By Father Bernard Hahesy ,
St Edward’s RC Parish,
Plymouth,
England

The first cultural invasion into the pastoral life of Rathgormack and Windgap began with the wireless (now called the radio) in the late thirties. Listening to Hurling and football matches on Sunday afternoons was a great novelty and a favourite pastime. The locals collected at the house of someone privileged to possess a wireless. My own special recollection of it dates back to September 1939 when after the Hurling final Miceal O Hehir announced that the Second World War had begun.

Hurling and football were the main interests of boys growing up in these days. I am not sure what interests the girls had. Many were borders in the Mercy Convent in Carrick, safely out of harms way! They had a youth and innocence denied them in the present prevailing culture.

Rathgormack and Windgap playing on a Sunday was the local Derby; the rivalry was intense. Rathgormack could field two teams namely " the Reds" and "the Rovers". Whilst Windgap also had an interest in Hurling combining with the other half of the parish (St Molleran’s) to form a creditable Hurling side.

Attending funerals was considered a Christian duty. They buried them decent and the few who didn’t had a bad name for life. Anyone who died before midnight would be taken to the chapel the following evening, but not before " a wake " had been held and this was where generosity and hospitality were measured and balanced carefully and too bad if anyone were found to be wanting. Food was plentiful and the drink flowed freely but it was not entirely free. Those attending had to say a decade or two of the Rosary in the room where the corpse lay.

The social aspect was important also. People met cousins whose first name they did not know- second, third cousins.

The length of the funeral cortege might be one, two or three miles depending on the popularity of the deceased. The near relatives were proud to relate later that the funeral stretched from Glenpatrick to the Cross of Clondonnell - some three miles. It was a reputation to be proud of that he or she buried them decent. It was a reputation to cherish and well deserved.

There were many superstitions about the approach of death; a robin tapping at the window brought notification of death. The lady of the house then waited for a telegram to say some close member of the family had died. A cock crowing in the yard of an afternoon was an ominous warning, especially if it had a straw entangled around one of its feet. The sound of horse's hoofs outside in the middle of the night was also a bad omen. At this time the banshee might be heard making the hair stand on bald men’s heads who were out late at night shooting deer in Toor woods. Brave and strong men became jellyfish and were frightened out of their wits. My own guess is the banshee was the hooting owl.

Attending a funeral, I said, was a Christian duty but it was more. They may not have come for the beer but they drank it. It was not unusual to see Jackeen after a funeral at Kennedy’s bar and four or five large bottles in front of him waiting to be drunk and duly was. They were very few Jackeen did not know in two parishes and if anyone did not know, he was soon made to know. He was a miniature man with an indistinct nasal delivery, a quiet man who got more attention from the locals by remaining silent and observant. They knew when their honour and duty was at stake.

It is a psychological quirk that those who remain silent and subdued are better looked after in the pub than the forward ones who seek attention. When Jackeen spoke it was in witticisms. The curate Father O’Byrne offered him a lift in his car as Jackeen walked from Carrick. In the course of the conversation Father O’Byrne said shouldn’t you be at home with your brother helping him to milk the cows in stead of drinking large bottles in Carrick. Jackeen made an instant retort," We have only one bucket Father!"

Very few read the daily paper and so news was scarce but oral tradition was strong. By nature they were talkers so they told stories to fill in the time. Two old timers, Mike Wall and Nick Farrell were thrown together by the exigencies of nature. Every Sunday afternoon from 3pm to 11 p.m. they spun yarns to each other. Though not the best of friends they filled in the time repeating and dramatising for real effect. Nick, it was who went over the top when he said he was out at night looking for deer and he got such a mighty fright that the hair stood on his head! The same Nick had not a rib of hair on his head! He had a bicycle that he kept raised off the ground to preserve the tyres. Roughly every three or four months he took the bicycle for a ride. He preferred high handlebars which meant he rode erect, his back only slightly bent. He gave his full attention to riding the bicycle and directing it and he cursed anyone who distracted him. But some skunk (as he called him) had the audacity to say to him one day " You look like a cat on a scissors!"

Mike came from behind the mountains and this lowered him somewhat in Nick’s eyes. He spoke with a different accent and use the expression" By cripes" more often than Nick would have liked. If the truth be told they were both intelligent men and scorned a neighbour who had travelled far and wide but could not describe the places or the characters he met in distant places. Mike and Nick could describe places they had never been to: they had such rich imaginations! Mike’s emission of intestinal gas disgusted Nick but Mike considered if the poet Robbie Burns could say " Where ‘ere you be let the wind blow free," he was educated enough to know that a recognised poet had given his authority to this practice and that was good enough for him. In fact Mike considered himself superior and was no Philistine. He read every scrap of paper he could lay hands on even the newspaper wrappings on the commodities brought from the shops. His nephew, Spin, had the same great thirst for knowledge; every few years he disappeared for a day or two, giving no indication to anyone where his destination might be. Weeks later it came out of him as a kind of distilled knowledge that he had been to Fishguard. He craved the experience of other people and thought he would be as good as they were. He revealed the secrets of his private life in spurts; his attitude being I shall tell you so much today but you will have to wait for the rest of it.

We lived so far from the primary school that our father provided a pony and trap. We stabled our small black pony with Patsy Loughlan who wore a long beard and never spoke. Most children would have been afraid of him but we made free with him. Though he did not speak to us we knew he accepted us and packed himself into our trap with his bucket to get water from the well a quarter of a mile away. On one such occasion, a boy after school raised his hurley and the pony bolted; the trap hit the stone ditch and the lot of us spilled onto the road, Patsy and all. We got up shaken but whole. Patsy struggled to his feet and still never spoke. My eldest brother who was always a man and never a boy made little of the incident; he held onto the pony and got the car on its two wheels again. That was one of the many escapes we had. This same brother was never one to avoid trouble: he meowed outside ‘Dan the Cats’ house and the lady came out to attack him telling him to kiss ‘Dan the Cats’ arse and her arse also.

I write of an age when the clergy were held in high esteem especially if the virtue was not in question. Father John may have many weaknesses, a liking for the bottle, the racecourse, or the dogs but all these failings were charitably overlooked if he kept the virtue. Failure on this score was not overlooked and he could be severely censured if anyone suspected him of breach of his vow. Father John was a paradox; he was loved for his weakness because he made a public confession of hitting the ditch on a Saturday night when the worse for wear. On Sunday morning he apologised profusely so much so that one or two of the ladies were seen to reach for their handkerchiefs to wipe away the tears from their eyes. The congregation could talk of nothing else after Mass -" Poor Father, such a kind man, obliging at all times: it is such a great pity!" They hoped it would not reach the Bishops ears, but it did. To add to his present misery Father had the reputation for the fast Mass. When at his best he said the 11 O’ clock Mass in 11 minutes on Sunday during which he delivered a homily as obliged to do by canon law. The fast Mass saga reached the Bishop’s ears who came to preside at the 11 O’ clock Mass but Father on this occasion (coram episcopo) beat his own record and became a legend in the parish but his lordship was not amused!

The Mass was in Latin so there was not the same need to articulate the language with the same clarity as the vernacular. Some thought he was clever because he said mass so fast in Latin. It was a mistaken view that the faster the priest said Mass the cleverer he was. Saying it in Latin gave a sense of mystery. The clergy also were more of a mystery. Indeed it might be said that the real reason why people respect Royalty and Aristocracy is that they know so little about them. When Francis Borgia saw the mortal remains of the Empress Isabella, he was so shocked that he changed his way of life and became a saint. There is no mystery now: he was equal with all that have died. Mystery arouses curiosity because of a quality unknown or obscure. When two people say they have fallen in love, it may be because they are still a mystery to each other. When they cease to be a mystery to each other, they fall out of love. Strictly people should love what they know i.e. if they are logical people but you have got this heart/ head conflict in close relationships, and some-times logic goes out of the window. Mountains were a mystery to the Druids: that is why people worshipped them. It is best to see relationships in rights and duties especially outside marriage and maybe even in marriage. Everyone knows where he/ she stands then. Most relationships are set in a framework of laws even our relationship with the ‘Almighty’ / " if you love me then keep my commandments". This "please yourself attitude" does not work. Life has to be ordered otherwise no one knows who should be doing what.

Picking up on Father John, his hospitality and generosity were well known. He gave fistfuls of sweets to the children. Men of the road considered him a soft touch. One of them kept a notebook in which he had written stories to tell individual priests in an effort to extract money depending on the character of the priest. For some he had many stories but against Father John he had pencilled in " any story will do ". One morning the Canon met one of the roadsters that disclosed to him that he was looking for a breakfast for his appetite whereas he knew the Canon was looking for an appetite for his breakfast.

The big annual event was the Flapper Race meeting in Clonea where the fraternity of four parishes foregathered to witness local competition amongst the horses that failed to make it on the Tramore racecourse. There were huddles here and there in the field, men discussing seriously the merits of the horses taking part in the next race. One retired racehorse (Rainbow) was strongly tipped but doubts were cast on his rider who was stiff and awkward in the saddle and who bore a striking resemblance to Ghandi after whom he was nicknamed. Shakey though Ghandi was in the saddle Rainbow romped home to the cheer of the crowd most of whom thanking God the jockey stayed aboard. One of the locals who had put a couple of pounds on Rainbow urged Ghandi to go for it adding "give him a crack of the whip as you approach the fences". Ghandi not over confidant retorted" What do you want me to do, fall on my arse and break my neck!" This contrasts with the experience of Michael Beery, a jockey and horseman of sterner stuff. He was riding in a two horse race at the Curragh. He backed the other horse to win but what he did not know was the other jockey had backed his horse to win. You may well imagine the slow pace of the gallop until a furlong from the winning post Beery knew there was only one thing left to him, so he threw himself to the ground: he lost the race and won the bet!

In Clonea there were sometimes raiders from behind the mountains who carried off the best prizes. Any one from more than fifteen miles away was a dark horse owned by dark men whom the locals did not trust. Everything about them was perceived to be sinister. Father O’ Byrne, a huge man, was entrusted to defend the name of racing at this venue and even the dark men from behind the mountain kept their distance.

The older men, many of whom never married, gathered in different houses on a Sunday night to play cards. You had come of age if you were invited to join this august company. The honour fell to me at the age of sixteen. Usually nine played ‘twenty five’. This game involved reckoning tricks of two, three, four games. Kelly was a human calculator, reckoning the score in a flash. He never left the house in which he was born though with a bit of education he could have graced any university. At intervals he and others exchanged tall yarns. Tom Landers might open with an unlikely one. He saw a rat put a straw in a blind rat's mouth and led him down to water. Paddy Kelly came again. " Did you hear of the farmer whose potatoes were being taken by the crows?" He was telling his sad story to another farmer after Mass on Sunday. The latter advised that he placed a load of turf in the potato field, light it and wet it so that it smouldered, adding you will have no more trouble with the crows. The first farmer followed his instructions to the letter. The following Sunday both met again; well! Did it work said the first farmer. " Did it heck!" said the other. I went down to see the potato field after carrying out your instructions and what did I find? Two crows digging out the potatoes and two crows making chips!" Tom Landers tried again. He was not to be beaten " Did you hear of the man back in Glenpatrick who upturned a young colt and held him single handed whilst he was being castrated? " They were mighty men of a past generation. Matt the Trasher characters who did incredible feats but they are a lost generation.

At this time in Ireland there were many clever people whose education stopped at fourteen to the day. The young boy especially refused to put in an extra day. The master in Rathgormack about the time of the First World War had a science class comprising the elite amongst the boys. Husk was one of them who made little use of whatever went by the name of science. Swift was another and I had personal experience of his knowledge of poetry. As we saved the hay he quoted extensively from the Ancient Mariner, Grays Elegy, Keats and Shelley. They were men of the soil and were happy to remain so-" Happy the man whose wish and care, a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground". Many went to England and a goodly proportion rose to high office especially in the Trade Unions and politics. Mrs Thatcher and John Majors grandmothers both were Irish also Healey, Callaghan and Brown etc.