Eamon Kelly

by Eamon Kelly

  Many is the hour we gave on our knees in the field gathering caisearbhán. This was the dandelion plant. With strong knives we levered it up from the roots. My mother put her collection in her apron, and we small people had a bucket. This heap of greenery with orange roots was put on the kitchen table, chopped up very small and added to the hens’ feed and the pigs’ mess. With the care they got, the pigs fattened quickly. Sometimes they were let out for exercise. They grunted and made loud throaty noises as they enjoyed their freedom. If there was a muddy pool they rolled themselves in it and then started to root up the field in search of roots or whatever it is pigs find under the sod. It was amazing the amount of ground they turned up in a short time, but they were halted in their work of turning a green field black by having their noses ringed. A neighbour would do this for us. He had an implement like a pliers into which he put an open ring with two sharp ends. With a quick movement he clamped the ring shut through the soft flesh of the pig’s snout. There was a loud squeal and a little blood came as the pigs ran off, but they rooted no more.

  As the pigs got very fat and lay on their straw bed, I sometimes went in and sat between them. They seemed to like having their backs scratched and when a pig’s hind foot was unable, because of his fatness, to reach a certain part of his body, I scratched the itchy place with my toe. This seemed to bring him immense pleasure. But the day would come when we would have to part company, for one pig would have to go to the market and the other would find his way into the pickling tub. When I was big enough I went with my father to sell one of the pigs in town. We were up at an unearthly hour that morning. Fanny the mare was tackled and the turf rail put on the car with the back gate taken out. A pig’s big floppy ears made for a great hold. I grasped his left ear in my left hand and my father his right ear with his right hand. Then we reached under the pig’s barrel and grasped our hands firmly and with a one, two, three, lifted the pig and walked him into the body of the car and put on the back gate.

  We climbed in ourselves and my mother brought the holy water, as she always did when we were about to set out on a journey. She shook the water on us and the mare crinkled the skin on her back as the drops fell unexpectedly on her. The pig took no notice and as my father blessed himself we began our journey. Other cars on the same errand came out gates and out the mouths of boreens and on to the main road to join us. As we neared the town the road was black with traffic and the air filled with the squealing of pigs. When we reached the fair field on Martyr’s Hill, the animals had to be taken out of the cars and walked around for the jobbers to see. I had my work cut out for me to keep our pig from getting mixed up with our neighbours’ livestock or straying among the town pigs which were being walked to market. Each town animal had a rope tied to one of his hind legs and his owner had a light switch with which to tap the pig on the shoulder to steer him left or right. Many people in the town’s laneways kept pigs at the backs of their small houses and collected swill at the hotels and lodging houses to feed them.

  When the jobbers arrived there was a murmur of anticipation among the men. What would prices be like? The jobbers wore peaked caps and brown leather gaiters over strong boots and trenchcoats not unlike the uniform of the anti-treaty IRA. One of them walked around our pig, gave him a slap of the palm of his hand and said, ‘What weight is he?’

  ‘I suppose,’ my father replied, ‘he’d be shoving up to a hundred and three quarters.’

  ‘What are you asking for him?’

  ‘Nine pounds ten,’ my father said with some conviction.

  The jobber walked away as if he had been insulted. Other owners nearby had a similar experience and the feeling was that prices were down. My father brought his opening gambit down to eight pounds seventeen and sixpence when the next jobber came and after a bit of banter he too walked away.

  ‘Don’t come down any more, Ned,’ a neighbour advised my father. ‘You have a nice animal there. Don’t let him go for nothing. Hold out!’

  When the next jobber came around he asked my father, ‘Are you selling the pig?’

  ‘No,’ my father said, ‘I am taking him to Ballybunion on his holidays!’

  The jobber and the men standing there laughed at that and the jobber and my father got talking.

  ‘Aren’t you the man,’ the jobber said, ‘that built the Tower Bridge on the road to Moll’s Gap?’

  My father admitted that he was. More conversation until the jobber said, ‘Come on, the day is going,’ and he offered a price for the pig. My father named his. The jobber went up a few shillings and my father came down as many more. The jobber walked away, came back and went up a few bob. My father came down a few. The jobber made his last offer and put out his hand, which my father refused. After some more talk, a neighbour intervened. ‘What’s between ye?’

  ‘Ten shillings,’ the jobber told him.

  ‘Look,’ says the neighbour. ‘In the name of all that’s high and holy split the difference.’

  That was the final word. My father spit on his palm and the jobber spit on his and they shook hands on the deal. The pig went for eight pounds and five shillings. My father was satisfied. He had got what he considered was enough drama out of the scene. The pig jobber wrote a docket from the book he had in the pocket of his trenchcoat. That would be honoured in a public house later. Then with his penknife he cut his mark on the pig’s rump. The pig squealed. I watched the spot where the knife had cut and after a while drops of blood oozed out, making the mark indelible. The pig had to be lifted up and put back in the car. We drove to the railway station, where he was loaded on to a wagon with the jobber’s name on it. With a grunt he ran up the ramp and in no time he was lost among the other pigs. We tied the pony to the courthouse railings, gave her some hay, and I went with my father to Carthy Dennehy’s public house where the jobber was paying out. He remembered my father.

  ‘Oh ho,’ he said, ‘London Bridge is falling down, but not the one on the road to Moll’s Gap!’

  My father gave me a half-crown and called for lemonade for me. While the men talked over their drinks I walked out in the street and with a two-shilling piece my mother had given me in the morning I had a lot of money in my pocket. I went to Maggie Courtney’s to buy sweets to bring home to those younger than me, and a currant cake I knew my mother would like. I didn’t want to wander too far in case I got lost. I stopped to watch the sale of young pigs, pinky little bonamhs. They were in railed carts by the side of the street and in front of Dinny Sir John’s. In some carts they were lying down and snuggled into each other, very tired after their long journey to town. Men who had sold grown pigs that morning were now buying young ones to fatten and so the cycle began again. When a little bonamh was bought, and the same bargaining had gone on as I had seen in the pig market, it was lifted out by the ears and transferred to the purchaser’s cart. Sometimes a farmer cradled the small pig in his arms like a baby. There was much lamenting as the little fellow was parted from his comrades.

  When I got back to Carthy Dennehy’s public house my father and the men, having downed a few drinks, were in good order. Men drank a whiskey first and then a pint of stout. Some drank the pint first and the whiskey followed as a chaser. On a very cold morning I heard it said older men called for two whiskeys, drank one and poured the other into their boots to warm their feet. In a while’s time my father tore himself away from the company and we went to get the messages for my mother. When we got back to the courthouse railing the pony was glad to see us. She gave a neigh of welcome. We stood into the rail and she hurried home.

  When we sat down to our meal, all the talk was about the market. My mother was pleased enough with the price my father got for the pig. He fished it out of his pocket and gave it to her and I knew it would find its way into the box with the sliding top. She wanted to hear any news we brought. Did we see anyone she knew? She was particularly interested to hear if we had spoken to any of her relations. I had news for her about the prices young bonamhs were making as I knew
by next market day we would have space in our pigs’ house for two new occupants. Then the big question was decided: the day was named for killing the pig we had kept.

  When that day came, water was being boiled from an early hour. A wine barrel, not the one we used for spraying the potatoes, was cleaned out, and when the time came this was more than half-filled with scalding water. The pig butcher came, and two neighbours to help my father hold down the pig. The kitchen table was brought out in the yard and placed so that it was on a slight incline. A small noose was put at the end of a rope and the men opening the pig house door slipped the noose into the pig’s mouth and tightened it over his upper jaw. He was led out to the yard, protesting loudly, and with a quick movement the men knocked him on the flat of his back on the table, his head where the table was lowest, and with a tight grip on his four legs they held him down. Pat Murrell, our next door neighbour, a pig butcher with a reputation of being quick to dispatch, had his coat off and his sleeves folded above his elbows. He took the gleaming butcher’s knife so sharp it would nearly split a hair, and shaved the bristles along the pig’s throat. He made a long lengthwise cut in the throat and when the flesh parted for a second it remained as clean as if he had cut a piece of cheese. Then the blood oozed out in little bubbles. My mother and small sister ran East the Wire to be out of earshot of the bloodcurdling squeals of the pig. With a swift movement Pat plunged the knife through the gash and his arm followed it to the pig’s heart. The blood rushed out, the pig’s voice gurgling through it, and into a large pan which I held. I was terrified to have to do it, but I wasn’t prepared to appear cowardly before the neighbouring men. The pig’s body was eased down the inclined table until his head hung over the edge. The butcher, his arm red like Crobh Dearg the pagan priest at ‘the city’, shouted instructions to the men to sway the body backwards and forwards and to keep moving the legs to get out all the blood. In the end the big pan was nearly full of red blood, with the last trickle of a slightly darker colour.

  The barrel of scalding water was near the table and the pig was eased head first into it and worked up and down by the hind legs. Then he was pulled out and the other end was let slide into the barrel. When the boiling water had done its job of softening the bristly hair the carcass was hauled on to the table and the butcher began to shave the hairs from the skin. The men got what sharp knives were in the kitchen to help and I lent a hand myself.

  When the carcass was clean the butcher removed the cloven hoof coverings from the feet, and inserted a piece of rope under the tendons of the pig’s hind legs to hang him from a short ladder. There was a tub under the head, which had a spud in its mouth. Now with the knife the butcher cut the pig open from his tail to his throat and all his insides slid down into the tub. The liver and heart were removed and given to my mother and I got the bladder. It was like a small balloon with little nodules of fat stuck to the outside. I squeezed it and a squirt of urine shot out. I filled it with water and washed it well and put it in the shoulder of the flue over the fire. When it was dry I would blow it up, tie a cord at the neck and invite the neighbouring lads for a game of football.

  At nightfall the ladder was brought into the kitchen. The carcass was too valuable to be left outside for wild dogs to feast on. When the lamp was lit the light fell on the hanging animal. As I sat at the fire I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was sad and comical with his front held open by three sally rods and his mouth held open with a spud. If you looked at him through half-closed eyes he could be laughing or crying. Holy God! I thought what he had suffered to bring us food for the entire winter. My mother, knowing the softie I was, suspected that I would be crying myself next. She gave me a cup of hot milk and walked me up the stairs to bed. ‘That’s the way the world is,’ she said, ‘and animals were put into it for our use and benefit.’ The excitement of the day kept me awake for a long time and when I went to sleep I dreamt that it was I who was killed instead of the pig. I saw my naked body hanging from the ladder with a spud in my mouth. I saw the spud falling out of my mouth and my soul coming after it and floating up through the clouds. Heaven was full of pigs. Some had wings and a very fat pig looked like Singleton, the bridge builder. He was driving a car with a canvas roof. I couldn’t mistake him. The same fat face under a broad-rimmed hat. He wore spectacles and had a gold ring in his nose.

  Next morning the pig’s intestines were taken in a tin bath to the river. I helped my mother to wash them; sometimes a neighbour’s wife or daughter would also lend a hand. The running water was let flow through what seemed like miles of pig’s gut and the gut was turned inside out so that it was thoroughly cleaned. The intestines were cut into lengths of from sixteen to eighteen inches, placed in the bath and brought home. where a busy day lay ahead for my mother and her helpers. Oatenmeal, milk, onions with seasoning of pepper, salt and spice were added to the pig’s blood in the dish which I had held the day before. There was a big pot of boiling water over the fire. My mother took an eighteen-inch-long piece of intestine and tied one end with bageen thread. This was the thread which was saved when empty flour bags were opened out to make bed sheets and even articles of women’s wear. Holding the other end of the gut open she spooned the mixture into it, and putting the spoon aside she squeezed the contents down along the intestine. When the length of gut was over three-quarters full – room was left for the pudding to expand – she tied the two ends together so that she had in her hand what looked like a small, pumped-up bicycle tube. Two or maybe three sticks were stretched over the mouth of the pot, and as my mother completed the filling of a pudding she put it in over the stick so that it hung down into the boiling water where it began to cook. She kept turning the wheels of pudding on the sticks to let the boiling water get to all of them and each one got the stab of a fork to let the air out.

  When the job was ended the kitchen was full of puddings. We didn’t eat them all ourselves. When God smiled on you you shared with your neighbour. It was my job to go to each neighbouring house with a dinner plate on which was a half circle of pudding and a pork steak. People were delighted to receive the gift and they would give the same to us and maybe more when God smiled on them.

  When night time came there were two lamps lighting in our kitchen for the salting of the pig. The neighbouring farmer, Pat Murrell, who had killed the pig, and Daniel Moynihan came. The carcass was cut into flitches and the kitchen table was placed in the middle of the floor. My father nailed a board around three sides of it to keep the salt from falling on the floor. Two and a half stone of salt was bought that day and a little saltpetre was added to it. Each man took a flitch of meat and rubbed the salt well into it, into the skin as well as the flesh. Pockets were made in the flesh and salt stuffed in them as well as deep into the piece of meat that held a bone. The big wine barrel was placed at the bottom of the kitchen and the flitches of salted meat and the head now cut in half were firmly packed into it. When the last piece went in more salt was shaken on the meat and a large flat stone placed on top. A cloth was put over the mouth of the barrel and nine days later my father would look to see if the pickle was rising. If this liquid kept coming up until all the meat was covered the curing was a success.

  In three weeks the flitches would be taken out and put hanging from the joists. They would drip for a day or two and we children avoided walking under them. It was said that if a drop fell on our heads we would go bald. But the curing process continued, with the smoke from the fire helping to mature the bacon. When our principal meal was being prepared all my mother had to do was reach for a hanging flitch and cut off what bacon she wanted for the pot, and while there were potatoes in the pit and York cabbage or turnips in the garden no one in our house went hungry.

  RECEIVING

  When the men came at night they picked a place for their chairs so as not to be sitting under a flitch of dripping bacon. Not that a drop of brine on their heads would make any difference for they all wore hats and caps. The men never removed their headgear except when g
oing to bed or at Mass. Indeed it was on seeing the men bareheaded in the chapel that I discovered to my surprise that many of them had not a rib of hair between them and the Almighty. White-skinned domes topped weatherbeaten faces, faces that looked very different when I saw them again with their hats on that night. Two other places I saw the men bareheaded were in the wake room, when they knelt beside the bed to pray, and at the graveside, but as soon as ever the priest had said the final prayer, a decade of the rosary, the hats and caps were on again.

  The men wore their working clothes when they came rambling to our house at night. This attire was once their Sunday best. The shirt was of flannel, something like an army greyback. There was a brass stud in front and a buttonhole at the back of the collar band to take another stud. Over the shirt on Sundays they wore a starched front with a butterfly collar attached. It was secured at the back and front of the shirt band with studs and was just large enough to cover the upper chest inside the waistcoat. With a necktie attached and the body coat on, it looked like a full shirt. It was as stiff as a board with starch and almost shone in its gleaming whiteness. With a navy suit, a velour hat and polished boots the wearer looked the picture of respectability going to the chapel on Sunday. But it was more the attire of the older men, and some of them as well sported a cutaway or swallow-tailed coat with two large buttons at the back. On St Patrick’s Day a large spray of shamrock hung from the coat lapel and on Palm Sunday there was a sprig of palm in the hat.