I focused primarily on my work in Dublin. But I was always thinking about the rest of the family back home in the island. I felt that, even though I was not the oldest of the children, I had a certain amount of responsibility since I was the first to leave the island and go to work. I felt my family should be taken care of somehow.
I would write letters home to the island a couple of times a month. So I knew how things were going back there. And the news was not very good. The population was getting older. The complaining was increasing and people were leaving.
When I left for Cahersiveen, I was the first to leave the island. Then my brother Maurice decided to go to England where there was a lot of work during the war, if you could put up with the bombing. Maurice wound up joining the British Merchant Marine and sailed around the world. He went to Canada, to America, through the Suez Canal, and even to Australia.
Then I brought my brother Paddy to Dublin. I got him into the barman’s union and found him a job. He was a good-looking, likable fellow. He also liked to sing. But he soon came to me and said, ‘Mike, I’m sorry. I am not cut out for this barman work.’ He moved to County Meath where he worked on a farm with a man named Michael Long who was originally from Ventry. I brought my sister Maureen to Dublin too. I got her a job in a bed and breakfast near Parnell Square where I knew the owner.
I got a two-week holiday in the summer and would to go back to the island to visit. I stayed in one of the new houses up the hill. I spent a lot of time with my family. But I also went snaring rabbits and hiked up to the Fort and the Crow. I went swimming at the strand, since I was now a swimmer. At night, I might go to a dance hall on the mainland.
I saw that the people on the island were getting too old to manage for themselves. I thought that the government should do something for the islanders before it was too late. As for my own family, I began to think that if I could get a head start in America, then my brothers and sisters could emigrate and move up the ladder in America themselves, every one of them.
So I started to work on a plan to emigrate from Ireland to America. If America did not work out for some reason, I could always go back to Dublin and get my union job back.
In them days, after the Second World War, America had new immigration restrictions. You had to be declared or sponsored by a close relative living in the States: a brother or a sister, an uncle or an aunt, or a cousin. They had to send you the required documentation; the ‘affidavit’, they called it. This gave you the right to enter the country. I wrote a letter to my uncle Tom Carney in Springfield and asked him if he would be my sponsor.
Mary Ward
One night in 1946, after I closed up Hughes’ for the night, I went down to Teachers’ Hall, a social club in Parnell Square to dance. A schoolteacher friend of mine, Patrick Cahillane from Comeen in West Kerry, happened to be dancing with this nice girl named Mary Ward. Patrick said to her, ‘Here’s another Kerryman for you.’ She said, ‘The place is infested with them! Well, he’s another teacher, I suppose?’ ‘No,’ said Patrick, ‘he’s doing better than a teacher. He’s a barman in the pub around the corner.’
A couple of weeks later I got a telegram from a friend of my brother Maurice, a man named Eugene O’Sullivan from England, which said: ‘Meet me at the restaurant at Powers Hotel on Kildare Street’ on a certain date. On the night our get-together was scheduled, I hopped on my bike and went over to the hotel. I asked the porter if he had a Gene O’Sullivan there. He said ‘No, but I have a Father O’Sullivan here. That may be him. He is going back to England tomorrow.’ Out came a priest. To my surprise, he was indeed my brother’s friend. ‘Come on in,’ he said, ‘I’m having my supper.’
And then the waitress came over to our table … Lo and behold, it was none other than Mary Ward. I said to her, ‘So this is where you work?’ She was very surprised to see me.
I’d say it was love at second sight.
Mary Ward and Mike Carney attend a ‘tuxedo dance’ in Dublin.
After that, we started dating. We were both about twenty-six. Mary was from Frenchpark, in County Roscommon. Shortly afterwards, I had a chance to go to a ‘tuxedo dance’ sponsored by the Allied Vintners and Grocer’s Union at the Metropole, a beautiful theatre in Dublin. I thought I’d take the Roscommon girl. She had to get a long gown and I rented a tuxedo. We looked great.
It was a terrific night out. It lasted until one o’clock in the morning. We had a group of eight or ten at the table, mostly fellas from the bar and their dates. We danced. Then we took a taxi home.
But not long after that, my brother Seán died back on the island. That was a heartbreaker.
7. The Decline and Evacuation of the Island
Seánín’s Passing
My younger brother Seán, or Seáinín, as we called him, died on 9 January 1947, at the age of just twenty-four. His death signalled the end for the island.
Seán got sick just before Christmas in 1946. There was very bad weather on the island with gale-force winds and high waves. He was sick for only a couple of weeks. I got a note in Dublin from my sister Cáit that Seán had the flu. But, in reality, he had something much more serious: meningitis.
The weather worsened and they could not get him to the mainland to see the doctor, and the doctor could not get to the island to see him. The battery-operated telephone provided by the government was not working at the time – again. It had been out for about a week.
Seán had a really bad headache. He thought his head would blow off! Cáit put a heated sack of flour on his head to try to ward off the temperature, but it did no good. He started to vomit too.
After being sick for over two weeks, Seán’s condition got worse. Then one day, Cáit found him dead in bed in our house. Since there was no priest, she whispered an Act of Contrition in his ear in case he was still alive. Then she had to tell my father. It was devastating.
A telegram was sent from the post office in Dunquin to my digs at 22 Dargle Road, in Drumcondra. It was waiting for me when I got home after a hard day’s work. It said: ‘Your brother Seán has passed away. Please come home.’
I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. It really set me back, because it happened so quickly. I had not seen it coming. I immediately took the train from Dublin to Tralee and then the bus from Tralee to Dingle. It took all day and I stayed the night in Dingle with my father’s cousin, Martin Keane, before going on to Dunquin by taxi first thing the next morning.
At the time, Maurice was in Australia. Paddy was working in Meath. My sister Maureen was working in Dublin. Liam was going to school on the mainland. Only Cáit, Martin and Tom were at home. I left Dublin so fast, I didn’t even tell Paddy and Maureen what had happened.
Seán’s body was still in our house on the island, the poor man. He could not be buried in the small graveyard on the island because it was not blessed. And there was no coffin on the island anyway. We needed to get his body to the mainland.
Three young, strong and brave islanders, Seán ‘Pats Tom’ Ó Cearna, Maidhc ‘Léan’ Ó Guithín, and Seán ‘Faeilí’ Ó Catháin, all cousins, fought the fierce ocean in a naomhóg to go and fetch a coffin from the mainland. They were the best boatman on the island at the time. The conditions were such that they could easily have drowned. Their great courage was very much appreciated by my family.
After landing in Dunquin, they got a coffin from Dingle but they could not get it back across to the island. The water was just too rough and the weight of the coffin made navigating a naomhóg back to the island too much of a risk.
When I got to Dunquin, the islanders were still there waiting for the weather to break. The weather was not good that day, or the following day either. We were all talking about the situation in the post office. Hannah Daly, the woman who ran the post office, mentioned the lifeboat operated by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution on Valentia Island, near Cahersiveen, all the way across Dingle Bay over on the Iveragh Peninsula. I asked her if she could call and ask them to get Seán’s body off
the island.
Hannah called the lifeboat station to explain the situation and ask for help. Yes, the officer at the lifeboat station said, they would arrive in Dingle that night to pick up the coffin. The lifeboat could not come in or out of Dunquin because its pier was not big enough to handle it. They had to land in Dingle instead.
A 1972 photo of two of the three cousins who crossed the Sound for a coffin for the deceased Seán Ó Ceárna in 1947: Seán ‘Faeilí’ Ó Catháin (front) and Maidhc ‘Léan’ Ó Guithín (rear). Not shown is Seán ‘Pats Tom’ Ó Cearna. The man in the middle is Seán Ó Guithín.
So we now had to take the coffin back from Dunquin to Dingle. That night, we put the coffin on the lifeboat, the C&S, in Dingle harbour. Then we travelled 12 tough miles over the ocean through huge waves to the island.
When we got into the island, poor Seán, I couldn’t look at him. He was lying dead on the bed in my father’s bedroom. He had been dead for three days. Cáit had cleaned him up, washed his body with soap and water, and dressed him up, but decomposition had already started to set in. Everybody was crying. We put Seán in the coffin and nailed the lid shut. There was no wake; there was no time. The lifeboat was waiting.
We then went back to Dingle on the lifeboat with Seán’s body in the coffin. The waves were still high and it was a very rough ride, and my father came with us, the poor man. It was a heartbreaking thing.
When we got to Dingle, the medical people said they had to determine the cause of death. My father told them to write down that the government killed him. He was very angry and so was I. We felt that the government should have installed a better radio system or provided a motorboat – anything to improve the safety of the people living on the island. This was just the kind of situation we warned could happen.
Our family doctor, Dr Patrick Scully was there but, of course, there was nothing he could do. Dr Eilís O’Sullivan, the Kerry County Medical Officer at the time, had to examine the body and make a finding on the cause of death. It took a couple of hours but her finding was that Seán died from meningitis.
Then we had to take the body another 12 miles back to Dunquin where Seán was to be buried. We left the coffin in St Gobnet’s Church overnight and that evening we said the rosary for him.
The funeral and burial were held the very next day, four days after Seán died. I was a pallbearer.
My father was there along with the three islanders who came to get the coffin, and our friends and relatives from Dunquin and Coumeenole. Nobody else from the island could get there because the weather was still horrible.
The funeral Mass was said by Father Patrick McAuliffe, the parish priest. Seán was buried next to our mother in the old cemetery next to the church. It was all so sad.
More Sorrow
The time had come to tell my father about my emigration plans. I knew that it would mean even more sorrow for him, but I really could not put it off any more. The time to depart for America was getting close.
My eleven years in Dublin had opened my eyes. My sister and the two brothers who were still living on the island had no jobs and nothing constructive to do. My other brothers and my sister who were elsewhere in Ireland could do better in America too. I knew we would all be better off some place where we could make a good living. I had made up my mind to make the move to try and help them out.
America was open for immigration and jobs there were plentiful. In them days, you could leave one job and start another the next day. So it all came together, the circumstances and the opportunity.
After Seán’s burial, we took a taxi to my aunt Joan Shea’s house over in Coumeenole. During the journey by taxi, I told my father that I had written to my uncle Tom about emigrating to America. I said that I wanted to give my brothers and sisters the chance to go to America too. I think my father had seen it coming. He said, ‘Mike, I don’t blame you. You do whatever you think is right. And, whatever you say and whatever you do, make sure you do it right.’ It was the same advice he gave me when I went to Cahersiveen. I suppose it was his standard farewell advice. He was highly intelligent in how to lead you and encourage you to do the right thing.
My father said, ‘Mike, you always seem to have a good head on your shoulders. I am sure you could stay in Dublin. Just don’t do anything that you’ll be sorry for.’
This was the second time I said goodbye to my father. It certainly wasn’t any easier this time. My father could see that the nest was going to be empty pretty soon. His heart was heavy and so was mine. We both started to cry.
My father had a hard life. He went to America twice and it did not work out for him. He lost his wife when she was only thirty-seven and had to raise nine kids. He lost two children, Seámus and Seán. He had Cáit, but he was worried that he would be all alone at his advanced age. How would he climb up and down the steep hills on the island?
I was exhausted from the whole terrible ordeal. I stayed in Dingle that night and went back to Dublin the following day. I slept soundly all the way back on the train.
My father stayed in Coumeenole with the Sheas for a couple of days and waited for the weather to calm down; then it was back to the island for him.
That was the toughest winter they remembered having on the island. And my brother’s death was the toughest thing that had happened on the island for as far back as people remembered. It all seemed so senseless. The islanders came to the conclusion that it was no place for them to live. Essentially, Seán’s death and the circumstances broke the will of the islanders to continue living on the island. It was time to move on.
When I got back to Dublin, I called the Roscommon girl to go to the cinema. Afterwards, I told her the sad story about Seán’s death. More crying …
Island Desperation
After my brother’s death, I felt strongly that the government should do something about the island. The conditions were bad and getting worse. The isolation and the lack of reliable communications and transportation were huge problems. The islanders were vulnerable in case of emergency. But there was also the decline of the fishing industry and the difficulty in making a decent living. The population was dropping fast. Most of the young people had left. Many of the people still living on the island were just too old to get along on their own. Family life was disappearing because no women would marry island men. The situation was getting desperate.
On 26 January 1947, I wrote a letter to the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, describing the tragic circumstances that led to Seán’s death. Unfortunately, I did not get a reply other than an acknowledgement of the receipt of my letter by the Taoiseach. I was disappointed, but not really surprised. All the same, I thought de Valera was a great statesman. Even though he was foreign-born (he was born in New York City, to a Spanish father and a mother from Limerick), he was a huge promoter of Irish, which he spoke fluently.
Mike Carney’s 1947 letter to Éamon de Valera in Irish, in which he suggested that the islanders be relocated to the mainland.
22 Dargle Road
Drumcondra, Dublin
26 January, 1947
Dear Taoiseach,
I am writing to you on behalf of the people of the Blasket Island, that island which is famous the world over as a result of what is has done for the revival of the Irish language. The people of this island (my own native home) believe that they are not getting fair play from the Government. A fortnight ago my own brother, Seán Ó Ceárna, died on the island at the age of 24 years. He died and they were not able to bring the doctor, or the priest, to him, although he had been sick for a week and if it wasn’t for the lifeboat he would have had to be buried in the island graveyard without a priest. The local population cannot be found at fault in this; what can they do with their little boats in bad weather.
As the Government greatly supports the revival of the Irish language, why is this Irish Island not given a proper service. If the Government wants this island to remain alive they must procure a service boat from Dingle, especially during winter. The t
elephone which the Government installed between the mainland and the island a few years ago, is useless, as it is not working every second day. If an undersea cable had been laid at the beginning, less money would have been spent than has been spent on the current telephone, as it is being fixed every day.
If the Government thinks that it is not worth spending any money on the Blasket Island, why don’t they be given a small piece of land on the mainland? That would please the islanders themselves, because it has been too difficult for them to live on the island for the past few years. There are no jobs there except fishing, and as the fine weather has not come for years now, they are only living hand to mouth, God help us. There are farmers on the mainland who have more than their fair share of land, if some of it was shared amongst the Blasket people, they would be on the pig’s back. No one understands the Blasket people’s story as well as I do, someone who was born and raised there. I have written many essays to newspapers though the years about the situation, but the years are going by and nothing is being done, unfortunately.
If the Government thinks it worthwhile to look into the case of the Blasket people, someone should be sent to speak with them. Someone who would know what he was doing and someone who would understand what should be done for the people of this Irish island.
Yours,
Micheál Ó Ceárna,
For Attention of The Honourable
Taoiseach,
Éamon de Valera
This translation of Mike Carney’s letter to de Valera spells out the case he made to the Taoiseach for the evacuation of the island. (Translation courtesy of the Blasket Centre)
To keep the pressure up, I also got in touch with Richard Mulcahy, a member of Fine Gael and the TD from Tipperary. He lived in Rathmines. My idea was to approach the problem by appealing to both sides of the political aisle; to the party in power and also to the opposition. At the time, Mulcahy was leader of the opposition party in the Dáil.
From the Great Blasket to America Page 11