by Eamon Kelly
When it came to geography, in our first year with the master, he got us to draw a map of the place where we lived showing the house and the fields around it. My map was small, one field, but that was divided into the potato garden, onion and cabbage patch and pasture for the cow and the pony. We were to add in as an extension of our own map the main road, byroads, streams, rivers and any landmarks. There was a gallán stone standing on a hillock like a mighty grave not far from our house. We suspected that under the great mound of earth and with the gallán stone to mark his resting place, a king or giant of old was taking his long last sleep. The road to school and beyond it to the town we drew, and showed the course of the river Flesk as it wound its way to the lakes of Killarney. We put in the range of mountains which stood on guard over our territory and named them from the Paps to the MacGillicuddy Reeks. If we craned our necks in the schoolyard we could see Carrauntoohil, the highest peak. From our home-made map the master took us to the map on the wall where we learned about Kerry, then about Ireland and a little about the globe. Having started at home and learned about our own surroundings gave us a better understanding of the wider world.
Mangerton Mountain we could see by standing up in the classroom. Mangerton was volcanic maybe a million years ago, the master told us. The crater can still be seen up at the top. It is now a bottomless lake known as the Devil’s Punch Bowl. The master laughed as he told us the tall story, often related by the jarveys and boatmen to the tourists, about the man who fell into the Punch Bowl and came out in Australia. Later in a higher class when we came to study Mo Scéal Féin (My Story) by an tAthair Peadar Ó Laoghaire, we read of a description of a visit to the top of Mangerton which the priest had undertaken as a young student. From up there he could see north to the Shannon, east to Tipperary, south to Bantry Bay and west to the mighty Atlantic pounding on the coast of Kerry. The master was full of admiration for the young student who set out on that trip and we marvelled at the wonders he saw.
Going home that evening we sat on a mossy bank and looking up at the great mountain we said to ourselves why shouldn’t we climb it. The idea took root and there and then we made up our minds that we would climb it tomorrow. We would meet at Mac’s arch and go over Gortacoosh and up by the shores of Lough Guitane to the foot of Mangerton. We were not sure if we should tell our parents. Maybe we should say that we were going playing football. I went to bed early that night and spent a long time awake, thinking of what I would see from the top of Mangerton. What would our house look like from away up there? Maybe I would not be able to see it with all the trees and bushes that were growing up around the place. I went to sleep at last and dreamt that I was walking like a mighty man and stepping from Mangerton to Ceapach, then to Crohane and Stoompa and finally standing with a foot on each of the twin Paps Mountains. From that position I bent down and washed my face in Doocorrig Lake. It was the sound of the water trickling through my giant fingers and falling into the lake that woke me up. I listened in the darkness and heard the rainwater gurgling from the eaves into the downpipe and the raindrops falling on the roof.
It rained all the next day and the day after. In time, other things happened to claim our attention.
Two Christian Brothers came to the school one day and talked about their order, their work in foreign lands and the importance of devoting one’s life to God. They made the life of holiness, teaching, caring for the sick and travelling abroad very appealing and asked us to join the order. So as not to disappoint the master, who was a very religious man, I was tempted to join up. When they asked us again and with more fervour this time, I was carried away and put up my hand. The master with a smile on his face and a whisper of ‘good man’ wrote my name and address and gave it to one of the brothers. He took me out into the hallway and asked me all about myself. My age. Was I a good scholar at school? Did I like games? Did I go to the sacraments regularly and what did my father do? He put his hand on my head and said, ‘Give yourself to God!’
Then I thought of what my father would say. I had been helping him in the workshop and he often said he was waiting for the time when I would be confirmed and leave school to become his apprentice. He deserved my help as much as God and the black people of Rhodesia. I kept to myself on the way home from school. I didn’t know whether the boys thought me very brave or a right ould cod for doing what I did. One boy took out his handkerchief and folded it into a narrow band and put it around his neck to look like a Roman collar. ‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned!’ he mocked. I was encouraged when his comrades said, ‘Stop that, Johneen!’
When I reached home I didn’t go into the workshop, which was the first thing I always did. Instead I went into the kitchen and told my mother that I was joining the Brothers. In a way she was sort of pleased about it and was full of questions about where I was going, what the Brothers were like and what the Brother said who questioned me in the hall. ‘I must pray,’ she said, ‘and we must all pray and ask if your decision is the right one and if God wants you.’
We went out together to the workshop and she told my father. He was furious. I’ll never forget the look he gave me. He threw a tantrum. He kicked things around in his anger. My mother was consoling him and saying what good I’d be doing in the world. ‘He’ll be praying for you, Ned!’ she told my father. ‘He’ll be praying for you and praying for all of us.’ ‘Praying won’t bore holes in oak, ma’am,’ he thundered, as he sank the axe in the chopping block and rived it in two. At the rosary that night I never mentioned a word to God about being a Christian Brother and my mother never asked Him to enlighten me in my decision. She knew if she brought up the subject even at prayers my father would get up off his knees and go out and commune with the stars, something which he did to avoid fighting with my mother in front of us. Some time later a letter came from the monastery saying that I was accepted as a postulant in the order. My mother showed it to me, but by now my mind had changed. ‘I think I’ll be a carpenter,’ I told her. She wrote back to say that I had no vocation.
The Gaelic League in Killarney proposed holding a feis in the old cricket field. Now that the English had gone, men in whites no longer played there. The feis, or festival, celebrating the Irish language, was held in the month of June. We went in the pony and trap. The master had made up a conversation piece in Irish, a comhrá beirte, for my brother and myself. We were to act the parts of two old farmers selling a pretend cow at a fair. As well as the comhrá beirte section there were short plays and sketches, school choirs, storytelling for adults and schoolchildren, stepdancing and solo traditional singing for young and old. Platforms were erected here and there throughout the field so that the audience moved about from competition to competition. Lorries were driven in and with one side butt left down they took the place of platforms.
I was interested in seeing boys and girls of my own age in school plays. One of these was being acted out on the back of a lorry. Pieces of cardboard had fireplaces, doors and windows drawn on them with coloured chalk and placed on the lorry to give the effect of a kitchen scene with the barest essentials in furniture. The first child to enter the stage set stood inside the door and talked back to the one coming in after him. They stood there arguing their case. As each extra actor entered they moved a little bit to make room and the entire play went ahead as they stood in a bunch inside the door. Fireplace, window, chairs and table were all ignored. The man of the roads character wore a white wig and a red beard. His back was bent; he was a martyr to rheumatism. A girl played the grandfather and a boy his wife. They were dressed suitably for the parts but this did not conceal their gender. Their teacher sat on the hood of the lorry prompting them and was overcome with paroxysms of laughter at every funny thing they said. The pupils must have come from an Irish-speaking district for their language was clear and beautifully spoken and because of that the judges had no hesitation in giving them full marks.
My brother and I did fairly well with our comhrá beirte but spent too much time trying to co
ntrol an imaginary, recalcitrant cow and lost marks. There was a section for music and this and the school choirs drew the biggest audience. There was an interest too in the child storytellers and a greater interest in the adult exponents of the art. One old man told the story of Bithiúnach Mór Gleann Fleisce (The Great Rogue of Glenflesk) and those who could follow what he was saying knocked a tremendous kick out of it because Glenflesk was our parish. The Glenflesk rogue had a school for training young rogues and the storyteller said that many of these students emigrated afterwards and wound up as the biggest gangsters in America.
The official opening was not at the outset of the feis but well into the proceedings, when a full crowd had assembled. It wouldn’t do to have a prominent person giving the óráid na feise (feis oration) to the few people who would arrive on time. The man who opened our feis was a duine mór le rá, a very important person, one of the foremost politicians of the day. There was a great surge forward when he appeared on the platform, such was the esteem in which he was held by most of the people. He spoke only in Irish in a dreary, matter-of-fact tone. The day was very hot and as he went on and on the older women, who had rushed to the fore because of their admiration for him, were now melting with the heat in the tightly packed crowd. They were easing their heavy shawls back on their shoulders to get some air. At first among themselves they had been full of praise for the speaker and mentioned in tones of adulation that it wasn’t Irish alone he could speak but French and German. The great man droned on and as the women were being overcome with the heat and unable to get out and not understanding one word of what he said their interest waned. One old lady, shifting from foot to foot, the sweat running down her face and glistening in the little hollow below her throat, remarked in a voice of pure desperation, ‘Oh God, will he ever stop the cadaráling!’ She knew at least one word in Irish, which meant meaningless meandering. Suddenly the oration was at an end; the people parted, letting the air circulate, and the women, feeling cooler, went off to get themselves some refreshment. The same as at ‘the city’ or a sports meeting, there was lemonade for sale. This on a hot day was in great demand, as were the fat biscuits which went with it.
In one part of the field there was a tug-of-war between schools to give those not too proficient in the language a chance to show their talents. There was high jumping too and a bag race and spoon race. I was on the tug-of-war team from our school and so was Paddy Furnane. Paddy had his head down and with his heel he was making an impression in the ground that he could dig into while straining on the rope. Two priests, one with an umbrella – some priests carried umbrellas at all times – were walking along deeply engaged in conversation and not watching where they were going. One of them thrust his patent leathered foot under Paddy’s heel as it was coming down and got the full force of the steel tip on his toe cap. The priest growled with pain and lifted the injured foot, hopping on the other one. He was red-haired, a sign of temper, and seeing Paddy and associating him with his agony he upped with the umbrella and landed Paddy the father and mother of an ecclesiastical clout on top of the head and floored him. Paddy got up, staggered around holding his head and then made a beeline for the gate of the cricket field, leaving us to pull the tug-of-war without him. We were beaten badly. The proceedings were closed by a pipers’ band playing for a while and then marching out the gate. We all followed them.
A STRONG AND PERFECT CHRISTIAN
The one time while I was at the master’s side of the partition when he became very angry was when we were studying for confirmation. The religious doctrine we had to learn was much harder than that for holy communion. Reams of the catechism had to be got off by heart. Our not too supple tongues had to get around words like consanguinity. ‘Big rocks of words,’ our elders used to say, ‘that you wouldn’t break in a county council stone crusher!’
QWhat else is forbidden by the sixth commandment?
AAll lascivious looks and touches, idleness and bad company; all excesses of eating and drinking and whatever may tend to inflame the passions.
God help us! All we ever saw in flames was a furze bush! My mother held the book for me and listened to my answers, and was as liable to lose her temper as the master if I got them wrong. I didn’t mind her getting mad with me and anyway she didn’t slap as the master did. There was no explanation from the master or my mother as to what the words we didn’t understand meant. I had only to guess what was implied by, ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.’
The men had a story in our rambling house when they heard me mention that commandment. It seems a young lad who had been away for a long time with his uncle in county Limerick missed out on the sacrament of confirmation. When the lack was discovered he was almost twenty and even though of a wild and obstreperous nature he was sent back to school where he sat with boys nearly half his age learning his catechism. On the appointed day the bishop came to the church to confirm the children. He walked down the aisle not yet in his full canonicals and questioned a class as they sat, school by school, in the body of the church. The bishop couldn’t help noticing a grown man sitting in the middle of the children and he consulted with the parish priest who was at his side. In whispered tones he was told of the circumstances. The bishop commenced to question the young man and he gave a good enough account of himself until he was asked what was forbidden by the ninth commandment. ‘Thou shalt not converse with thy neighbour’s wife,’ he said. The bishop smiled and gave the correct answer. And then in an effort to make the meaning plain he said, ‘Would it be correct for you to fall in love with your neighbour’s wife?’ ‘Why should I do a thing like that, my lord,’ the young man said, ‘and the country full of young lovely girls!’
Well, our day came to go under the bishop’s hand. The priest came to the school, examined us and gave each one of us a ticket. We were seated school by school in the lofty cathedral, the teacher responsible for the tuition standing or kneeling with each group. Surpliced priests walked among us asking questions here and there. Then the bishop came out of the sacristy followed by two young priests. They remained behind the altar rails, one of them holding the bishop’s mitre and the other his crozier. The bishop had a surplice over a red soutane and a big cross on a gold chain hung from his neck. When he came nearer we saw the huge ring with a red diamond bulging from it on his right hand; the sign, we were told, of his authority. The bishop paused and asked a few questions of a school and if the answering was good he passed on to the next class. But when he came to a school where the answering was indifferent he stayed and questioned them thoroughly and then spoke to the parish priest, as if voicing his disappointment at the quality of the religious instruction. Small as we were, we had pity for that school’s master standing there as red as a turkeycock.
I thought the bishop was going to pass by our school but no, he paused and looked straight at me. I began to shake, I was so nervous. He asked a question but it was the boy beside me who answered it. He moved on. The question was about perjury. Perjury was a reserved sin in our diocese. Maybe that was why I got tongue-tied. A while earlier I had been before the court as a witness in a lawsuit between two neighbours over a right of way. One party had erected a gate in the passageway to which the other party objected. I used to help drive the objector’s cattle and said in court that the gate was always closed against us, which wasn’t exactly true. There were a few, very few times when it was open, but I didn’t tell the court that because it would weaken my party’s case. I would have been as well off telling the truth because we lost the lawsuit and the gate is still there.
How well now the bishop wanted to ask me about perjury. My heart missed a beat. I hadn’t confessed that transgression and I was going to receive the sacrament of confirmation with my soul in a state of sin. A small consolation came to comfort me. I remembered the judge had said that day in court that I was too young to be sworn in. ‘Where will you go, my boy,’ the judge asked me, ‘if you tell a lie?’ ‘To hell, my lord,’ I told him. I was beco
ming easier in my mind now because I couldn’t have committed perjury if I wasn’t sworn in. It was just a lie. Bad enough, God knows, but I would make an act of contrition with a firm purpose to sum up enough courage to tell the priest about it the next time I went to confession. I said an act of contrition then and I put my whole heart into it.
The candles were lit on the altar, the choir sang and the priests helped the bishop to finish his vesting. The mitre was given to him, he took it in both hands, looked into it and put it on his head. Then he put his hand round to make sure that the two broad ribbons that fell from the mitre hadn’t gone down inside his chasuble. He took the crozier in his left hand, drew himself up rooster-like to his full height and stood as still as eternity for a moment in all his finery; it was an impressive sight. If I ever became a priest I’d want to end up as a bishop.
We went to the altar rails school by school and knelt down. Almost everyone had new clothes. My suit was navy blue and made by Con the tailor. The bishop approached along the line, preceded by a priest holding a vessel with holy oils or chrism into which the bishop dipped the thumb of his right hand. He made the Sign of the Cross on my forehead. Holding his hand over me he pronounced the words of the sacrament and gave me a light slap with his open palm on the cheek. I looked up at him and he eyed me back. I didn’t flinch. My mother always told me to look the world in the eye. ‘Make no excuses for yourself,’ she said. ‘You are as good as anyone else.’ Words which echoed what the master made us learn by heart from Ó Cadhlaigh’s ‘Slighe an Eolais’ (The way of knowledge):
