The Road from Castlebarnagh

by Paddy O'Brien

  ‘It’s a great night and wonderful music,’ my father replied. My own thoughts were that if my father had a pint in his hand it would be more wonderful for him . . . music or no music.

  On the way home Bob was very upbeat and chatted excitedly about the music and the players. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘that young Maguire is goin’ to win an All-Ireland in a few years. Jesus Christ, he’s as solid as a rock.’

  I was in total agreement, but even as I listened I had resigned myself to the fact that my biggest problem was not having a proper accordion, and the prospect of getting one lay beyond not one horizon but one after the other.

  When Bob pulled up outside our gate he was in an inspired mood and continued talking without turning off the ignition. I was trying to open the back door of the van so I could get out, and was relieved when my father said to Bob, ‘Why don’t you stop the engine and come in for a few minutes?’

  ‘Wha’? Wha’? All right, Christy, I might as well.’

  It was very inspiring to be in Bob’s company and once we were inside we all sat around the fire. He continued to talk about the music and was cursing himself for not having his accordion with him. He told me he had recently bought a new nine-coupler Paolo Soprani. I marvelled at how easy it was for him to find and buy one. When I went to bed I didn’t sleep until well after midnight. Sometime in the night I dreamt of acres of beet being gathered up and piled into heaps and then loaded into huge accordions that served as crushers with their bellows pumping in and out. I woke up when one accordion refused to squeeze its bellows.

  25

  The Grand Canal

  The Grand Canal ran half a mile from the back of our house and on quiet nights we could hear the chugging sound of the boats. My father was able to guess if a boat was sailing empty or if it was carrying a load of porter. He also remembered the sound of some of the engines that powered particular boats and their numbers, like 39M or 40B. He was sensitive to the sound of the boats because of his experience as a boatsman for some years before he was married in 1944. He talked to us many times about his old friends – men who had given him songs with the words written on cigarette boxes, men who were from other counties, and men who personified their humble beginnings by sharing what little they had. There were other men whose egos and selfishness left a lasting impression on the young Christy O’Brien, whose give-and-take nature would help influence my own values.

  My father had lots of ghost stories and tales of mysterious drownings, and the names of loughs he said were haunted or just plain unlucky places. He had stories of two boats tied together during gale-force winds or storms and how they ploughed their way through thirty feet of high waves while crossing Lough Derg on the River Shannon. Once he and his mates were marooned on an island for a week and found shelter in the home of a hospitable family. A gramophone was brought into the kitchen and several gallons of porter tapped from one of the Guinness barrels on the boat. He said they danced for several nights listening to the same 78 rpm record over and over and over. The record was worn out by the end of the storm.

  During the time when I was topping beet, Daingean’s small harbour was a busy stopping point for beet boats. Most of these boats or barges were used for delivering porter from the Guinness brewery in James’s Street, Dublin. The Grand Canal waterway was linked from Dublin to the River Shannon and from there the boats sailed with their cargo to Limerick city. It’s been said that the slow boat travel was ideal for conditioning the porter. The barges also transported sugar beet to Carlow’s sugar factory and also to Tuam sugar factory in County Galway. When visiting my Aunt Mary’s, I would pass over the bridge at the top of Daingean, where I would see huge piles of beet yet to be loaded onto the boats. This was usually done in late August and September.

  My father was in the cowhouse washing our cow’s udder with warm water and disinfectant when a car pulled up outside our gate. Its driver was a man from the town who said a fellow from one of the boats had been in an accident and that other boatsmen were dragging the canal under the bridge. The missing man was an old friend of my father’s with whom he had once boated. His name was Ned Cummins from Edenderry. Hearing the man’s name and the likelihood that he had been drowned, he told my mother he had finished washing the cow and that he was biking to Daingean. He threw on his overcoat and within minutes was on his bicycle pedalling hard for the town.

  It was a couple of hours later when he came home. When he came into the kitchen he looked very distraught and as he sat down he explained to my mother how they had found Ned Cummins’ body near the bottom of the canal right under the very boat he was to steer out of Daingean earlier that evening. My father was very emotional and as he spoke he broke down crying. ‘Poor Ned,’ he cried. ‘Poor Ned, oh poor Ned.’

  ‘How did it happen?’ my mother asked.

  He recovered a little and said, ‘They thought he might have stood on a bootlace as he walked along the side of the boat. He had a couple of pints in Cronley’s bar, and then left for the boat. I was in the old warehouse when they brought him in – poor Ned – and they left him there for the night. We looked at his nailed boots but didn’t see anythin’ wrong with the laces.’ He was crying again. ‘Poor Ned Cummins, poor Ned. He left a wife and four children.’

  My mother made tea and my father brought it with him to the bedroom. He said he was tired and I could hear him crying when he closed the door.

  I wasn’t allowed to play my accordion for two weeks as a mark of respect for Ned, so I’d sneak away with my mouth organ and try out some new bits of reels or jigs on the roadway. In later years my father explained that boatsmen were very loyal to each other. All along the canal towns their reputation as honest and reliable men was noted and appreciated, especially during the Second World War when they would bring tea and sugar from the bigger towns to country areas that were hit hard by food rationing. When rumours began in the late 1950s that commercial travel on the canals would soon be a thing of the past, my father and his boatsmen friends were stricken with disbelief and scepticism. In the end it was just a matter of time before the old boat culture of the Royal and Grand Canals would be no more.

  Some of our most delightful times were when Dinny Doyle came across the fields for a house ramble, which might be during the day or late evening. Tea was very often the launching pad for chats about music, or some neighbourly interest. He always included me or my sisters with chitchat, questions about how we were doing in school. On one of his visits he spoke about the invisibility of the fairies, and how he heard them playing fiddles over at his side of the bog where the quickenberry and beech trees grew. He said he was setting snares for rabbits at six o’clock in the morning and the sun was about to rise when he heard a faint sound of music. At first he thought it was his imagination, but as he walked towards where he thought the music came from, it got louder. When he got to the quickenberries the sound had moved further away to where the beech trees grew among the furze. When he went to where the sound was in the trees, it had moved back again to the quickenberries. He went back and forth a few times but the music moved again and again. At that point he gave up on the possibility of seeing the fiddlers and concluded that they were in fact the ‘wee folk’ or the fairies. He said the music was delightful and full of great soul and they had tunes he never heard before.

  When he finished the story we were all silent for a few seconds. We were sitting looking at Dinny, waiting for him to tell us more, when he said, ‘Paddy, how’s it goin’ in school?’ I told him that Murphy had sent me down to the back garden to cut hazel rods for beating us, and had slapped me three times because I had selected rods that weren’t stout enough. He sent another boy to the garden with a warning about what he’d do if the boy returned with a bunch of reeds instead of the sturdy rod he needed to put manners on us.

  Dinny was flabbergasted. ‘What kind of a devil would do such a thing to young children?’ My father told Dinny about having gone
to the town and having a word with Murphy.

  Then I told them about a recent incident during spelling class when he picked on the young Spollen twins, who started crying. Murphy shouted at them, ‘Come up here. Come here, you pair of little sissies.’ When he had them standing in front of the roaring fire he yelled that he was tempted to throw them into it. Hearing him say this frightened the two boys out of their wits and their crying became louder, with tears flowing from their eyes. Murphy reached for the big fire tongs and put it around one fellow’s neck, yelling that he’d give him a good reason for crying and then started to squeeze the tongs. We were all frightened when we saw what he was doing. It goes without saying that his scare tactics made matters worse, but fortunately he removed the tongs, instead yelling at the boys to go and stand facing a corner in the room. He had them stay in that position until the class was finished.

  Dinny looked at me with disbelief. ‘Paddy, are you sure this is the truth?’

  ‘If you are makin’ this up,’ my mother intervened, ‘it’ll be a shame on you and a stain on yer soul.’

  I was adamant and felt disappointed. ‘You can ask any of the lads I play with,’ I said. ‘Any of them will tell yeh. I’m not lyin’. That’s what he did, you should ask the young Spollens.’

  ‘It’s all right, Paddy,’ said Dinny, ‘we believe yeh. Don’t worry, we believe yeh.’ He said some people could be very cruel and that something should be done about this wicked animal. Maybe he was right, because at that time I was too young and inexperienced in the world to be able to fully appreciate the difference between good and evil. However, some time later I noticed a change in Murphy’s treatment of Seamus Carr, a sort of easing off on the slapping and very few questions regarding homework or days out of school. It all began to make sense when one day I saw Seamus give an apple to Murphy just before lunch break. At least twice a week Seamus would have a huge apple in his school bag which he’d leave on the teacher’s desk. Seamus never said anything to me about it; indeed nothing was said by anyone. It was a case of letting well enough alone.

  On a lighter side, I chuckled privately to myself as I saw myself in school taking a sugar beet from my satchel and offering it as a gift to Murphy. The consequences, of course, were too terrible for me to contemplate, but I loved to think about it!

  26

  Milking the Cow

  I was glad the work with the beet was finished. My parents talked about all the work that went into growing it and getting it ready for the boats. They concluded that the whole process of preparing it was too much and so my father never grew another sugar beet. We did, however, make some money from the transaction with the beet company and with it my mother bought us clothes and a mattress for herself and my father. She also bought me a better mouth organ, which was longer, and I could play all of ‘The High Level Hornpipe’ on it. It was my reward for enduring the long hours of grubbing, thinning, weeding, pulling and topping and the loading of cartloads of beet. I hoped I’d never have to do it again.

  With the beet work out of the way I had more time for homework from school, swapping and reading comics and playing the mouth organ or the Hohner accordion. I was also developing an understanding of where some musicians hailed from, as Ciarán MacMathúna announced their names, the tunes they played, and the town or village where they lived. History and geography were subjects I loved at school, and I began to give the map of Ireland a closer look as I searched for Tulla and Kilfenora in Clare, or Castleisland in County Kerry. It was a time of mystery, and a kind of romance prevailed as I listened to the accordion music of Francie Brereton of Nenagh, County Tipperary or flute player P.J. Maloney from the same county. A major irritation was trying to learn particular tunes. Anything I already knew I had picked up by ear, which was how musicians learned their music, especially if they lived in areas where house dances were common. This meant they heard many of the same reels, etc. played over and over on different occasions at various house dance gatherings. Because I had very limited access to the music, however, my only source was the radio.

  Far more often than not I would have to help my father with milking the cow during the dark winter evenings. He would wait until A Job of Journeywork was over and then I’d accompany him to the cowhouse. He would have me hold the hurricane oil lamp while he washed the cow’s udder before he began milking. My mother often teased him about how the cow would give her more milk because, as she said, she had ‘the touch’ or the kindness in her for animals. She thought the cow understood this and responded by giving her more milk. One evening as I stood holding the lamp I saw that my father was struggling to get milk from the cow. ‘What in the name of Jaysus is wrong with her?’ he said. ‘Or is it me doin somethin’ wrong?’ I thought about this and couldn’t come up with an answer. ‘Paddy,’ he said, ‘do you remember the day on the bog when you played the mouth organ, and Phil Rourke’s cattle nearly trampled the turf?’ I said I did. ‘Now I want you to go inside and bring out the mouth organ and don’t let your mother see you with it. Put the lamp down here on the straw.’

  I ran into the house and found the mouth organ in the corner near the fireplace and I secretly put it into my old overcoat pocket. My mother was washing Moira’s hair and my three other sisters were in the bedroom arguing about something. Nobody noticed me going or coming. I ran back to the cowhouse where my father was waiting. When I confirmed that I had the mouth organ he said, ‘Start playin’! Remember I told you that cows love music? It calms them.’

  ‘What’ll I play?’

  ‘Anythin’,’ he said, laughing a little. ‘Just play anythin’, anythin’ at all.’

  I took the mouth organ from its blue box and began playing a march called ‘Kelly, The Boy from Killane’ and followed it with an old Fenian melody called ‘Down By the Glenside’. My father began milking and I kept playing. I was watching the bucket beginning to fill. It was slow at first as my father kept on squeezing the spins of the cow. I was also watching the cow and saw that her ears were now pointing outwards.

  ‘By God, Paddy, the music is doin’ the trick. Look,’ he said. ‘That’s a good girl,’ he said to the cow as the milk came shooting out of her spins. ‘You’re a real auld cod, aren’t you, Polly? Now we know what she likes, and it isn’t hay, turnips, or mangels, it’s music! Wait’ll your mammy sees this – she won’t know what to say, and Paddy, don’t you tell her about playin’ the mouth organ. We’ll tell her some other time. When we’re finished here we’ll go back to the house and say nothin’ and see if she’ll notice the full bucket.’

  Back inside, my father lifted the bucket of milk onto the table that stood against the back wall of our kitchen. It was where we kept the skim milk and the cans that we had bought from travelling tinsmiths. When my mother came out of the bedroom she saw me and my father. ‘Did ye milk the cow?’ she asked. I said we did. My father was washing his hands and said nothing.

  My mother saw the bucket on the table and went over to strain the milk. Then she started to laugh. ‘Which of ye did it?’ she said.

  ‘Did what?’ said my father.

  ‘There’s twice as much here,’ she said, ‘much more than what you got from her last night! Paddy, where did ye get the extra milk?’

  ‘It is extra milk indeed,’ I said, ‘but it came from the cow. Honestly,’ adding that the cow was in a very giving kind of humour.

  ‘Yes,’ said my father, ‘I had no bother gettin’ the milk from her at all. Paddy is right, the cow was in good humour and liked the way I touched her.’

  He turned his head away as he said it and gave me a wink. I think my mother saw him because she said, ‘You two are a connivin’ pair of rogues.’

  27

  The Hoax

  It was a weekend in October when we were able to organise our forces for an Indian raid on Fort Laramie. I had already done my share of scouting and located an ideal area for ambushes, rustler hideouts, or anything
to do with the landscape of Western films. New members were joining our posses and outlaw gangs, good lads and bad lads. One of our most devoted recruits was Jimmy Quinn, who was the youngest of Tom Quinn’s family. Others were Andy McCormack and his brother Seán. Also the Pilkington brothers, Pat, Willy, and John, who were convinced they were the James gang. Despite warnings from my mother about a bull patrolling the moors, we all decided to scout the place and meet afterwards in a spot beside a ditch that ran alongside the main road. Arriving at the meeting place, our gang eagerly reported that the bull was nowhere to be seen. The Pilkingtons were sure it was a ploy to keep us off the moors. And so we galloped off to find a suitable area for the attack on Fort Laramie. We found a small sandpit and the McCormacks were told to defend it, with Jimmy Quinn as its commander. The rest of us were the attacking Indians, with Seamus Carr wearing several feathers from his mother’s hens. Gandhi wore his sister’s lipstick for war paint. Most of us had bows and arrows, while the sandpit defenders wore gunbelts and hats, and two lads had plastic rifles.