Looking Under Stones

by Joe O'Toole

  The big day came when the buyer arrived and we started packing the wool into sacking that was then stitched up into huge, slightly rounded cubes, before loading onto his truck. Need I say that we employed every trick we had learned from the sheep-farmers to put loose stuff in with the fleece and to conceal any small tears. It was an object lesson in pulling the wool over people’s eyes, and no doubt the origin of the saying.

  Working with Foxy was non-stop learning; there was some new lesson every day, either from him or from Paddy Sullivan or Florrie Donoghue. He was an entrepreneur long before the word became familiar to us; he was progressive and forward-thinking, always looking for opportunities and ready to try things. He never stopped testing the market, constantly on the lookout for a gap that he could profitably fill. He installed a welding plant when they were extremely rare in our part of the world. In no time that business was paying for itself through the production and sale of field and garden gates. Paddy Sullivan, from up beside the Holy Stone, was the welder, and he was a genius at his craft. You would hear Paddy before you saw him, because he always sang or whistled while he worked.

  ‘Come, Mister Tallyman, tally me banana. Daylight come an’ me wanna go home.’

  He was perpetually good-humoured.

  ‘Do you know the happiest time of the week?’ he asked me once, and then provided the answer. ‘Five minutes to six on a Saturday evening.’ This was the era of the six-day working week.

  Paddy was dapper and outgoing, and his Saturday night ritual was sacred. A pint or two after work, home for a bite to eat, a quick bath and then out again for the night. Eventually he emigrated to the US, where he married a West Kerry woman. But some years later he returned and set up his own welding business.

  Welding was the one thing I was not allowed do. It was considered too dangerous, and I firmly believed that if you looked directly at the welding flash you could permanently damage your eyes. But it was a great spectacle to watch from a safe distance. The drone of the welder, the crack of the contact and the hot blue flash created a real son et lumière, which filled the yard on a dark winter’s evening.

  As people became wealthier and grew tired of the humble bicycle, Foxy negotiated the agency for NSU Quickly mopeds and small motorcycles. They became very popular and were a significant source of income. Conversely, as the tourism industry began to develop, Foxy’s became the first bike-hire depot in West Kerry. His slogan, ‘Foxy John’s for the best Raleigh hire bikes in Dingle’, might not win any marketing awards for creativity, but it seemed to make its impact, one way or another, on every tourist who came into the town. Right through the season, from Whit to September, there was a constant demand for his bikes. He loved making money and was good at it, but I got the impression that starting new lines of business and moving into new services was what really gave him the mighty buzz.

  When I was in my early teens, Foxy showed me his account books. It was a defining experience. The huge ledgers with their heavy leather covers and the thumbnail indented letters of the alphabet were neatly kept, with debtors listed in alphabetical order. There was line after line of handwritten information: the year, the month, the date, the item and the price: 1957, June 22, to one pair shears £1 7s 6d.

  What left a lifelong impression on me was the amount of money outstanding to Uncle John. Here was a man who had the reputation of being the hardest-nosed businessman in the town and his books showed that he was owed money by half the hopeless cases in Dingle. Truly thousands of pounds of debt, much of it dating back many years. Even to my inexperienced eyes, a significant portion of it was undoubtedly irrecoverable. I asked him for an explanation.

  ‘They’re good and honest people,’ he said. ‘None of them are crooks. Some of them have fallen on bad times. They’ll pay when they can. Some might never be able to pay, but sure that won’t break us!’

  A few would come in after the fair day. ‘I’ll pay a few pounds off what I owe you, John.’ They would, but they would never quite catch up.

  ‘Sometimes I charge a bit extra to people who can afford it,’ he said. This was true. All of the stock in Foxy’s shop was marked in a code of his own devising, rather than with a regular price tag. The code gave him two pieces of information: the amount he had paid the wholesaler for the item and the price he required to make a profit. The fact that no customer knew or understood the code gave him great leeway. The wealthier you were – and he would know – the more you were charged. Some customers were hagglers who always insisted on getting something off the asking price. No problem. Foxy would simply add on a few pence or shillings to the asking price in order to be able to do the decent thing and satisfy the customer by seeming to reduce the price, while at the same time maintaining his profit margin.

  Less well-off people tended to do best. It was a sort of benevolent, patronising capitalism and it seemed to work. He might occasionally be cornered and challenged about a price, but he was never caught. He thrived on these situations. A knowing nod or wink, plus the comment, ‘Well, to tell you nothing but the truth and between ourselves, the one you got was better quality. There were a few seconds left, if you know what I mean.’ Or, ‘To tell you the truth, the new ones just arrived in this morning, Jack got the last one at the old price.’

  While he would argue over a halfpenny in the shop, Foxy John was a great man to spend when he went out. He loved to travel and over the years availed of any opportunity to go abroad. Jersey, Rome and Greece were some of his destinations. A few bets on the horses appealed to him, but he would have to face a bit of bantering from his wife, Hanora, when he lost money through gambling.

  ‘He thinks he’s smarter than the bookies, you know. Sure they are only laughing at him, my eejit, they love to see him coming,’ she would say.

  When Foxy wanted to place a bet he would wait until Hanora was out the back with a customer before ringing the bookie in Tralee. Sometimes he would forget to check the post and if the bill arrived from the bookie he would have to endure further good-natured scolding from his wife. On the plus side, Hanora was a tremendous cook and served up the most spectacular of foods. Bacon and scallops was a Hanora breakfast special. Foxy loved his food, and cute hoor that he was, always praised her cooking to the skies so that she would be continually encouraged to surpass herself. Hanora was no fool though, she knew well what was going on, but she humoured him.

  One day, when he had gone racing to Killarney and I was in charge of the business, he arranged for me to be taught a little lesson. I was behind the hardware counter when Mikeen Long from Ventry came in to buy some rope. Mikeen was a character and I knew he should be watched carefully. He started measuring out the rope from its coil and counting it by the yard along the brass measure screwed along the edge of the counter. He was giving plenty of slack between each measure and was delighted with himself.

  ‘Nine yards of reins,’ he said. ‘At two shillings a yard, that’s eighteen shillings altogether.’

  Nice try, Micheál, I was thinking to myself.

  ‘No, we sell it by the weight, not the length,’ says I, throwing it on the scales and fierce proud of myself at the thought that I was going to best him. ‘That’ll be one pound three and six.’

  ‘Oh no, boyeen, Foxy always sells it to me by the yard. It’s only to the fishermen he sells it by the weight. Look here, I have a receipt from the last time.’

  The crowd in the shop was beginning to enjoy the duel. The lads across at the bar counter were quietly taking it all in. Embarrassed and bamboozled, I conceded. Mikeen paid me immediately. I knew by the glint in his eye that he had taken me. O’Toole was the loser and there was no chance of keeping it quiet. Foxy had it before he arrived into the kitchen.

  ‘And I thought you were too clever to be caught by the likes of Mikeen Long. You’ve a bit to learn yet.’

  He never let me forget that lost 5/6d and would wonder aloud if the youngsters of the day would ever survive in the world. It was the kind of mistake that I would not make too often
. But the great Foxy himself was put in his place by a most delightful occurrence the following year. By that time the bike-hire business was booming. A great tourist attraction was to hire a bike for a day’s cycle around Slea Head, through Ventry and Dunquin. On the way, the cyclists would pass Mikeen Long’s pony-hire business at Ventry strand. Some of them stopped off there for a few hours and took a pony for a ride along mile after mile of the silver semicircle of sandy beach.

  Mikeen felt it was a bit of a sin to have Foxy’s bikes lying around idle while the tourists were out on the ponies, so he took to hiring them out for the couple of hours. He made a nice few shillings for many months before Foxy heard about it. At least it gave me ammunition against him. It gave me great pleasure to hit Foxy with one of Seán the Grove’s lines when two hard men clashed: ‘Diamond cut diamond and he’s a rough diamond.’

  As for Mikeen, he was not the least bit embarrassed and used to boast to Foxy about his ingenuity.

  Tapping a barrel of Guinness was a challenging undertaking. The single, solid smack of the mallet, hammering home the silver tap through the bung of the wooden Guinness keg, reflected both expertise and experience. It was an art in itself, as I knew to my cost from my early botched efforts behind the bar of Foxy John’s pub. Strike too hard and the tap went in so far that it did not operate; strike too gently and porter spouted all over the shop with the pressure of a fire hose. The task was not made any easier by the fact that there was always an eagerly expectant audience when the young fellow was in sole charge of the shop.

  In those days, a drinker kept the same glass all evening, handing it back to be refilled as required. Oh, the terror of being handed an almost empty pint glass and being asked to put a ‘meejum’ (medium) into it!! The medium was a measure half way between a half pint and a pint. It has not stood the test of time, though in Dingle it is still used as a colloquialism for a half pint. Drinking mediums was not what ‘real men’ did in those days. In fact it would very quickly lead to a nickname such as ‘Matt the meejum’ if one got the reputation of drinking them.

  So, on the odd occasion when hardened drinkers wanted to drink a meejum, they would hand me their almost empty glass, fully expecting to receive a full pint in return, even though they were only asking for and paying for the equivalent of about three-quarters of a pint.

  It was psychological warfare as the glaring, challenging eyes of the customer watched the glass being filled, willing it to the brim. If the glass was not filled to the brim, you were the worst in the world with the customer. If it was filled, you were sure of a lecture from Foxy about being fooled and giving away the profit. Eventually, the compromise would be a not quite full glass of Guinness, with a much larger than usual collar or head on it. An té nach bhfuil láidir ní folair dó bheith glic.

  We grew up under the influence of these characters, the ‘rough diamonds’ of Seán the Grove’s description. Every street and village had them. Crystallised into reality by the cultural weight of countless generations and cut and shaped by all the facets of the daily grind. They made us what we were.

  Foxy’s legacy remains. Work hard but leave space for enjoyment. Be as hard as nails doing business but be generous with people. Have pride in yourself but don’t be proud. Make money but don’t be tight. Like Foxy, the traders and business people in Dingle at that time were motivated as much by the challenge of survival and success as they were by the desire to make a profit. But they also understood the importance of social capital and were prepared to give something back to the community. So they would give time to the Race Committee or the Regatta and other voluntary groups. It is a tradition that is dying fast nowadays.

  Foxy John prided himself on having friends among both rich and poor and never differentiating between them. Once I heard him say, ‘Beidh gach prionnsa agus bacach I gCorca Dhuibhne ag mo shochraid.’ (Every prince and beggar in West Kerry will be at my funeral.) And they were.

  On the day of his funeral, six of us nephews – three on each side, in pairs – shouldered the coffin into Milltown cemetery, about a mile west of Dingle. We were muttering to each other the usual banalities of pall-bearers: ‘Just because I’m the tallest I shouldn’t have to carry most of the weight.’ ‘If your shoulder is too low for the coffin take some of the weight with the heel of your hand.’ ‘Jesus, Foxy! there’s still some weight in you, boy.’ ‘Link your partner around his waist rather than his shoulder or the coffin will leave your shoulder blade black and blue.’

  Ahead of us I could see one person standing alone at the open grave. As we got nearer I recognised the silver hair and slouched figure of that colossus of Kerry football, Paddy Bawn Brosnan. The Bawn used to visit Foxy every single day. He usually brought a bit of the very best fish – crab claws, scallops or lobster. They talked about everything, especially horses and fishing, but only very rarely about football. When Paddy was having a drink it was always in the kitchen with the family, never in the bar. They were the best of friends. At the graveside Paddy was in tears. We shared a loss. A chapter of my life had ended.

  SUMMERS IN GALWAY

  Because we lived in Dingle among the Moriartys, it was only natural that the Moriarty side of the family had a greater influence on our rearing than the O’Toole side. Myko, however, took pains to ensure that the Galway roots and relations were an integral part of my life.

  During my growing years I spent weeks every summer in my Granny’s in Lettermore. It was something to look forward to with pleasure and excitement. Heading off with Myko, just the two of us in the Ford Anglia, with me in the front seat, was a great adventure. Two hundred miles was a long journey. Early to bed the night before; up before seven o’clock the following morning; a big bowl of steaming porridge waiting for me on the table, cases in the car. Myko would be looking at the watch.

  ‘We should be on the road before the half-seven bus.’

  Teresa saw us off with her customary caution: ‘Drive carefully, Myko.’

  ‘We’ll cut the corners and skim the hedges keeping into our own side.’

  Myko always gave that advice to anyone taking the Dingle–Tralee road.

  Then it was off out the main road while most of Dingle was asleep, except for Benny Malone waiting for the bus, or Babs Flaherty heading from Cooleen down towards the pier.

  ‘I hope you filled yourself up, because there will be no stopping now until we reach Galway,’ Myko would say. But there were two Galways. There was Lettermore and then there was the rest of the county.

  In through Tralee we progressed, with a beep of the horn and a wave to any garda leaving the station or on the beat, and a running commentary about any of the citizens Myko might see.

  ‘There’s Joe Mulchinoch on his way in to open up McCowen’s shop.’

  Usually there was a quick stop at Pádraig Kennelly’s in Ashe Street to drop in some returned Confirmation photographs. Pádraig was a professional photographer. In fact, his qualification was as a pharmacist, but he got bored with that and started into photography with great success. As well as Press shots, he also did the bread-and-butter work of Confirmations and dress dances and First Communions. He had tremendous energy and he travelled the county. When Mossie Moore, the murder victim whose story was the basis for The Field, was missing and the gardaí were looking for a photograph to display, it was Pádraig who found one in his archives. It finished up being enlarged on every shop window in North Kerry.

  When he covered Dingle functions, he needed a place to have the photographic proofs displayed for those who wished to purchase them. That was how Teresa came to act as agent for Pádraig in Dingle. She would display the photos in the shop and take orders and handle the money. There were always arguments about whether the photo was the one ordered and people were forever ordering without paying and then not collecting. It was real trouble.

  But Pádraig, he was a real character. Always with a new idea or a new project.

  ‘Pádraig is talking about starting a newspaper,’ says Myko with a chuckl
e. ‘Another one of his notions.’

  But Myko might have held his chuckle because some years later Pádraig did eventually publish a thriving and successful local newspaper that went from strength to strength, and today Kerry’s Eye is an established part of the week in Kerry.

  Then we were on the Listowel Road. We reached Tarbert and the mighty Shannon. Myko would point: ‘That’s County Clare across there.’ Then I would listen in amazement as he told me about the flying boats – planes that could actually take off and land on water – which operated out of the harbour in Foynes because it was the most westerly location and the planes could start the Atlantic crossing with a full fuel load from there. Later on, the new airport was built on the Clare side at Rineanna (now Shannon). Then he would add the Hollywood connection: that Maureen O’Hara’s husband was one of the chief pilots who landed flying boats at Foynes. Sure I knew very little about Maureen O’Hara except that she was a film star. And for good measure he would draw down the last scene in the film Casablanca. While Humphrey Bogart held the gun on the corrupt police chief, his true love, Ingrid Bergman, escaped on the last plane out. On her way to the USA.

  ‘Do you know,’ he would say, ‘that plane probably refuelled at Rineanna Airport!’

  Great story, Myko, but I wonder was the airport even built at that time?

  Long before Mungret, the chimneys of the cement factory could be seen against the skyline. Did I know how cement was made, Myko would ask me, and go on to explain the process that turned lime and gypsum and other magical names into the stuff that I saw being mixed with sand and water and becoming the building blocks and walls of new houses and other buildings.

  As we drove Limerick’s long Dock Road, with its high buildings, he would remark, ‘Aunty Sarah lives in Catherine Street, just two streets up and Aunty Han used to live here in Limerick as well …’

  Crossing the Shannon always prompted the story of Patrick Sarsfield and how he surprised the English military when his intelligence discovered that the password that night was his own name, and hence the famous greeting to the unfortunate sentry as Sarsfield and Galloping Hogan launched the attack: ‘Sarsfield’s the name and Sarsfield’s the man.’ That kept us busy until Bunratty, and as we passed the road down to Rineanna Airport, Myko would try to work out the difference in the Atlantic crossing-time of an ocean liner and an aeroplane. We wouldn’t feel it to Ennis …