It was
summer holiday time and thoughts of school were
banished for a month. My parents decided to take
my brother and me to our Aunt Minnie's place in
Ballingeary, 10 miles from home, for a week or
so.
We loved the notion of going to our
aunt's house because we had heard glowing
accounts of it from older members of the family.
I was eight years old; my brother was two years
older.
Full of glee we set out one
morning with our parents in a tub trap. Fitted
springs and rubber tyres, the trap glided
smoothly drawn by Betsy the horse. We passed our
school with its creaking gate and tall monkey
tree. A man on a ladder was whitewashing the
walls, how wonderful it was to pass by
independently.
When we reached
Inchigeelagh there was a fowl market in
progress. We saw horse and donkey carts in which
hens and ducks lay in straw, their legs tied
together. Parked on the street were two touring
buses. Those who alighted from them were being
treated to humorous anecdotes by the popular
Johnny Creedon of the post office and were in
convulsions of laughter. As my father remarked:
"Johnny could humour a poor man going to the
gallows. "
On our journey to Ballingeary
there was a picturesque panorama around every
bend. On our left several lakes were shimmering
in the sun. The edges of the lakes were
decorated with white and yellow lilies lying on
the water. Blue heathery hills in the background
were mirrored in the calm lake waters. These are
the waters of the River Lee and are guarded on
one side by the hills and on the other by upland
farms.
Reading
A fisherman sat on a
rock reading a book. The line of the fishing-rod
was stretched out into the water. Further on a
lady with an easel was painting a picture of the
lakes with their background of green woods and
blue hills. On our right men and women were
saving hay in the sloping fields. An elderly
lady walked along the road with a turkey under
her arm. Children were gathering flowers along
the lakeside and cracking
foxgloves or fairy
thimbles as they are locally known.
We
had almost reached Ballingeary when we parted
company with the lakes. We stopped in the
village and our father gave us money to buy
minerals. In the shop people used Irish. They
spoke very quickly and seemed to roll one word
into the next. Sitting in the trap we drank and
looked at the Irish names on the shops.
Our parents had decided to visit Gougane Barra,
five miles from Ballingeary, to perform the
rounds. My mother explained that it would be a
quiet time for prayer, much more so than on the
last Sunday in September, Gougane Sunday.
On that day people flocked there on a
pilgrimage, some walking down from the
mountains, others travelling by carts, trap,
bicycle and saddled horse.
Having turned
right off the Bantry road we travelled for about
a mile into a most picturesque valley. From the
lakeside two swans and some cygnets eyed us
suspiciously. The lake was encircled by towering
heather and myrtle-clad mountains from which
several rivulets cascaded down.
Looking
west along the valley, also guarded by the zone
of black hills, the only sign of life we saw was
a lone house. It looked like a grey rock in its
obscurity, with a few fields overgrown with
bushes, sally trees and tall rushes. We thought
it was an isolated place to live.
Island
We crossed a causeway to a little island.
While our parents performed the rounds my
brother and I examined the ruined remains of an
18th century building-outer walls
into which six monastic-type cells were built,
and close by a more modern oratory, small and
attractive. This was the site of St Finbarr's 6th
century hermitage.
The pilgrimage was
over. We returned from the island to where Betsy
was tied in the shade. Father gave her a feed of
oats while mother took flasks of tea and parcels
of food from the trap. As we ate we could
see the island with its ruined church and
oratory, the lake and the sheep dotted mountains
all around. When we had finished our picnic we
said goodbye to Gougane Barra of many memories,
sacred Gougane Barra which soothes the troubled
mind and is conducive to contemplative thought.
Having returned to Ballingeary we travelled
up a byroad to Aunt Minnies house. There we were
given a warm welcome especially by a black and
white collie which kept following Minnie's
husband, William, around the kitchen. "He all
but goes to bed with me ," William told my
father.
While the
older people chatted, my brother and I went out
to have a look at our new surroundings.
Nearby, Ronan's Mill was a hive of industry.
Wheels were turned by the big belts and workmen
were white with dust. Sacks of meal were filled
from chutes and stacked nearby. Aunt Minnie
warned us about the mill. "Once a cat went into
one of those chutes chasing a rat and came out
in the form of crushed oats," she said. The
advice startled us and we kept away from the
mill.
When our parents had left, Eileen,
our 16-year-old cousin took us for a walk to the
village. We saw young people there whom Eileen
said were students at the Irish Collage. We met
one of the students on the bridge. Eileen
started talking to him and told us to go away
and buy sweets in the village. Our parents
had given us two shillings each and we were
overjoyed at having so much money. Now we could
buy NKM toffees and slabs of Mickey Mouse
chocolate. Having paid a visit to the church we
returned to the bridge. Eileen was still there
with the student and told us to continue
homewards, she would catch up on us. "He's a
cousin of ours," she said when she rejoined us a
few minutes later.
We told Aunt Minnie
about the sweets and our visit to the church and
I mentioned that Eileen had met her cousin at
the bridge. "What cousin?" asked Minnie. Eileen
blushed and her mother took her into the
parlour. Next day Eileen seemed offended
and wouldn't talk to me although she remained
friendly towards my brother. I asked him
why she wouldn't talk to me. "A shut mouth
catches no flies". That's what she told me
to tell you", he said.
Aunt Minnie was a
warm-hearted lady. Once I lost my balance
when coming down stone steps from the loft with
a container of newly-laid eggs. All the
eggs were smashed but my aunt's only concern was
for my well-being. "Don't worry about the
eggs, the hens will lay again tomorrow", she
said.
One day we went with the men of the
house and his dog to round up the sheep for
dipping. The dog set off up the mountain
very quickly until he got above the sheep.
He then eased them gently down the slope,
Sitting on a fence we watched the sheep
being dipped. The dog herded them into a
pen where two men dipped them, one at a time,
into a prepared solution. One of the men,
Mick, asked us if we would like to accompany him
the next day when he went on horseback to
collect his own sheep. Aunt Minnie gave
permission and when Mick arrived next morning we
were ready. He put us astride the grey
horse's back and kept a hand on either side of
us as he held the reins so that we wouldn't fall
off. His dog followed. On the summit
of the hill Mick told us we were now on the roof
of the world. He showed us the long range
of Kerry mountains to the west, Inchigeelagh
Lakes like sheets of broken glass to the east,
Shehy Mountains to the south and the towering
mountains that support Gougane Barra.
Mick took the opportunity to examine the bank of
cut turf and pointed out two hares careering
through the heather, having been disturbed by
the dog.