by Ultan Macken
From,
Peggy
It was during this time that my father wrote my mother a letter in Irish, and I have taken the liberty of translating it. Here are some extracts:
c/o Bean Uí Chualáin,
Coismeag Mór,
Na Forbacha.
Wednesday
Peggy darling,
It’s one o’clock as I’m writing this letter. Today was a beautiful day here, very hot. I will be going swimming after the dinner and going sunbathing also. It was a lovely night last night and myself and a young lad called Murray who is camping nearby, we almost walked to Spiddal. There is great heat today, it’s a bit like the weather we had in June. It’s the old story about my love for you which is as new as it was last year, and even stronger. There are only two days left until I am back to you. It’s a pity that you are not here and we could go swimming together. I am too old now to be mitching from school. I would love to see young Wally again, and especially to see him walking the way he does. I suppose my mother is surprised to be going to England. I don’t know whether Eileen and Harry are coming to visit me out here. I find it hard to talk to them. God bless now and I will see you on Saturday and there will only be a few days left until I am home for good. I love you, Pegs, Saturday will never come quickly enough.
Your own,
Wally
Having lived in Shantalla for a few months, my mother went looking to find a more suitable house to rent and eventually she found a house just off White Strand Road looking down on Grattan Road Strand and they lived there from 1940 to 1948. My mother’s time in Galway in the 1940s was stressful. When she came home in the summer of 1939, Wally Óg was only eighteen months old. Her father did not attempt to contact her as he had written her out of his life. One day, she remembers, she was walking in Galway with Wally Óg in the pram and she saw her father walking toward her. As she walked past him, he just said a gruff hello. Shortly afterwards, in 1940 at the age of fifty-three, he died suddenly of a heart attack. My mother was summoned to the Crescent and had to take control of everything. She made all the funeral arrangements. When they prepared the body for the funeral, they found that Tom Kenny had put the letter Peggy wrote to him about eloping beside his heart. My mother then went into the newspaper to write articles about her father and write the editorials. After those few days, she returned to her normal life in Grattan Road and the Taibhdhearc, where she still acted and helped out my father.
In the course of his work at the Taibhdhearc, my father would do many different things, and occasionally he was invited to work as an actor for different companies; in April 1943, he was invited by the famous theatre director, Carl Clopet, to play the part of Captain Jack Boyle in a Belfast production of O’Casey’s play, Juno and the Paycock. While rehearsing in Dublin, he wrote a few letters to my mother, now pregnant for a second time, and the extract below comes from one of these:
Milano.
Easter Monday 9 a.m.
My dear Peggy,
Here I am again, and thank God the Dublin episode is drawing to a close. I haven’t got the Permit yet [a travel permit to work in Northern Ireland was probably compulsory, as the UK was at war]. I have to go in tomorrow morning and try for it and hope that it can be procured before Thursday morning when we are going to Belfast.
On Good Friday, we had no rehearsal. That was the day I rang you up. I stayed here all day and desperately learned the part and I think, Thank God, that I know it at last. I went to bed at 11 last night. Saturday we had a rehearsal at 11 in the morning, one in the afternoon and one at night at 7 p.m. I got back to Dalkey at 11 and hopped straight into bed. I haven’t seen a picture since I came here or a show or anything and have very little intention of doing so.
Yesterday we had a rehearsal at 11.30. I went to mass with D. [probably Deirdre Halligan the actress] at 10, then on to the rehearsal, came back here at 3 p.m., talked with D. and Sonny and their aunt until tea-time. Then we all went for a walk and I was in bed at 10.30.
Michael Clarke [owner of house where he was staying] is acting this week in a show in the Theatre Royal and the poor devil is half dead, doing 3 shows a day. I’m asleep when he gets home (he’s sleeping in the same room as me in order not to disturb the baby when he comes home late) and when I get up he’s asleep so we haven’t had much time for a chat.
Sonny [Michael’s wife] is very kind and they are feeding me like a turkey cock. She is feeding the baby herself and keeps asking me questions, what you did with Wally Óg, etc. She thinks Wally Óg is the most marvellous child she ever saw and who am I to deny it? I told her when I ring you up on Wednesday night she can talk to you and ask you all the questions she likes because I can’t remember half of the things you have to do with a baby, so I proudly say about all you know and how you have it all written down and everything. And the doctor she has doesn’t seem to have told her anything. You were really lucky to have had Dr O’Rourke.
You will be glad to hear that nobody in the company drinks much. When they heard that I didn’t drink at all they didn’t seem to mind very much. As far as I know Carl Clopet himself only takes a bottle of stout now and again after rehearsal. Noel Purcell (who is 42 by the way) still drinks sherry and never drinks whiskey or stout. I gather he has been that way all his life although they all tell him he is a sissy drinker. I still don’t know the names of the people in the Company, apart from the odd Joe and Nicky, without knowing their last names.
Poor D., I feel so sorry for her sometimes. She is crazy about Des [Deirdre Halligan’s husband], and there’s no doubt now Peggy, I’m afraid, that he was all wrong for her. It’s pathetic really. Every day she seems to expect that he will write to her and say that he has seen the light at last and that he is coming flying back home to her.
Ah well! It’s a cruel thing to say but it makes me thank God that we are so happy with our whole lives before us to be together whatever sun falls out of the skies … I’m afraid the time has come for me to be rushing off to catch a train for the rehearsal, so I’ll be going. I don’t feel quite so lonely when I’m writing to you. I can see you reading this and knowing that you love me and that’s all that matters really. I love you Pegsi. I kind of knew it the first time I saw you rehearsing for St Bernard de Menthon. I remember you had a brown costume on and Paddy Walsh [a friend] saying to me: ‘God, Wally, Peggy Kenny has a damn nice leg.’ I wish I was a bit nearer to that damn nice leg now. Goodbye for awhile Peggy darling and tell the little embryo that I love her (or him) [that embryo was me!].
Your adoring husband,
Wally
My father added a brief note to my brother with the letter:
My darling Wally Óg,
Hello, here is your old Daddy to say hello to you and to tell you that he loves you right up to China and beyond. You will be going to school next Monday. I will be thinking of you all day even tho’ it will be my first night and my birthday. Have some buns on that day for your tea. Let your Mammy and yourself have a good feed and pretend Daddy is there with you. Mind your Mammy well. She is very precious.
Your loving,
Daddy
This is another letter written to my mother from the Dublin house:
Wednesday 28th April 1943
My darling Peggy,
I got your two letters yesterday morning, and was so glad to read them and read that you still love me. Reading letters from you reminds me of the time we used to be hurling massive missives at each other and loving every minute and word of them. Them were the days.
It’s nice to look back on them but it is much nicer to know that we are married and that we are the proud possessors of one and a half children. Imagine what life would be like without our lovely Wally Óg. I’m dying to get a look at him again and get a squeeze from him and several squeezes from his mother.
The longer I’m away from you, Peggy darling, the more I love you. That’s not so strange either. The Dublin episode is drawing to a close. It would have been a miserable period if I hadn
’t been staying here in Dalkey with the Clarkes and their little baby who seems to be getting bigger every day and makes me long for the time when we can be having fun with our own little morsel.
I will continue this journal of unexciting events where I left off last. It was Monday morning, I think. Well I went into a rehearsal which started at 11 and finished around 2. By the way the play is in great shape now, I think. I imagine it will be good. There is really nobody bad in it, and it sometimes has very excellent moments. Still we must wait to see what the audience think about it, after all they are the principal people.
After the rehearsal I came back to Dalkey, had lunch, and went for a walk with Sonny and four dogs. I don’t feel as excited about acting in English and Belfast as I ought to. I don’t know but somehow it doesn’t seem to mean such a lot after all. I seem to be more interested in all the small things about it, like getting travel permits, getting in and out to Dalkey. I seem to have a very clear vision of it somehow. You’d imagine I wouldn’t feel like this going back to the Taibhdhearc. That I would feel stymied in the Taibhdhearc and look forward to acting in English in Belfast. But somehow I want to get back to Galway. I want to go back to the Taibhdhearc. Maybe I’d feel differently if you were here, I don’t know.
Whether it is ambition dying out in me or God giving me a clear perspective of the smallness of these things we imagine big from the distance, I don’t know but I feel happy in our mode of life. I see our house and love it, I love my garden even though I hated doing it. I like to imagine myself sitting out on the seat and just letting my mind idle away – to put out my hand and touch you, to hear Wally Óg talking away to Wally Gung [Wally Óg’s imaginary friend], to feel the sun on my face and that I’ll soon be going into the house to eat a beautifully satisfactory tea cooked by my lovely Peggy. Now I see darling that all these things mean a terrible lot to me and I would rather remain unknown and have them, rather than to gain what passes as fame and be without them.
I’m terrible for rambling amn’t I, but I love writing all these things to you because I know that you know what I mean. I better continue with my ‘adventures’.
It was around 3 when I had finished everything and had lunch in town with D (by the way the grub in Dublin restaurants is lousy). Then I decided that instead of going home, I’d go to meet the train to see Johnny and Eileen and Billy Naughton (who was supposed to come but didn’t). Only Eileen was there so I saw to her cases and walked to the digs with her and arranged to meet her after tea and take her to a picture. Poor Eileen was thrilled at the idea as she said of ‘a night of sin’ out at the pictures with a married man. [Johnny, Eileen and Billy were all family friends.]
It was a relief to talk to her after the other people whose minds are buried in the clouds or in themselves. We saw ‘Bambi’ the Walt Disney picture. You’ll love it and Wally Óg will be charmed with it. Joined a train queue at 11.30 and met Michael Clarke and Harry Webster [another actor]. We missed the last Dalkey train and had to get the Dún Laoghaire train instead and had to walk home. We got home at 2 a.m. Michael told me all about how they all loathe Frank Dermody, he also told me the entire Des story with clarity. We will be going to Belfast at 1 o’clock on Friday but I will write a letter to you in the morning, before I catch the train. You know I love you and being away from you has only made me love you more.
Your adoring husband, Wally
Here is another letter of this batch. It was written the day before going to Belfast:
Thursday 9 a.m., 29th April 1943
My darling Pegsi,
It was very nice hearing your voice last night. When they couldn’t get through to the Taibhdhearc, I was imagining all sorts of horrible possibilities. What did you think of the Des business?
I meant to tell you about the financial situation. Clopet will give me £15 and the train fare. I suppose then that he will pay me £16–9–8 as the train fare from Galway was £1–9–8. I have spent the £2 I brought with me (it’s amazing how it goes and you don’t know where the hell – just lunches, fares and cigarettes). I borrowed £1 from D. and I will have to repay her when I get paid. Taking poor Eileen Ó Briain out [to the cinema – see previous letter], knocked a hole in that. It’s amazing the way it goes.
I reckon it will cost £3 or £4 for digs in Belfast so I am reckoning that I should at least be able to bring £9 or £10 home with me. I think I will go off the cigarettes altogether in Belfast.
It would break my heart to be handing out 2/6 for 20 lousy cigarettes. I won’t forget your stockings and of course Wally Óg’s present. I will also have to get something for Sonny’s baby and something for the maid Nellie who is very good to me. I think I told you, Michael Clarke is in the Theatre Royal in Bernard Shaw’s Signal Fires. I will have to go along and see it today. He is getting £15 a week so he was jumping for delight this morning to hear that its run was being extended for another week.
I am going into Gings [a company that supplied theatre costumes] today to get the costume for Captain Boyle. I will ask about the costumes for the Taibhdhearc while I’m there.
Has Patsy [wardrobe mistress of the Taibhdhearc] sent on the measurements? If not would you ever get after her and tell her to hurry up with them. If there is a letter for me from the Dublin Gaelic League, use your judgement about sending it on to me in case it would never catch up with me in transit.
I’m afraid, darling that this letter will have to be short as I have to catch the train. I will make it up to you again. Once we are in Belfast, I would feel that I am so much nearer the time to go home. I love you and God bless you and mind my little embryo. By the way, Sonny says that her baby hardly kicked at all before it was born and she says you must be going to have a girl if the stirrings are faint. I don’t mind really darling if it is not a girl. Another fellow like Wally Óg would be all right by me.
Your doting old man,
Wally
Later he wrote from Belfast:
c/o Carl Clopet Co.,
The Royal Hippodrome,
Belfast.
Saturday, May 1st 1943
My darling Pegsi,
It was a grand surprise today to get your letter when we went to rehearse in the Hippodrome. The letter arrived all right – like ourselves. It was grand hearing from you again. You and Wally Óg don’t miss me half as much as I miss you and that’s a fact. We duly left Dublin yesterday morning. I wrote the note to you and then departed for the big city. I went to Gings and got a costume. I told the girl in Gings about the other costumes (which reminds me will you get after Patsy again and get her to get off the measurements). I had a cup of tea and went to the station where we joined up with the rest of the people. The train was terribly packed and we only got a seat by the skin of our teeth.
There were custom examinations on the train to be gone through and we finally got to Belfast at 6.30. We went first to have a meal and then went to look for digs. What a job that was. The whole city seemed to be packed with people, workers and things and all the lodging houses were packed. We walked and walked and searched and searched, meeting with refusals everywhere. We couldn’t even get into hotels. Finally at 11.30, I managed to get a room in a small hotel here called ‘The Station’, for £3–5–0 a week. But it is nice and clean and the food is very good. Having chatted with the landlord for a long time, went to bed at 1.30 and went to sleep immediately. I got up at nine this morning and went to the Hippodrome for a rehearsal at 10.
The Hippodrome is an enormous place. It was built especially for stage shows and was eventually changed into a cinema. It is bigger than the Gaiety in Dublin with an absolutely enormous stage and terrific acoustic properties. We are having a dress rehearsal in the morning at 12.00. Don’t forget to say a prayer that I will be okay and that the show will go well. The rehearsal was over at 12.30. I went to the hotel and had lunch and then went back to meet Clopet and went to see the Noel Coward movie ‘In Which We Serve’. It was a grand film, very realistic.
The trouble about
Belfast is that you can’t get away from the war, even for a minute. The greatest proportion of the population seems to be in uniform – there are uniforms everywhere.
After the picture, I came back here and had tea which brings us right up to date. None of the other chaps are staying here with me and I am rather inclined to be grateful for that, than the reverse, because I find it fairly hard to talk to them.
Anyhow I love you Peggy darling and I’m so glad to hear that the little embryo is doing well. Tell ‘it’ I love ‘it’ already. I love you Peggy darling. Write to me soon again, it will help to cheer up your despondent husband. I wish that Juno was a memory I had to look back on instead of forward to it.
Your loving husband,
Wally
The production of Juno and the Paycock was part of Pla-Vaude-Band, a three-hour show presented at the Royal Hippodrome from 3 May for six days only. The show opened with the play and then it was followed by a variety show featuring Peggy Dell and her band and a range of other acts. The shows were presented twice daily at 2.30 p.m. and at 7.00 p.m. My father was one of the stars, in the billing for the play he was named above the titles in the following manner:
CARL CLOPET PRODUCTIONS
Present
Diane Romney, Ann Clery, Roland Ibbs
Noel Purcell and Walter Macken
in
SEÁN O’CASEY’S
JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK
in three acts
The next letter was posted on Tuesday 4 May from Belfast:
