by Eamon Kelly
‘By the way he doesn’t remember!’ she laughed. ‘Maybe you were too far gone guzzling Ballyvourney poteen to remember anything.’
‘I had a few jorums all right,’ Old Scanlon admitted. ‘But where’s the harm in that. It’s only one night in a man’s life. My match was a love match, so I had something to celebrate.’
There was talk then of matchmaking. The men said it was a good system and only for it many would go unmarried. It was a way of bringing people together, especially shy people, and it made sure that the dowry which enabled the groom’s sister to marry another farmer was paid. Often the same dowry went the rounds of the parish. Even though those getting married did not know each other until they were brought together some weeks before, they all seemed to get on very well. The men could only think of one case out of all those who had matches made for them which broke down. The woman returned to her own people the morning after the wedding and if the groom shook gold under feet she wouldn’t go back to him. Two lives were ruined for neither could marry again. The fortune she paid was never given back to her, and the men from the two sides belted one another black and blue with ashplants over it every fair day.
In the conversation we heard of a man who was going with a farmer’s daughter. They were always together at house dances. The young girl had no brothers and her elder sister, no oil painting, was to get the farm. When Shrovetime came round an account of a match was sent to the elder sister by the young man’s parents. The match went ahead and he married the elder sister and lived in the same house with the two women until the young girl went away to America.
‘The land he loved and not the woman,’ Old Scanlon remarked. ‘It was often a man with a big farm and an unpresentable daughter got as fine a man as was going for a son-in-law. The craze for land is great. It is indeed!’
‘Men and women,’ he continued, ‘having spent ten years in America working hard, came back with dowries in their pockets and were in great demand when Shrovetime matches were being made. They settled into new homes with partners they barely knew. With their Yankee clothes and New York accents they were conspicuous for a while, but in a few years, except for the gleam of gold in their teeth, you wouldn’t know them from those who never went away.’
Jude had heard all that was said and when I got a chance afterwards I put forward the idea of strawing the wedding on the Knob the following Tuesday night. She was excited about the notion and there and then we decided to get a crowd together to make up a group of strawboys. Six would be enough; three boys and three girls, as many as would make up a set dance. Some evenings before, we came together and with wisps of straw made ropes to put around our lower legs like army puttees. We fashioned bands of straw to place about the waist and shoulders and plaited shorter lengths to decorate out caps. We, the men, turned our coats inside out and the girls, borrowing their fathers’ or their brothers’ coats did the same thing. With the straw leggings on and our bodies festooned in straw and our faces covered with pieces of old lace curtain, we defied anyone to recognise us. The kick we got out of helping each other to dress and seeing the end effect was tremendous.
We marched together to the house on the Knob, and hung around outside for a while listening to the music and the jollity from within. Then, summing up courage, our captain knocked on the door and chanted:
Strawboys on the threshold,
Strawboys at the door.
Keep a place for strawboys
On the dancing floor.
We wish the bride and groom
The very best of cheer.
May they have a son or daughter
’Ere the end of the year!
The bride’s father, old Galvin, came forward and made room for us in the middle of the kitchen floor. The men accepted a bowl of porter from a large bucket. There was a tint of wine for the ladies. It was my first time tasting strong drink. I kept my confirmation pledge until that instant. When the porter touched my tongue I nearly gasped at the sourness of the mixture. It was as bitter as the gall which was given to Our Lord on the cross. The second sup tasted a little better and I finished the bowl in time with the other men. Then we lined out for a set dance. The captain spoke to the musicians and called for a polka set. We tapped the floor in unison, waiting for the opening note in the music. When it came we started out around the house. Early in the first figure one couple danced to the centre while all the others stood by. Guests at the wedding moved forward and playfully tried to remove the disguises from our faces. We fought them off and I had a hard job protecting Jude from the inquisitive advances of a large man with hands as big as a hayfork. Our costumes and disguises were much admired as we heeled and toed to the lively music. There were cheers and much applause at the antics of some of the dancers. At the end of the last figure we all wheeled together, our arms encompassing each other in a tight bunch in the middle of the floor. We swung until the house and people swung with us and when we came to a halt our heads were still spinning.
‘A song! a song!’ the crowd demanded and the captain called on me to sing ‘My Mary of Loughrea’. I held on to the frame of the room door to steady myself and get my breath back and then I gave what I considered was a good blast:
The youths will miss you from the dance
On Sunday evenings fair.
The grass will miss your fairy steps
To wash the dews away,
But I will miss you most of all
My Mary of Loughrea!
It was an emigration song and on the last line, which was always spoken, Jude caught and squeezed my hand.
‘I have something to say to you tonight,’ she said. ‘Not now.’ I had bent eagerly towards her. ‘Later on.’
We said goodbye to the bride and groom and wished them luck. Our captain thanked them for having received us. On our way out there was another group of strawboys. They were admitted and as we crossed the yard a third group arrived. We waited until the second group came out, only to find that the third batch was refused admission. The people of the house, I am sure, thought they had enough of a good thing for one night.
This last bunch proved to be of a very unruly element and cut up rough, shouting, name calling and casting aspersions on the family. They lifted loose stones from the fence and began throwing them on the corrugated iron roof. The din was ear-splitting and drowned out the music. The door opened suddenly and young men from the wedding party rushed out. They waded into the strawboys and there was the father and mother of a fight, lit only by a watery moon. We and the second group made ourselves scarce as we didn’t want to be identified with a pack of blackguards. As we legged for home, we could hear those who were refused admission taking to their heels as well. I couldn’t help thinking that whichever rogue strawboy met up with the large guest with the hands as big as a hay fork must have come in for a fair hammering.
We got rid of the straw at the next hayshed, turned our coats the right way back and put the lace masks in our pockets. We walked to the oak tree where Jude and I always rested and talked and laughed and courted and kissed. Many were the outlandish things we talked about. I told her about the strange dream I had the night we crossed the stepping stones. There was a silence and a turning away of her head as if she doubted my sanity. We talked of mundane things too like would it rain tomorrow? No. It would be fine. There was no cap of clouds this evening on the twin mountains. The breasts of Dana were clear and plain to be seen. Of course I didn’t dare call them that, but I called her Dana, my goddess of the mountain. She laughed, and said I was turning into a prime eejet.
‘And don’t be associating me with a mountain, two mountains in fact!’ she said, pushing me away from her playfully.
We walked the last steps to her father’s house. She went inside the small wicket gate and closed it, and with the gate between us she said, ‘You remember me mentioning that I had something to say to you tonight?’ I waited. The dog barked.
‘I won’t be seeing you again. I am going to England tomorrow.’<
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A lump rose in my throat and I couldn’t speak. Tonight had been so wonderful. The dressing up, the music, the dance, and Jude and I had been so happy together. The dog barked again. She became uneasy.
‘My sister Mary is nursing in England,’ she said, ‘and I am going over to her. When I am gone, it’ll be out of sight out of mind. You’ll find someone else.’
I couldn’t ever forgive her for saying that. The bottom had fallen out of whatever little world was mine. Her hand was resting on the gate. I placed mine on it and caressed it for a second but no words came and as I turned away she said, ‘Goodbye.’ I kicked the rambler stones before me on the roadway with temper and disappointment. In anguish I bit my lip and the blood tasted salty on my tongue. The suddenness of her announcement that she was going away really floored me, left me without words. But now phrases and sentences raced through my mind as I realised how bleak my life would be without her. I thought of how she squeezed my hand at the end of the emigration song I sang at the wedding. How sweet that memory was. How sweet was every memory of every moment since the first night I summed up enough courage to ask her to allow me to convey her home from Bryanie’s dance.
Even though it was early they were all in bed when I went in home. I went lightly up the stairs but my mother heard me and called me in to my parents’ room. She wanted to know how things went at the wedding. She and my father had strawed weddings when they were young. I told her that we were well received and that it was very enjoyable. She was interested in the names of people I saw at it. I thought it better then not to mention about the ferocious fight. Maybe tomorrow.
‘I’ll be home early every other night,’ I told her. ‘Jude is going to England.’
My mother must have noticed the sadness in my voice for she said, ‘You’ll get over it; there are as good fish in the sea as ever were caught. Don’t get so involved the next time. It will be many a long day before you settle down. You’ll soon forget this canter. Time is the great healer.’
But I would never forget and each disconnected sentence of my mother’s echoed in my head as I tried to sleep. I longed for this day to end. To entice the cloak of sleep around me I thought of the first time I laid eyes on Jude, and I recalled each time we met and walked and talked and sang and kissed, our backs to the old oak tree by her father’s house. Gradually her face faded and music took over. We were dancing, not at the wedding on the Knob, but on a dancing deck on a Sunday afternoon in Shronaboy. Lough Guitane lake was down below and Lough Léin was in the distance. The mountains were coloured brighter than I had ever seen them. Everything was bright and the light was dazzling. Jude and I were doing the solo piece in the second figure of the dance. It ended in a wheel. The music raced and so did we. I lifted Jude off her feet. She was so light and as we spun the dancers cheered us. There was laughter and loud clapping and then someone shouted, ‘the Priest!’
The parish priest drove his car on to the dancing deck, scattering the dancers in all directions. The girls screamed as we barely got out of the way of the Ford car with spurts of steam coming from its radiator. We hid behind the bushes while the fiddler, who was blind, played on. As the priest stepped on to the deck the car began to dance to the fiddler’s tune, the wheels in turn lifting off the platform, the horn crazily blowing. Waving his blackthorn stick the priest danced madly, wisps of straw circled his biretta, and he wore a stole of woven straw around his neck. The blackthorn blossomed in his hand and his vestments fluttered wildly in the breeze. We emerged from our hiding place and cheered him on as jets of steam coming from the radiator kept time to the music. Steam soon enveloped the car and the priest’s mad, laughing face got lost in the fog. Down below us Lough Guitane lake bubbled and boiled and fish put their heads out of the water and screamed, ‘We’re scalded!’ It must have been the end of the world for the Punch Bowl on Mangerton overflowed its brim and water cascaded down the side of the mountain engulfing us. As we fought our way through the flood I sat bolt upright in the bed, and ended the madness that was churning in my brain.
‘You’re to be pitied,’ my mother said, who had been wakened by my shouting. ‘Is there any other boy whose head is so crazed by nightmares? That Jude’ll be the death of you!’
GOODBYE TO THE HILLS
Concrete was the new building material and the construction of stone houses was becoming rarer as time went on. My father had gained much experience in the use of concrete while building bridges for Singleton after the Civil War, and the making of boat piers in Ballinskelligs and elsewhere. He built the first concrete house in our district. It was for the Galvins on the Knob. The new man, the ex-gaoler, had modern ideas and engaged my father to do the building. I helped to make the casing from the new floorboards to hold the poured concrete. When one layer of cement and gravel mix extending right around the house was set, we undid the bolts, raised and re-bolted the shutters and poured another layer. The house went up as quickly as if four masons were building it in stone. People came and watched the job in progress and the more cynical predicted that the walls wouldn’t keep out the damp nor the chimney pull the smoke. In a short time the house stood waiting to be capped with a roof and the dark windows like blind eyes waiting for glass lenses to be put in. When the last stroke had been struck my father went down the field to admire his handiwork. From the laying of the foundation to the turning of the key in the front door he had, with a little help from me, done it all himself. He had been mason, carpenter, joiner, slater, plasterer and glazier.
The family moved in and the cynics were proven half right. The walls were as dry as pepper but the chimney had not as good a draft as a masonry house. The ex-gaoler got over this drawback by installing a turf-burning range, and my father, by studying the work of the old masons, mastered the art of chimney making. In subsequent concrete houses he built, the draft was so great he used to remind the woman of the house with a half-smile to keep the small children back from the fire in case they’d be sucked out the chimney. He was now on his way to becoming, in the eyes of those who begrudged him his success, the concrete king.
We were engaged in the enlargement of an hotel in town, an all-concrete job. One day the proprietor asked me if I intended giving my entire life sawing boards and grouting concrete. I told him that I had every notion of improving myself and that I was taking a correspondence course with the Bennett College in England. He laughed at that. ‘Learning carpentry by post!’ he said. ‘And a fine technical school inside in your own town.’
The building and craftwork teacher at the technical school was the architect of the hotel enlargement project, and the next time he came to the site in his capacity as clerk of works, the proprietor introduced me to him and I said I would like to join his class when it opened at the technical school in September. Meeting this man, Micheál Ó Riada was his name, was the means of changing the direction of my footsteps and putting me on the first mile of a journey that would take me far from my own parish. He taught me and others the craft of wood and in time we passed examinations set by the technical branch of the Department of Education in carpentry, joinery and cabinet making. He taught the theory of building and how to draw and read plans; he taught solid geometry which holds the key to the angles met with in the making of a hip roof or a staircase.
Two nights a week, no matter how far from home my day job was, I cycled to the tech. We, Micheál Ó Riada’s students, soon discovered that his interests were not confined to the bench or the drawing board. His passion for music was great, though he didn’t like jazz; he thought it a very primitive sound. When his demonstration lesson was over and we were busy sawing and chiselling he put on classical records on an old gramophone in the classroom. Books and writers he talked about, and the theatre.
On the head of this I went one night to see Louis Dalton’s company at the Town Hall in Juno and the Paycock. It was my first time seeing actors on a stage and the humour, the agony and the tragedy of the play touched me to the quick. I laughed and cried and when I left
the hall I walked a mile through the dark, coming to terms with the plight of the Captain’s family. O’Casey’s characters kept me from sleep that night and I envied the actors their power to draw me away from the real world and almost unhinge my reason long after the curtain had come across. I told Ó Riada about my visit to the town hall. He was interested in my reaction to the play and after class that night he talked to us about O’Casey’s other plays. He mentioned the works of J. M. Synge and Lennox Robinson and advised us if ever we were in Dublin to go to the Abbey Theatre.
Ó Riada didn’t tell us, but we discovered that he had been interned in Ballykinlar Camp during the trouble. While there he made an illuminated book in Celtic strapwork design in which were the names of all the prisoners. This book is in the War of Independence section of the National Museum. His interests were even out of this world, and one night when there was an eclipse of the moon he populated the blackboard with planets in their courses, and illustrated how the eclipse came about which was taking place over our heads in the sky. The different timbers he taught us to cherish – from Honduras mahogany to the pale beech of our own woods. The furniture of the fields he called the deciduous parkland trees, and following his illustrations on the blackboard we grew to know these from their outline and the shape of their leaves. We could, after a time, readily recognise the timber that came from them by its colour and the grain of the wood. He could carve, inlay and French polish. He talked to us about nature, and when a class was over and the tools stored away we remained behind discussing with him whatever was the whim of the evening until the caretaker came along jangling his keys. By the time we got our bikes out of the shed he was in the street. He always dressed as if he were heading for some formal occasion. As we put on our bicycle clips we watched him for a moment as he set out in his soft hat and long brown overcoat, carrying a walking stick as he walked with a limp. Before we overtook him and waved ‘goodnight’ he had passed many shopfronts which he had designed himself. His Celtic strapwork was a feature of fascia boards in our town and as far away as Listowel.
