by Joe O'Toole
As soon as we saw the sign, ‘Welcome to Gort from Glynn’s Hotel’, Myko would pull in for a cup of tea and a sandwich, and even though we had completed only about two-thirds of our journey, we were already in County Galway. We had bridged between the two cultures. It was pretty grown-up to be having food in a hotel on my own with Daddy. He talked away.
‘Ruairí O’Connor’s mammy is from here. A place called Peterswell.’
I knew Ruairí’s cousins because they came to Dingle sometimes. But their journey was a lot shorter than ours!
At that time there was a swing bridge at Béal a’ Daingean, which was the entrance to Lettermore Island and only two miles from Granny’s house. As I grew older, the symmetry of leaving An Daingean (Dingle) only to arrive, after travelling all those miles, at Béal a’ Daingean (The Mouth of the Fort), struck me. The swing bridge opened many times daily to let the red-sailed Hookers pass up to Camus. For road-users it was the access to what was then the island of Lettermore. For me as a child, it was the high point of the two-hundred-mile journey from Dingle to my Granny’s. The very thought of the bridge swinging open and the road moving was magical, and the tantalising expectation of seeing it in operation carried me expectantly for many a long mile.
My cousin, John Michael Jack, owned the pub on the island side of the bridge. It was notable for the fact that, as far as I know, it was the only Fine Gael voting house among my Galway O’Toole cousins at that time. The O’Tooles had always been staunchly Fianna Fáil. Many years later I attempted to find out why they had changed their colours. The story as told to me was no doubt less than objective; certainly from a very young age the concept of political ‘spin’ impacted on us and it must also have informed the telling of this tale. It would appear that in the 1930s the then FF household lobbied on behalf of a family connection for appointment as some local functionary. As I recall, it was something to do with a local cemetery. It became a political matter. Dev’s new government was in power and expected to deliver. It did not. The ‘wrong’ person got the job and since then the house had been very openly Fine Gael. But prior to the ‘conversion’, one of the sons of the house had married a woman in Louisburg, County Mayo, bringing with him his FF beliefs. It is ironic that his son, Martin J O’Toole, became a Fianna Fáil Senator and TD. He was a colleague of mine in Leinster House, where it was that I got to know him well. We calculated that we were third cousins. In our family that is close.
Those times holidaying with my Myko among his own people were wonderful. Being the oldest of the new generation of O’Tooles in Lettermore and older than any of the cousins – except for Max, but he was in Dublin – was a great passport and it made me the centre of attraction everywhere I went.
My father’s brother, Uncle Jack, was a doctor. He had surgeries from Lettermore to Leenane and I got to know a huge slice of Connemara as we travelled to his appointments. Because of the size of the area he was constantly on the road. The car was packed with equipment, medicines and documentation. He acted as dentist as well as doctor so he also had to have all the necessary tackle for that part of the work, too.
Jack was one fast and impatient driver and the first person I ever heard shout, ‘Fág an bealach!’ (Get out of the road), at farmers who might be driving cattle or sheep along the road when he was rushing to reach a surgery. On the other hand, it was easy to see that his patients respected and trusted him.
He expected his advice to be followed to the letter, and even though he would listen to a sick patient for as long as it took, and would take plenty of time on examination and diagnosing, he had no tolerance at all for any questioning of his diagnosis or prescription.
‘Will you do what I tell you, agus ná bí ag cur mo chuid ama amú.’
His impatience was his driving force; he arrived and left everywhere like thunder and lightning. No matter how great the number waiting in the surgery, he would put the head down and get on with it. People with dental problems were lined up on one side, medical cases on the other. At that time the main dental work was extractions and Uncle Jack went at it with a will. As Peter, my first cousin, said, ‘Christ! On a good day he’d fill a small galvanised bucket with teeth!’ At a half-crown (2/6d) a time, it was a profitable sideline.
Jack was an entertainment. He would fly off the handle and argue passionately, with eyes flashing, but he never took offence for longer than it took him to cool down. And he was generous to a fault, no matter what the company. Even though they were lifelong close friends as well as brothers, there could never be two more different twins than Jack and Myko. When people gave out about Jack, Myko would advise them: ‘Sure, don’t mind him at all. Aren’t you worse to be taking any notice of him?’
Uncle Jack was driven in every aspect of his life. In particular, this applied to politics. He was irreversibly Fianna Fáil and would brook no opposition. This was a real culture shock for me coming from the unwavering and unchallenged Fine Gael Faith of the Dingle Moriartys. Jack would dismiss James Dillon, the leader of Fine Gael, with the same contempt that Seán the Grove reserved for de Valera.
I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut, but it did create some internal turmoil for me in that it was the first time I came face to face with the possibility that maybe the certainties of life were not that certain really.
My father’s eldest brother was Patrick, known as Patsy. He worked in the head office of Galway County Council. His wife, Darlie, was a primary schoolteacher from Sligo who taught in Lettermore. They later moved into Galway City and lived in Renmore. Patsy was a soft and gentle person, with a permanent twinkle in his eye and always the beginning of a smile on his face. Later in life he suffered a stroke, which left him with a slight drag on one side of his face. Even though he recovered, he died a relatively young man.
On our summer visits, Patsy, Jack and Myko would take me swimming with them in the evening time in Trawbawn, near Teeranea, across Lettermore bridge. Those were great outings and left me with a lasting love of the sea, which to this day is my main leisure-time focus.
Although Granny was still very much around at the time of my visits, the family home in Lettermore was really run by Aunty Lena. Married to Plunkett, the youngest of the O’Toole brothers, she was a most tolerant and quietly-spoken woman, probably a great asset when you are sharing a house with your mother-in-law. Lena was like a second mother to me in Lettermore; she addressed everyone as ‘a ghrá,’ (love), and nothing was ever too much trouble. She and Uncle Plunkett ran a general store, which meant that he was rarely able to accompany his brothers and myself on our swimming trips. The time constraints imposed by managing a shop was something that I well understood from home.
Plunkett was the O’Toole most like my Dingle relatives. His general store had to be diverse enough to meet the needs of an extensive but remote local population. It was no wonder that in later years he became very friendly with my uncle Foxy John; they operated similar types of business. It was always interesting to work with Plunkett, he was forever explaining the business and the customers to me. He added to the skills I had already learned from Foxy John, teaching me about petrol-serving and bacon-cutting. He was a busy person, forever impatient to get things done. He tended to have a somewhat expectant frown on his face and usually tried to look cross but had a great sense of humour, always ready to laugh and stretch the dimple on his face.
And it was just as well that he did. At some family gathering or other Foxy from Dingle and Plunkett from Lettermore got together. They had a lot to talk about. In the way things happen, it turned out that Plunkett was selling a hearse and Foxy was looking for a good second-hand estate car. Another couple of drinks, and in the most natural way in the world the deal was done; sight unseen, Foxy agreed to buy Plunkett’s vehicle. Plunkett promised to take out the fiddly bits of chrome and the high floor so that it would not look too much like a vehicle employed in the transport of the dearly departed when Foxy was using it for furniture deliveries. Foxy didn’t mind a slight resemblance; he
would put the word out that things were so bad that he was reduced to buying a second-hand hearse to keep the show on the road. The two lads shook hands on the deal and agreed to meet in Limerick the following Sunday to do the switch. Foxy would have the cash and Plunkett the hearse and the paperwork.
Foxy got a lift to Limerick and brought Florrie with him to drive home. Plunkett and Peter drove down in the recently renovated hearse, with the intention of getting a bus back to Galway City. From there, Uncle Jack would drop them home to Lettermore. They rendez-voused in Cruise’s Hotel, as arranged. Foxy went out with Plunkett to look at the estate. He was more than pleased with it. They had a drink to celebrate.
‘I suppose I’d better pay you before we go.’
‘That’d be a good idea, Foxy. Here, I’ll do out a receipt.’
‘Oh Christ, there’s no need at all for a receipt,’ says Foxy, pulling a large, loose wad of single pound notes out of his pocket. ‘Here, Florrie, will you bring over the rest of that money for Plunkett.’
Florrie walks across the lobby with two very heavy-looking, bright-coloured cotton bank bags full of silver coin.
‘It’s all there, Plunkett. Betty counted it out just before we left. You won’t be a penny short.’
‘Jesus, Foxy, can’t you give me a cheque?’
‘What cheque, boy? Do you want everyone to know our business? I’m gathering that money for you all week. Take it now and nobody is a blind bit the wiser. Just between ourselves.’
‘Well, fuck you, Foxy. I should have known you’d have some trick.’
What could Plunkett do except stuff the notes in his pockets, gather up the two heavy bags of coin and head off to the bus station, looking more like a bank robber than a businessman. He spent the journey trying to mind and hide the bags from greedy hands and prying eyes. His most embarrassing journey.
UPSTAIRS IN THE MONASTERY
‘So, who can tell me which State separates the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean?’
‘Well done. Florida is correct.’
‘Do you know, young O’Toole, the name of the famous holiday resort in Florida for wealthy people?’
‘Is it Palm Beach, sir?’
‘It is indeed. And some day you’ll be there yourself, lying under the hot sun, eating oranges. And guess who’ll be peeling those oranges?’
This last bit was said with a smile, a wink and a wagging finger, and we’d all laugh without knowing the reason why, or what it meant. I think it might have been a line from a film. It didn’t matter. Tomo was in high good humour and, as usual, making the geography class live. He was a great man for the memorable phrase.
‘The Italian lakes – Como and Garda – beautiful. Now, remember, that’s the place for the honeymoon.’
‘Cruising on the Rhine through the Black Forest; there’s romance.’
We were only twelve years old and not long in secondary school. Romance and honeymoons were not really part of our argot, but we lived the dream and enjoyed it. Tomo was a great teacher and I always enjoyed his classes, but then I found secondary school much more interesting, principally because they were a far livelier bunch of teachers.
In Dingle the primary school was called ‘The Monastery’ and the secondary school was ‘Upstairs in the Monastery’. The doors were right beside each other off the schoolyard. It was a great day when we took the door leading upstairs. As we climbed up, we could see our erstwhile primary school friends filing into their classrooms. We felt so superior to them now.
One of the big changes about secondary school was that we acquired new classmates. After coalescing into little groups of pals throughout primary, we now had to expand our horizons as we were joined by lads from all over the peninsula who would have attended primary in their own local villages, but had to come to Dingle for further education. Kennedy’s bus collected pupils from east of Dingle, from Annascaul and Lispole. Brick’s bus did the run from the west. In the beginning there were tensions. We envied the newcomers being brought to school by bus while we had to walk. They were more than a little apprehensive about settling into a strange school among the ‘townies’. The lads from the west were all native Irish speakers, which added a further dimension to the new situation. For the first week or so we stayed in our established cliques, but the Brothers made sure that we shared desks with new classmates, and within a very short time the differences evaporated and friendships developed; friendships which in many cases still flourish.
After eight years of nuns and Brothers, we finally had some lay teachers. Two of them, Tomo and Ritchie, saw us through the whole period, while others came and went, including, for a short time, a lovely man called Seán Ó Mathúna. Ó Mathúna widened our horizons. He was humorous and a great lover of language and literature, and during the few years he was with us he certainly communicated that love to me. It was he who introduced us to what was later called ‘creative writing’. He was very much a free spirit and probably did not relate to the strict regime enforced by the Brothers. Whatever the reason, he left. It was no surprise to me to find that years after he left Dingle his work was published both in English and as Gaeilge.
All our teaching was done through Irish. I can never remember speaking English to a teacher outside of the English class, and all our written work was as Gaeilge. It created some problems because, in the main, it was impossible to get up-to-date textbooks as Gaeilge. Consequently, we found ourselves, for instance, studying Latin through Irish from an English text! Similarly with geography, history and physics. Usually the teacher would give us a list of the core terminology in Irish and off we went. It was a very broad education. We travelled the world in those classrooms. The world was within our grasp and we saw it all courtesy of our imaginations, driven by creative teaching. It was a living, organic education.
Compared to the humdrum existence we had at primary school, some unbelievable things happened in secondary. Corporal punishment was part of the regime, but it was rarely overused. And the teachers were now dealing with bigger lads. We were hardly a month in the school before there was this amazing incident where one of the students took a swing at Ritchie. The guy involved was not a delinquent, but just reacted when he believed Ritchie went too far. For us it was a bridge beyond our imagination. We just could not believe it.
The school was quite progressive and argument was very much valued and encouraged; we were always allowed put forward our viewpoints. Debating was part and parcel of school activities. It suited me and I loved the involvement. I made it to first sub. on the school’s Irish-language debating team. In the Gael Linn competition, we were drawn against Coláiste Íde, a local Irish-speaking girls’ secondary boarding school, and because someone dropped out, I was selected. I was delighted to be on the team, and delighted to get inside the hallowed cloisters of the legendary college. We had no doubt but that Coláiste Íde would be favourites. They took this competition very seriously and would be very well prepared. But our captain, Breandán MacGearailt, was a mighty debater, so we were not without hope. In high spirits, we headed off in Stevie Kelleher’s minibus back to Burnham and Coláiste Íde. In fairness, bhí fáilte mór romhainn when we arrived. The realpolitik was brought home to us very quickly however, when it emerged that the impartial neutral adjudicator, a well-known Cork Gaeilgeoir, had been wined and dined all afternoon by the nuns of the college. No point in crying foul. On with the show.
The motion before the house was: Gur féidir le náisiúin bheaga tionchar a bheith acu ar chúrsaí domhanda (That small nations could have an influence in world affairs). We were to oppose the motion. In the main, the audience was composed of pupils of Coláiste Íde; my sister, Mary Sabrina, was one of them. We had no one to cheer us on. Every girl got a thunderous round of applause, while we got a polite ripple. Still, we did fine, we were pleased with ourselves and Breandán played a blinder. Then came the moment of truth. The adjudicator stood up to give his assessment. He told us that we had been brilliant; we had strong points of argument
and we had presented them well and convincingly. However, surprise, surprise, we had been edged out of victory on the night by the girls.
All we could do was console ourselves with our belief that it was all a fix. We got a schoolboyish moment of vindication too when Breandán, in graciously accepting defeat and congratulating our opponents, managed very subtly to upstage the adjudicator by pointedly repeating and agreeing with his final sentence, except that Brendán repeated it in the correct, dative case. ‘Bhaineamar an-taithneamh as an ndíospóiracht comh maith,’ said Breandán, stressing the ‘n’ before ‘díospóiracht’, which had been omitted by the adjudicator. We loved that, even though nobody but us noticed. Still, it’s tough being sixteen and defeated by girls in front of an audience of girls.
There was nothing for it after that but to head straight home. Breandán was furious, and with some justification. He had been superb, and should definitely have been awarded the prize for best individual. Still, it didn’t hold him back and he went on to make a name for himself: he became Chair of Kerry Local Authority and published a number of books as Gaeilge.
It did us a lot of good on the way back to hear Ritchie offer a stream of abuse about the biased adjudicating and say that in his opinion we were clearly the best. That in itself was a moral victory, and would be some compensation in the discussion in school the following day. Ritchie was the teacher in charge of the debating team and he did not like being beaten either. That was the thing about him; he got passionately involved with the business at hand.