Tory’. The band played a strict-tempo style of music which was how they communicated with the dancers. They also had a girl singer who wore a flowery dress and white cardigan draped across her shoulders; she also had on a white necklace. She removed her cardigan when her time came to perform. Some of her songs were in waltz time and she stood in front of a microphone with her hands behind her back. All the other musicians were sitting on chairs except for the man playing the bass fiddle. Pat McGarr introduced all the various dances and would finish by saying, ‘For your next dance, please!’
Rumour had it that a local girl singer had joined the band and would be singing at the dance. We all knew her as Teresa Duffy, whose family lived in the town. She was known to be a very fine singer, and we were looking forward to hearing her perform. However, she wasn’t to be seen anywhere and later we heard that she’d been stricken suddenly with a head cold with chills. My mother was disappointed. ‘There’s always somethin’,’ she said.
As I continued to look down I was impressed by the energy of the dancers and in particular the many girls who were dancing with each other. They were in no mood for abiding by the usual protocol of waiting to be escorted to the floor by some Prince Charming. These were no-nonsense ladies who wanted a dance one way or the other and as I watched I was impressed by the natural rhythm of their feet. Many of the younger men rambled into the céilí when the pubs had closed, having fortified their courage with porter. Dancing didn’t come naturally to some and a few individuals had an abundance of movement around their shoulders while dragging their feet to the rhythm of a slow waltz. There were examples of some funny styles of footwork during the haymakers’ jig – a few dancers almost missed their turns for connecting with their partners between a clapping gauntlet of other dancers.
A couple of hours later I had a severe urge to find a lavatory – which was on the ground floor. My mother informed me that the men’s was downstairs beside the dance floor, but the prospect of having to walk through spectators and dancers was frightening and made me nervous so I postponed nature’s call, at least for a while. My mother was concerned, however. ‘It’s bad for you to be holdin’ it in like that. We should head home.’
I didn’t want to leave, but had no choice. When w
e got outside I found a dark alley near the side of the building. My mother waited for me in the darkness. ‘Did you enjoy the music?’ she asked.
I didn’t answer, so she said, ‘Paddy, are you all right?’
I was beginning to feel a wonderful sensation of relief and said, ‘The music was great, it was fuckin’ great!’
‘Keep your voice down,’ my mother said, ‘and don’t be cursin’, I’ll tell your father on you!’
I didn’t say any more. We found our bicycles, and on the way home my mother spoke of all the people she had seen at the dance, of the style of them, and their not-a-care-in-the-world attitude of let’s live and enjoy. I wasn’t able to engage her with any interest, because my mind was teeming with fragments of tunes from the dance hall.
As the following weeks became months I was kept busy helping my father with sowing sugar beet, dropping – or planting – potatoes, cutting black and white turf on the bog, and saving hay. Most of the time my mind was busy trying to piece together sections of a reel or hornpipe, and a particular waltz was causing me a lot of unrest. Mick Hayes had given me its name, ‘The Valetta Waltz’. It was sentimental, romantic and a little sad, and its note structure was a challenge. It nagged at me for weeks. I would be alone in the drills ploughed for sowing with a praskeen of seed potatoes, bending and placing each one on droppings of cow manure, while inside in my chest this dreary waltz flowed and teased me and persecuted my emotions. It was the same sense of endurance that enslaved and tied me to other tunes like ‘Haste to the Wedding’ and another reel from the radio called ‘I’m Waiting For You’.
I’ve come to the conclusion that trying to explain or verbalise the extent of one’s emotional servitude while grappling with music is well-nigh impossible. The condition of half-knowing a reel or hornpipe is a combination of frustration, loneliness and anxiety. I suppose much of it was the result of listening to the radio with its abundance of new tunes and the challenge of trying to learn them. It was an emotional time, of music, hard work, and obedience to my father, who was struggling to make a living, and my mother, whose concerns were outward appearances and how her daughters were coping in national school.
The radio was our main entertainment, with Ciarán MacMathúna presenting the music of Johnny Pickering’s Céilí Band from the North of Ireland and fiddler Denis Murphy with his sister Julia from Gneeveguilla in County Kerry. Both of them played the fiddle together, with selections of slides, polkas and more polkas. We didn’t know what to make of the Kerry music, since we weren’t used to it. Later I learned that it was essentially a dance style of music played in small parts of County Kerry and that the way it was played was an old traditional interpretation and not easy to emulate. It was easier for us to relate to accordion players like Martin Mulhaire from County Galway or Paddy O’Brien of Tipperary or the Bridge Céilí Band from Newtown in Tipperary. The Tulla and Kilfenora céilí bands of County Clare were always welcome in our kitchen and Ciarán was always ready to give any of them a warm introduction. My interest was always aroused when I heard the names of particular box players, fiddlers or flute players. I was able to somehow perceive their physical appearance by the sound of their names or the sound of their music. This imagery and personal imagination began to influence my creative sensitivities, and it helped consolidate my feeling and appetite for practising.
15
The Drowning of Shep
My mother usually stayed at home, except for Mass on Sundays or shopping for groceries. Sundays were a busy day on our main road, or the Mill Road as it was known to us. People would walk or cycle to either the eight o’clock Mass or the later one, which was at eleven. Some families travelled together on traps pulled by donkeys or horses. During this time Shep kept himself busy barking at anyone who passed by. My mother remarked to my father that he should put the dog in the cowhouse as a way to shut him up. My father said, ‘It’s ten to eleven; nearly everyone goin’ to the chapel is either gone or almost gone.’
In the meantime I went outside and began calling Shep. The dog turned around and walked slowly towards me. We were pals and I was teaching him to lie down on his back and die for Ireland. ‘Go and lie down! Go and lie down!’ I shouted. Shep was trotting towards the cowhouse when suddenly he stopped and turned. We could both hear it, it was a bicycle. I shouted, ‘Shep! Shep!’ but he was already running in a low crouch, and out he went through a small hole in the hedge beside the gate’s pillar. He wasn’t barking and the woman on the bicycle was taken unawares. Shep zipped out to the far side of the road and sunk his teeth into the calf of her right leg. She let out a loud scream and fell on the grassy edge of the road. A few other people were behind her when it happened, and their immediate reaction was to stop and help. Shep was already in retreat and, watching him, I sensed that he knew he had done something very bad. My father and mother heard the scream and were running towards the gate. Someone was shouting, ‘Get a towel! Get a towel!’ My mother rushed back and went into the kitchen. She returned quickly to where the woman was lying on the verge. There was a lot of blood. My mother wrapped the towel around the woman’s leg and a man removed his tie and wound it around the towel. It was just enough to help her up and my father and another man, Tom Canton, helped her as she limped off the road. It was a relief that she was able to limp the rest of the way as we slowly walked her to the door and sat her on a chair in our kitchen. My mother heated hot water and found a scissors to cut the nylon stocking from her leg.
‘My God, missus, what happened?’
‘‘Twas the dog. He bit her.’
My father was horrified. ‘Mother of Divine Jaysus, I’ll have to drown him. There’s no two ways about it. I’ll go get him and bring him to the boghole.’ He looked at me and said, ‘The sneaky little bastard.’
My mother was very embarrassed and kept saying, ‘You poor woman! You poor woman!’ When she saw the wound after she had bathed it with disinfectant she was aghast. ‘Oh my God, missus, the fecker left a big gash and it’s still bleeding badly. I don’t know what to do except bandage it.’
‘Mrs O’Brien,’ the woman said, ‘don’t fuss over me. I’ll be all right, please don’t fuss . . . maybe you’d make me a cup of tea.’
‘Paddy, fill the kettle and put it on the fire,’ my mother said to me before tearing part of a white bedsheet into three-inch strips and wrapping them around the woman’s wound. She then tied the end of one by splitting it in two and tying it around the leg. She said, ‘Aren’t you Mrs Dolan?’
‘I am indeed.’
‘Lord God, Mrs Dolan, I am heartily sorry for what happened. How are you feelin’?’
‘I think I’ll be okay . . . after a cup of tea I should be able to cycle home. I’m awfully grateful to you, Mister Canton,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, Tom,’ said my mother. ‘I forgot to offer you tea.’
‘That’s all right, ma’am,’ said Tom.
My father had been quiet all this time. He was very relieved that the bandage had stopped the blood flowing, and was about to say something when my mother looked at him. ‘Christy, you’ll have to do away with that dog. I won’t sleep tonight if he isn’t done away with.’
‘Don’t anyone worry about that, I’m puttin’ him into a sack and it’s off to the boghole for him. Paddy,’ he said to me, ‘would you go outside and look for a sack? One of the potato sacks will do.’
After everyone had had tea, Mrs Dolan stood up. ‘I’d better be on my way before everyone comes back from Mass.’
My mother was very concerned as Mrs Dolan and Tom Canton began to leave. ‘I hope you are all right on the way home.’
‘Don’t worry, missus,’ said Tom, ‘We’ll be all right.’
‘Paddy, did you get the sack?’ my father asked.
I already had it folded and tucked under my arm. After my father grabbed a four-grained fork by the cowhouse he said, ‘Where’s Shep?’ I said he was in t
he shed by the dairy. When we opened the door of the shed Shep was cowering in the corner. His mouth was trembling as he growled and snarled. My father had the sack in one hand and the fork in the other as he closed in on Shep. He pulled him with the fork and shoved the opened end of the bag over the struggling animal. It was the last time I saw Shep. We tied the neck of the sack and my father hoisted it onto his shoulder and back. I carried the fork and we headed for the bog. We found a fresh boghole filled with water, and, standing by its edge, my father lowered the sack from his back. There was no sound from Shep. Then he lifted the sack with both hands and swung it into the water. He took the fork from me and used it to hold Shep and the sack underneath. The dog was struggling inside the sack and I knew he was fighting for his life. My father was also struggling to keep the sack submerged and there were bubbles beginning to form on the water’s surface. Our dog made a final lunge inside the sack, but my father’s fork kept shoving him below the water’s surface until groups of miniature bubbles were clouding the swirling water. And then the water settled and became calm and my father withdrew the fork. We stood in silence, waiting, listening, but the only sound we heard was a curlew somewhere on the heather. I was feeling very sad and shocked. A confused mixture of compassion, forgiveness and sorrow was churning around inside me. It was also a feeling of frustration because Shep was dead. He died because of a flaw in his temperament that wasn’t his fault, nor was it something that humans were ready to comprehend. As we walked back from the bog we held a long silence, until I heard my father say, ‘I hope I never have to drown another dog.’
The Road from Castlebarnagh Page 9