‘Play “The Lark in the Morning”,’ my father said. ‘It’s one Joe used to play when we were out with the wren.’ By this time I was a bit fed up with the tune and didn’t feel like playing it. So I suppose I hummed and hawed, hoping I’d think of something else. In the end Joe coaxed me into playing the jig, so I fingered the tune as best I could but unfortunately I didn’t get through it without missing a few buttons. When I’d finished, Joe clapped his hands. It was my very first applause from an outsider but it didn’t make me feel better because I felt I hadn’t played very well. Then my father asked Joe to play a tune.
‘Oh God, no,’ said Joe, ‘I haven’t played in years.’
‘Ah, come on,’ urged my father, but Joe was adamant, saying he was completely out of practice. I was shocked into disbelief and terribly disappointed and wanted to run outside and hide. I was twelve years old and desperately needed help with my fingering on the keyboard, or perhaps some other tips or advice. Joe didn’t help me in any way and I sensed afterwards that it may not have occurred to him that I really needed a few tips or something that would whet my appetite for playing. Instead he asked me to play another tune, and I wearily played a waltz that I had recently learned from the Galloway Céilí Band. Joe never heard it before and asked where I got it. When I told him he said, ‘It’s a catchy little tune.’ By this time my father was anxious for more conversation and so they began talking again about Joe living the life of a bachelor and working for a big farmer somewhere in Kildare. I wasn’t interested and nobody seemed to care or understand that music was my conversation, and one that would take me many years to develop.
37
Mr Coffey and Mr O’Connell
In school Mr Coffey continued to impress many of us with his sense of fair play, although he often over-burdened us with homework. His constant use of the word ‘latchico’ was still a wonder to us all. We had asked our parents and various people what the word meant but nobody had any idea. However, most parents seemed to think that if Mr Coffey called us a latchico it meant that one of us or even all of us were rascals of some sort. Soon we were all calling each other latchicos when playing at lunch break and some of the schoolyard bullies had taken the word to mean something to bolster own importance when imposing their ‘law’ on the weaker boys.
‘Come up here, you little latchico.’ Mr Coffey was looking at Seamus Carr! ‘Come up here,’ he said again. Seamus walked slowly up to Mr Coffey’s desk. ‘Bring your English book with you, go back and get it.’ Seamus retrieved the book and walked up again to where Mr Coffey was sitting behind his desk. ‘Give it to me,’ he said, and Seamus handed him his book. Mr Coffey was looking over his glasses at Seamus and then he lifted the book and held it out in front of him. ‘When I saw what you were doing with your book I had to look twice because I could not imagine anyone doing what I thought you were doing. But now that I see the book in my hand I can say without any doubt that YOU’VE BEEN EATING IT! Have you not? Have you not, you little latchico?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Seamus. Mr Coffey continued to stare at Carr over the rims of his glasses. ‘Don’t you know that cows and goats are the only creatures that eat books? Young fellow, I ask you, are you a cow or a goat? Are you?’
‘No, sir,’ said Carr.
‘Then why are you eating your school book?’
‘I don’t know, sir, said Seamus.
‘You don’t know? You don’t know? Go back to your desk and sit down, you little latchico.’ Then he pointed his finger towards me. ‘Come up here and bring your composition with you.’ The composition was my homework, a short story from my imagination that I had written the night before. ‘Now,’ said Mr Coffey, ‘let me see your writing,’ and as soon as I gave him the two pages of my story he began reading it. ‘Aha,’ he said, ‘very good!’ He read some more and was about to hand it back to me when he said, ‘The handwriting looks different from here onwards.’ He pointed his finger at the page. I was afraid he would spot it and he did. ‘Why is that?’ he asked me. Even though I was trembling inside, I held my ground. ‘It was getting late, sir, and my mother was trying to get us all to bed, and I had to speed up my writing.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘oh,’ and handed me back my two pages. I had escaped and nothing more was said. As a matter of fact I was stuck the night before with the story and asked my mother for help. When she read what I’d written about robbing an orchard, she said, ‘Let me finish it. It’s quicker this way,’ and so she wrote the rest of the story. So it was my mother’s handwriting that Mr Coffey saw. To this day I’m sorry it wasn’t the tyrant Paddy Murphy that I pulled my bluff on instead of Mr Coffey, of whom I have great memories and great appreciation for his teaching methods. I remember him telling us in class that we were just as good as the pupils in the west of Ireland and that we could be even better if we worked a little harder and got rid of some of our lazy habits. He seemed to think that being lazy and neglectful was a trait in schoolchildren that was particular to the midlands. Maybe he was right when he called us all a crowd of little ‘latchicos’.
Mr Coffey’s term in Daingean boys’ school lasted a little over two years. I was sorry when he told us that he was moving to a new teaching position near his home in County Roscommon. Our new headmaster was a twenty-eight-year-old man who was already known to us as Mr O’Connell. He had arrived as replacement for Murphy, who had applied for a teaching post near his home area and had somehow got the job. We were all delighted to see the last of him. In contrast, Mr O’Connell was a mild-mannered sort of fellow who represented a new breed of school teacher. He taught us Irish history in both English and Irish. He also concentrated on geography in both languages, which included some major western countries, their rivers and mountains and many big cities in the USA, England and Scotland. He was an old-style Irish nationalist and great admirer of Pádraig Pearse, who signed the 1916 Proclamation and was one of the leaders of the Easter week rebellion that was initiated at the GPO in Dublin on Easter Monday of that year. It was during one of our singing lessons that he asked us, any one of us, to sing a song of our choice. No one volunteered, and Mr O’Connell was about to move on to something else when I stood up and said, ‘Yes, sir.’ And off I went with ‘Down Erin’s Lovely Lee’. I had learned it from an All-Ireland senior football brochure that my mother’s cousin bought in Croke Park in 1957 when Louth senior footballers beat Cork by two points. I had won a bet of half a crown with her cousin Jack Dunne and when he gave me the coin he also gave me the little booklet. The song in its middle pages was the first thing I noticed and I was attracted to its words. I didn’t know it was a Fenian song and when I finished singing it the class was silent.
Mr O’Connell was astonished. ‘Good lad, Pat, good lad.’ He then put his hand in his trouser pocket and pulled out some change. He took a sixpence from a bunch of pennies and gave it to me as a reward. I was mystified and felt a small bit embarrassed because a teacher had never given me money before. Mr O’Connell was proud of me and began telling the class about the meaning of the song, and that it was written by a Fenian sympathiser. He continued to talk about the bravery of O’Donovan Rossa and Captain Mackey and our singing class became a history lesson. From that day onward I always felt that I was a favourite of the young headmaster. He seemed very interested in my sketching and painting with water colours. However, I don’t believe he ever knew about the other more committed side of me, which was the music, and I never knew if he had any liking for Irish traditional music.
38
The Circus
On another occasion our mother was in Daingean doing some shopping for groceries when she met Father Cronin on the street. He was one of the priests who was attached to the local reformatory, which was a school for juvenile delinquents. He was in jolly humour and stopped on the towpath to talk to her.
‘Missus,’ he said, ‘did you hear about the circus? It’s coming to town and it’s supposed to be a big one.’ My mo
ther hadn’t heard about it and asked when it was coming. ‘In two weeks,’ said the priest. ‘I believe it’s going to be put up on the green beside Larry Weir’s pub. They’re bringing with them lions and tigers and elephants.’
‘My God,’ said my mother.
‘My God, indeed,’ said Father Cronin. ‘It should be a sensational exhibition, and it might be good for the town.’
‘How did you hear about it?’ my mother asked.
‘We were sent a letter, to the senior brother at the school, asking permission for the circus to be set up across the street from the reformatory. So we all decided it would be good for everyone to see the animals, sort of educational.’
When my mother came home she couldn’t wait to tell us. My sisters were excited and asked about the elephants and lions and would they be dangerous. I had never heard of a circus before and so in school I asked Seamus Carr about what to expect. Seamus seemed to know more about it than any of us. He said it was a sort of travelling zoo and that he heard about a huge snake that could squeeze a man to death, and a woman that walked on a wire that was way up in the air! I didn’t know whether to believe Seamus or not, so I asked ‘Gandhi’ Cuskelly and Willy Smith if they knew anything about it. Both of them knew about the high-wire woman but argued about the size of the elephant. Another sensitive issue was which end of the elephant was which. Was it the end with the long thick tail or the end with the short little tail that the elephant used for eating? None of us had ever seen an elephant eating and so we didn’t know which was what. Our parents laughed at us and said we’d have to wait until the circus came before we’d learn the answer.
A week before its arrival I noticed some posters in shop windows and on the walls of Daingean bridge. Written in bright red lettering was ‘DUFFY’S CIRCUS – THREE NIGHTS ONLY WITH TWO MATINÉES’. In school Willy Smith, Seamus Carr, Gandhi and I continued our little debates about what to expect from the circus – it was now a few days before its arrival. My three friends were armed with more information and were competing with each other as to who knew more about the animals. At lunch break Gandhi began talking about some sort of a striped horse that his sister told him about. ‘There’s no such thing as a striped horse,’ Willy Smith said.
‘There is!’ Gandhi replied, and tried to say its name, but he stuttered a little when he started the word. ‘Zee, zee, zee, zee,’ came sizzling through his tightly closed front row of small teeth. ‘Zeb, zeb, zeb.’
Seamus Carr helped him. ‘I know what it is,’ he yelled.
‘What?’ said Willy.
Carr was feeling confident. ‘It’s a fuckin’ zebra,’ he shouted.
Jimmy Quinn had now joined us. ‘What is that?’ he asked.
‘A striped horse,’ said Carr. ‘I saw one in a cannibal picture.’
‘Ha, ha, ha,’ Quinn laughed.
I had never heard of a zebra so I said nothing. Willy Smith silenced the others when he said he’d ask the teacher what a zebra was. ‘I dare you,’ said Jimmy. Willy was certain he would and told Quinn he’d ask Mr O’Connell ‘right after lunch’. Gandhi had remained silent throughout the discussion but was red in the face with excitement.
As soon as we were back in the classroom Willy stood up and waved his hand. Mr O’Connell was correcting essays when he noticed Willy. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said in his County Clare accent, ‘what is it, Willy?’
‘Sir,’ said Willy, ‘what is a zabra?’
Mr O’Connell couldn’t believe what he heard. ‘A what?’ he said. A small look of panic came across Willy’s face. Mr O’Connell recovered and said, ‘Willy, are you sure you have the right name of whatever it is?’
‘It’s a zabra sir, a striped horse,’ Willy began again.
Mr O’Connell started to smile. ‘Aha!’ he said. ‘You may now sit down, Willy. I think I know what you’re asking.’ Then he said, ‘It’s a zebra, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Willy.
‘And you want to know what it is, right?’ said Mr O’Connell.
‘Yes, sir,’ an impatient Seamus Carr chimed in.
‘Oh,’ said Mr O’Connell, ‘so you want to know about the zebra. Maybe you all want to know about the animal with the stripes.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the whole class shouted as one. ‘So,’ said Mr O’Connell, ‘the said zebra is from here,’ as he pointed his ruler at a map of Africa that hung on the wall. ‘It’s not exactly a horse, although it is almost like one. And of course its whole body is covered with stripes.’
Someone behind me had another question. It was Paddy Mooney and he wanted to know why the zebra was striped. Mr O’Connell said it was to confuse the lions and tigers who hunted the zebra herd, and when all the zebras ran together the lions and tigers couldn’t pick one out when hunting for food because they all looked as one. He said that the sight of all the zebras together gave the lions headaches and the tigers became dizzy, sometimes losing their balance and falling to the ground. We all laughed at how Mr O’Connell described these unusual animals and after school we had a quick get-together to talk about what he’d said.
Gandhi, however, wasn’t satisfied. ‘How could a zee, zea, zebra not be a horse and be almost like one at the same time?’ he asked. This was a fair question. We all looked at each other hoping for an answer.
When the circus came we were thrilled to see its long cavalcade drive into the town. Curious spectators and pupils from our school gathered to see how the ‘Big Top’ was assembled on the green. The parade had passed by our house on its way to Daingean with a dozen or so caravans rolling along the road carrying animals and a wide range of equipment. My mother asked my father if he’d like to see it but he wasn’t interested. So, on Saturday afternoon my mother, my sister Moira and I walked the mile into Daingean to see the matinée performance scheduled for three o’clock. When we arrived we were twenty minutes early but inside the big tent a sizeable crowd was already seated. We were lucky to find three seats near the front, because lots of people preferred seats among the rows that weren’t too near the ring. The prospect of lions or other animals in the tent dampened the courage of parents with small children. But my mother wasn’t unduly concerned and was looking forward to it all. Moira and I didn’t know what to expect and sat beside her in a quiet mood of expectation. Our mother gave us each a sweet and while we waited, a brass band began playing music. As it continued, a green curtain was pulled back to reveal a small bandstand with musicians wearing blue uniforms. They were playing bugles, trumpets and saxophones and I noticed a small drummer who was hopping on his seat in rhythm with the music. Each musician had a small beard growing on the top of his chin and long, dark sideburns. When they increased the tempo of the music the lights went out, except for where a man with a tall hat came to the centre of a ring that was laid out in front of us. He was wearing a long red coat and had a whip in his right hand. A clown came running from behind, pushed the man in the red coat to the ground and then disappeared.
The music returned to a very slow pace and two huge elephants came into view, with a young lady leading them to the centre of the ring. My impression of the elephants was one of amazement, although I thought them extremely lazy because they moved so slowly. The girl had them climb onto small round wooden platforms that gave them little room to manoeuvre. Then with the music reaching a crescendo each elephant stood on one leg and all of us clapped loudly in appreciation of the acrobatic efforts of the massive beasts. Next two clowns ran into the ring carrying a long, narrow board and placed it halfway over a round barrel. A girl sat on one end and one of the elephants put his foot down on the other end. The girl was propelled upward, caught a trapeze that was hanging overhead and began swinging back and forth, higher and higher, until she landed on a very high platform above all our heads. She stood for a moment, then reached for a long pole and slowly walked forward onto a wire that was held tightly, stretching across to another platform. When she was h
alfway to the second platform the crowd in the tent fell totally silent and my mother, holding my hand, began to squeeze it. The girl finally made it to the other side and we could hear a loud sigh of relief from the crowd as everyone began to breathe again.
This daring girl was joined by two other girls who swung back and forth on trapezes before each one let go and caught another trapeze before swinging their way to an opposite platform. It was very tense stuff, with oohs and aahs from the spectators. It ended with a loud sigh of relief from the audience when the girls finished their performance. Then came the zebras, two of them, and also four horses, all trotting in a circle around the ring with two clowns jumping from one animal to another as the brass band played German polka music. Then came the big snake. It must have been twenty feet long. It had a very thick midsection, and a bearded man, stripped to his waist, played and toyed with it. (It was years afterwards that I figured out that it must have been a boa constrictor from the Amazon, in South America.) At one point the snake wrapped itself around the man. It was a dangerous stunt that they must have practised many times before. Thankfully there were no mishaps and the man gave the big snake a handful of something to eat when they finished their performance.
Next two cages were pushed into the ring, one cage with two yellow-and-black-striped tigers and the other with two brown lions with heavy black manes. All four animals roared in unison and appeared very wary. A lion-tamer ran into the centre of the ring and bowed. Then he opened the door of one cage and lured the tigers out. Cracking his whip, he directed them to sit on two prepared platforms, while a young girl placed a large hoop onto iron holders that were stuck in the ground. The hoop was a target for the tigers to jump through. But before that a clown came running into the ring with a lighted torch. He held the torch to the edge of the hoop and a flame lit it, creating a ring of fire. The tamer’s whip cracked and cracked again as we all watched in awe. The first tiger leaped towards the burning circle. It was a clean jump that carried him right through the flaming ring. The man with the whip cracked it again and the second tiger leaped towards the flaming hoop. His leap was as masterful and accurate as the first. A huge applause came from everyone and I could hear my mother say ‘Good God almighty’ as we watched the tigers being escorted back to their cages.
The Road from Castlebarnagh Page 20