The Road from Castlebarnagh

by Paddy O'Brien

  16

  Thatching the House

  My father and mother had many responsibilities that my sisters and I weren’t capable of understanding because of our youth, and our love of novelty and excitement. We loved the game of hide and seek and were always scouting out hiding places and making plans for outwitting each other. One evening I heard my father talking to an old neighbour who was my mother’s uncle. He was a good friend and would pass our house when he drove his cows home for milking. Mick Dunne was someone who was wise in his years and was always ready and reliable with advice. My father would talk to him about his usual concerns, which were related to crops, cows, weather conditions or personal health.

  One evening as I was hiding in the hedge by the road I overheard him talking to Mick Dunne about thatching our house. Mick was saying, ‘Why don’t you do it yourself?’

  ‘Mick,’, my father replied, ‘I’ve never thatched a house in my life!’

  ‘You’re lookin’ at a man who thatched his own house without any experience,’ Mick replied. ‘Christy, you can do it. All you need is a long ladder and a load of oaten straw.’

  I was fascinated by what they were saying, but I wasn’t able to hear any more of their conversation because my sister Kathleen surprised me and I had to run.

  As the summer evenings continued, my father had many chats with Mick when he stopped at our gate so his cows could graze by the roadside.

  One evening I was standing close by when my father said to Mick, ‘You know, I’ve been thinkin’ about what you said about the thatchin’, and maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ll have a shot at it.’

  ‘And Paddy here can tend to you when you’re on the roof,’ Mick said.

  ‘Do you think he can do it?’

  ‘Do it?’ said Mick. ‘Of course he can do it! Hasn’t he eyes and ears and hands like the rest of us?’

  This was the advice that convinced my father to go ahead with his first attempt at thatching. It also gave me a great sense of being included and I was thrilled at the prospect of how this undertaking would unfold during the coming weeks. A few days later I heard my father telling my mother that he was going to cycle over to Riverlyons and talk to Jimmy Mac about buying a load of oaten straw and to see if he could borrow one of Jimmy’s ladders.

  ‘Jimmy Mac is a great neighbour and a true Christian,’ my mother said, ‘and he’ll always have good luck in his life.’

  ‘I think I’ll bike it over there now,’ my father continued. ‘He’ll just be after finishin’ his supper.’

  A couple of days later Jimmy arrived with a huge load of oaten straw on a trailer towed behind his Massey Ferguson tractor. As it passed the door and window of our house the inside of our kitchen darkened almost as if it was night-time. Jimmy’s trailer had a small hydraulic system that lifted its front end upwards, and the load of straw fell over into a huge pile at the north end of our house. It turned out to be an excellent playground for me and my sisters: we marvelled at its width and elevation, and the straw was wonderful for hiding in or falling on. We shouted and screamed and pushed each other into the soft bed of straw until twilight came.

  After three days of games in the straw, my father began building a straw reek in the adjoining haggard. This was where we kept our straw and hay. We helped him carry the straw as best we could. In the evening it was finished, and looking up at the tall reek we felt a great sense of achievement. We were also eager and ready for a nice supper of boiled eggs with bread, butter and jam – and, of course, plenty of tea.

  Next day I helped my father push Jimmy’s ladder up onto the roof. It reached well beyond the ridge and I stood at the bottom end, holding it as my father climbed onto each rung. His first job was to check where the old straw was leaking or was rotten and needed to be replaced. The first days of preparation were important and it was my job to hand-pull lots of barley straw and tie it into small bunches. These were used as packing or fillers on the roof where the original straw or thatch had rotted all the way to the rafters. Pulling the straw was tedious work and when I finished my father told me to pull the oaten straw from the reek and lay it out in larger bunches. We already had many sizes of hazel rods that he had cut the week before. He had kept them for drying in the kitchen because we needed to twist and bend them and sharpen the ends and cut them into various lengths, or into U-shaped spikes for holding down the new thatch. Several other hazels would be laid on the fresh thatch and then pinned down by some of the U-shaped spikes. A number of small tools were used for this particular work, such as a fork with two prongs of steel that tapered into a wooden handle with a round polished end. This was used to plug and push bunches of straw into the old thatch. It was the most important tool next to the wooden mallet.

  The first line of thatch was usually stuffed into the old thatch from the eave (alongside the wooden ladder) all the way up to the crest or ridge of the roof. This line or layer was about nine inches wide, and when the thatcher finished at the ridge he would climb back down to the ground and move the ladder forward another nine inches and the plugging and stuffing was repeated.

  When all was ready my father climbed the ladder with a bundle of straw under his left arm. His two-grained fork was stuck into the old thatch at a right angle to the slanted roof and this was where he placed his bundle of straw, which was between the roof and the fork handle. As he worked his way upwards he would remove the fork and stick it in again at a higher location. It was a slow process and when quitting time came we saw that the total advance for the day was a three-foot-wide layer of straw from the ridge to the bottom end. Before we finished for the night we had to carry five or six bucketfuls of water for splashing on the new thatch. When I had filled the bucket, my father waited above as I moved slowly upwards, step by step, moving the bucket from rung to rung. My father threw the water down onto the new thatch to flatten it, and then he’d beat it over and over with a short, round pole. During the night it would settle into its intended slant, or ‘lay’ as it was known.

  On the third day we made a ridge cover of twisted straw pulled down onto an upright hazel rod stuck into the ground. The rod could accommodate forty twisted straw lengths that were criss-crossed, with half their length pulled to one side and the other half on the opposite side. It was very impressive to see the final capping when rod and straw as one unit was placed on the ridge. This procedure lasted a few hours before we began pulling more of the oaten straw for the next layer of thatch.

  My father always wore a peaked cap and an old Local Defence Forces (LDF) overcoat. (He had been in the LDF, the volunteer army reserve, for a brief time during the Second World War.) I never saw him wearing gloves except when frosty weather greeted the winter mornings before he set out to cycle the ten miles to his work. I often admired his perseverance and how hard he worked. Thinking of him and watching how he continued on as a father and breadwinner, I tried to compare myself with him. But every time I thought about it I was forced to conclude that I would never measure up to his particular standard. His was an older generation of hard work and hardcore honesty and simple values that I had yet to understand.

  Each of us was on our knees, pulling from the reek long lengths of yellow straw, length after length, that we neatly laid out as a bundle to be carried to the roof. Sometimes my father would talk to the straw, or say something like, ‘You stubborn bastard, I’ll best yeh yet!’ or ‘Aha, now I have yeh!’ This was his way of announcing his victory when he pulled out a huge amount in one tug. Sometimes I thought he was trying to entertain me as a subtle gesture of appreciation for my help.

  17

  The Banshee

  We hadn’t seen Mick Hayes for over three months. This was unusual, so we wondered if perhaps he was sick or had an accident, but one Saturday morning my mother met him on the main street in Daingean. She asked him how he was and he said he had been in Tullamore Hospital with pneumonia. My mother apologised for not visiting
him and he said it had happened very quickly and that many people didn’t know about it. She told him we hadn’t heard a word of him being sick and said, ‘You know, Mick, a person could be dead around here and not a soul would know. How did it happen?’

  Mick explained that an old man near where he lived had died and on the same night it was pouring rain outside. Mick was at home sitting by the fire reading a newspaper when he heard a horrible wail in the wind. It got louder and he felt the hair standing on his head. ‘It was a high-pitched crying sound and there was something about it that drew me towards it, so I went outside to see what direction it came from. It was still raining, but had eased a little and like a fool I stood there listening, and that’s how I got the pneumonia.’

  My mother said, ‘Mick, don’t you know what you heard?’

  ‘I think I do,’ Mick replied.

  ‘Yes,’ said my mother, ‘‘twas the Banshee.’

  ‘Curse of God on her,’ said Mick. ‘She frightened the bejaysus out of me, and then I got the feckin’ pneumonia and was six weeks in the hospital. Bad cess to her!’

  ‘When are you comin’ for a ramble again?’ my mother asked. ‘I’ve started makin’ scones on the griddle, I still have more than enough.’

  ‘Next week,’ said Mick. ‘Next Wednesday night.’

  As my mother wheeled her bike to the towpath, she shouted back to Mick, ‘Don’t forget to bring the box. Paddy would like to hear you.’

  When she got to Mooney’s in the terrace she knocked on the door. She knocked a couple of times and then the door opened slowly. Standing there was a small boy of about six and he was holding his pet puppy. My mother asked him if his mother and father were at home. The little fellow disappeared and after a minute Joe Mooney himself came out. ‘Well, hello, missus,’ he said. ‘Come in and sit down. I think I know why you’re here. Are you lookin’ for a dog?’

  ‘I am, Mr Mooney. Do you have any?’

  ‘I might have one,’ said Joe. ‘It’s a little terrier, a kind of a Kerry blue.’

  ‘How much do you want for it?’

  ‘Nothin’ at all,’ Joe laughed. ‘We’ve had a total of fifteen pups over the last several months. I don’t know how they came to be here. I suppose my wife and the young lads bring home their mothers and bed them down outside in the shed, and then all of a sudden there’s pups, pups and more pups everywhere. We’ve been givin’ them away to people like yourself, people who have children. And the children,’ he added, ‘love to cuddle them and have them for pets. Wait a minute, missus, and I’ll go outside and get you the little fella.’

  My mother said she’d go outside to her bike and bring in a basket that she left on the carrier, and when she came back inside Joe was already in the kitchen with the little animal. My mother looked at the tiny pup. ‘God,’ she said, ‘our Kathleen will be over the moon with it, she’ll want to bring it to bed with her!’

  When my mother came home with the pup she put the basket on the table, and we all gathered around looking at the new addition to our home.

  ‘What are we goin’ to call him?’ my father asked. Nobody had a name until our mother said, ‘Paddy, what’s the name of the cowboy you’ve been readin’ about? It’s the fellow with the light brown horse.’

  ‘Rex Allen,’ I replied. Our mother had her mind made up. ‘That’s what we’re goin’ to call him. Rex.’ Then she leaned into the basket and whispered, ‘Rex, Rex, Rex.’

  The following Wednesday evening around nine o’clock a knock came to the door. I was told to answer it like I was the only person qualified. It was Mick, and he had his accordion with him. I was thrilled. ‘Mick, it’s yourself,’ I said, ‘and we’re just makin’ tea.’

  ‘Where’s the dog?’ asked Mick. ‘I don’t hear him barkin’.’

  ‘Well,’ said my father, ‘we had to drown him.’

  ‘Drown him,’ he said. ‘Well, isn’t that somethin’? My prayers have been answered. Well, I don’t need these any more,’ he added, as he pulled four stones from his pocket and threw them out the door into the night. ‘What a relief,’ he said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘The fecker bit Mrs Dolan on the leg,’ my mother was saying, and my father said, ‘What else could we do?’

  I could see that Mick was relieved. Sitting on a chair, he said, ‘There was something wrong with that dog because it’s not often a collie bites anyone, or could be so sneaky and wicked.’

  My mother was knitting a small cardigan for our youngest sister, Patricia. ‘I’ll make tea in a minute,’ she said. ‘I’ve just a few more stitches to do.’

  My father offered Mick a cigarette. ‘No thanks, Christy,’ he said. ‘I only smoke now and again.’

  When she had finished her row of knitting my mother boiled the kettle on the fire and, as was so often the case, Mick and my father continued talking about what had transpired since the last time they’d seen each other.

  ‘Well now, Mick,’ said my father, ‘anythin’ strange?’

  ‘Not too much,’ said Mick, ‘except I found out the name of the aul’ fucker that died at the time I got the wettin’.’

  ‘Who was it?’ my father asked.

  ‘Dick Allader,’ said Mick. He was convinced that this old fellow was related to a landlord of bygone days and was adamant that this man would never see the light of heaven.

  ‘Was he that bad?’ my mother asked.

  ‘He belonged to the same people that evicted innocent families and left them destitute on the byways of this country,’ Mick said. ‘Fuck him! He’s no fuckin’ loss! And I heard he left thousands to relatives in England. I suppose they’ll know what to do with it, or probably piss it against some foreign wall.’

  My father was curious about Mick being laid low. ‘Molly was tellin’ us you were in hospital. Are you feelin’ all right since you came home?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mick. ‘I think I am. They told me my lungs are cleared up, and my energy is better.’

  My father was still curious, however. ‘She told us you heard the Banshee.’

  Mick looked at my father and then at the floor. ‘Christy,’ he said, ‘I definitely heard somethin’ from the hereafter. It was the most frightenin’ cry, inhuman it was, the wounded cry of a soul in exile. Drops of sweat fell from me forehead and I felt a terrible fear crawlin’ down the small of me back. I’m not the better of it yet.’

  ‘It was the Banshee – it follows some families,’ my mother said. ‘I heard her cryin’ on the night my uncle was dyin’ here in the room behind the fireplace. I was only seventeen and I was sittin’ where Paddy is now sittin’, in the corner.’

  I could feel a little bit of sweat when my mother mentioned where she sat. ‘My second cousin Jack Dunne,’ she continued, ‘also heard the same fearsome wail as he was cyclin’ by on his way to Daingean. He had to get down off his bike because the cryin’ had such an effect on him; he felt a weakness in his legs. I wouldn’t believe in such a thing if I hadn’t heard it and the fact that other people heard her cryin’ on the same night is enough proof for me or anyone else.’

  Mick was also convinced. ‘I hope I never hear it again because it’s the strangest wail of torment that any human ear could ever endure.’

  I was amazed at such a story. It had a ring of truth about it that confused and bewildered me and I felt a little bit afraid. My sisters were listening quietly and were wide-eyed with wonder. My father told us not to worry. ‘The Banshee,’ he said, ‘never cries around here and won’t be here again. She never cries again where she has been before, isn’t that right, Mick?’

  ‘That’s the truth,’ said Mick. ‘You children can sleep like babies tonight. There’s no Banshee within an ass’s roar of Castlebarnagh, so there’s nothin’ to be afraid of.’

  ‘Mick knows more about this than any of us,’ my mother joined in. ‘Anyway, the house is blessed, and nothin’ can get near yez.�
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  My father lit another cigarette. ‘Mick,’ he said, ‘what about playin’ the accordion?’

  Oh God, I was so relieved. And when Mick grabbed his box I sensed he too was happy to change the subject of the Banshee. When he had finished his tea he started to play. It was a jig I didn’t know and I had never heard him play it before. He played it over a few times, so I could get a feel for its shape and melody. I believe I learned it that same night because it came back into my mind during the days that followed. Mick played for about half an hour and then asked me to have a go. I played it for a while but soon got tired. Mick’s accordion was too much for me because of its size.

  My mother wasn’t finished. ‘Mick,’ she said, ‘if you don’t mind, I have a question for you.’

  ‘Go ahead missus, I don’t mind at all.’

  ‘Have you heard of somethin’ called ringworm?’

  ‘Indeed I have, missus. Don’t tell me you have it!’

  ‘I might have it,’ she said. ‘Bridgie Rourke had a look at my leg and said she thought it was definitely ringworm. It started very small, smaller than a sixpence, and now it’s bigger, maybe bigger now than a penny. Here,’ she said, ‘it’s on my right leg on the inside, just down here below my knee.’

  Mick could see it, a red spot the size of a penny, and it was weeping a little. ‘Missus,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid that’s what it is.’

  ‘Is there any cure for it?’ my father asked.

  ‘There is,’ said Mick. ‘That is, if you believe in quacks.’