Category Archives: Memoir

Memoir

BOYS DON’T CRY

I’d been running, out of puff, trying to keep up with the bigger boys. At four, I was knee high to the proverbial grasshopper, lost among the rough and the rushes. The game of tig followed a familiar well worn path behind Mickey Gallagher’s shop at the top of the town.
The stone buildings at the rear of the shop provided a stage for the older girls who, led by Maureen Gallagher, hosted dramatic reenactments of past glories. The older boys, embarrassed by requests to be cast in the leading romantic role, camouflaged all feelings with a flush of red faced joy as we burned around the top field.
Snake like, we chased one another, breaking occasionally in an attempt to avoid being tagged. I was lost in the chaotic joy of having evaded capture when I fell. My short-trousered leg bent awkwardly as my left knee came down hard on a rock hidden in the long grass. My older brother came to my rescue, carrying me shoulder high from the trenches. The game continued in no man’s land while I trundled off home in a daze.
 

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Memoir

CONNECTED

I only ever answered one phone call in the 20 years my parents ran the Post Office in Carrick. I ran into the switchboard, connected and yelled “Do you not know what day it is?” and unplugged. In my defence it was Christmas Day and I felt my parents deserved at least one day off, one day without the constant ringing interruption.
Back then, the phone exchange was still analog and the main switchboard, which was situated in our front room, looked exactly like you might remember from an old black and white movie. It resembled an ‘upright piano’ which played just one song. It hosted a panel of black metal flaps, each hiding a number behind it, like some old game show. Each resident of Carrick, who was lucky enough to have a phone back then, was represented on this panel. The numbers were allocated in numerical order. The Post Office was Carrick 1, the Garda barracks was Carrick 2, my grandfather JW, being the first resident to have a phone was Carrick 3, and so on. The old black phone handsets hand handles which you wound hard to dial the exchange.

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Memoir

HOME

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Since my Dad died, I’ve questioned where home now lies. At his funeral, a childhood friend asked, now that both my parents were gone, would I have anything to return to? It made me wonder if home exist only in our hearts and minds? Is the world of formative years, the atlas of my dreams, my real home? Is it a place that I will always yearn for but can never return to? Continue reading HOME →

Memoir

GRANDA

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My grandfather Jim William Cunningham, known as J.W., was always an old man to me. On visits to our home, he’d sit tapping his walking stick on the lino floor while talking with my Dad about the events of the day. There was little engagement with us kids. We didn’t sit on his lap or play with his glasses, which sat in a wonky gaze across his nose. We didn’t try on his Fedora style hat, a throwback to another era. If he wanted our attention as we played on the floor, he’d tap us with his stick. “Go tell your mammy to make a cuppa tea”. He wasn’t a gruff man by any means. Like many of his generation he adhered to the 15th century proverb that ‘children were not to be heard’. Continue reading GRANDA →

Memoir

2018 – A SOBER YEAR

2018 was a year full of joy and sadness in our home.
It was the year my beautiful daughter Morna married Mike Feeney, the first of our children to wed. It was a wonderful intimate occasion where both family and friends travelled from all over to the beautiful country house hotel at Castlegrove to celebrate with us and make it the highlight of our year.

It was also the year my dear Dad left us to be by our Mum’s side once again. Dad was 87 and in seemingly good health entering 2018. The news that he had cancer was totally unexpected, but when he died peacefully in Killybegs community hospital just three weeks after he had been diagnosed, it was a huge shock and the low point of our year.

Both occasions drew a soft tear.
The tears at the wedding were of great joy, salted with the sadness of Dad’s empty seat. It was a moment of such great pride, one of those moments in our lives we crave to share with our parents. “Look Mum and Dad” hoping for the recognition of a child doing well.

The tears at his funeral were of real sadness and loss. I’d spent every other weekend of the last five years in his company. This was not out of duty but of a true want to be in his company of the man I looked up to and loved, and we loved and treasured every moment. We still have the house in Carrick that our family had a happy upbringing in, but I’ve come to realise that when your parents have both passed, a house, sadly, is no longer a home.

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Memoir

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD

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It was March 7th when Dad first heard his dire prognosis. Pancreatic cancer was the most likely culprit. Dr. Muhamed explained the options, or lack of. A biopsy to confirm the diagnosis, followed by some mild chemo. The Oncologist, on his rounds the following Tuesday, would advise further. Up to this point Dad had struggled to understand all that was being said. Being deaf in one ear, caused by an infection in his youth, and not being used to the various colourful accents of the medical staff, meant that either my sister Margaret or I had to ‘translate’ the grim news now being relayed.
Dad, voice breaking, whispered in a solemn tone of acceptance. Dr Muhamed turned and lent in, asking Dad to repeat what he’d said.  “I don’t want a biopsy” he repeated. Continue reading HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD →

Memoir

TWO MINUTE WARNING

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The car lay upside down, off the road at a notorious corner between Largy and Fintra. I was lying inside, on the roof, looking out the back window. I could see the moonlight over the bay through the rushes. I was totally disorientated. One moment we were driving along, excitedly chatting nonsense as usual, then, suddenly, there was dark and total silence.
The car was heading for the ditch on the right. Seamus managed to pull back and then we veered to the left, then back to the right again. I had a flashback of a day out when Frank Boyle had brought Seamus and I to the bumping cars in Bundoran. It seemed, slow motion like, to take ages before we hit and soared, tumbling a few times before coming to a rest. No one spoke. Continue reading TWO MINUTE WARNING →

Memoir

THE HOLY TRINITY

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“In the name of the Father, the Son and the holy Spirit, Amen” Fr. McDyer’s large hands moved slowly, sloth-like, in the familiar pattern of the sign of the cross. He sat at the top of the room, dressed in traditional black. His eyes closed, long disconnected from those around him. “In ainm an Athar agus an Mhic agus an Spioraid Naoimh.” The forty minute period was spent teaching a class of uninterested seventeen year old teenagers how to bless themselves, over and over again. Fr. Mc Dyer was filling in for Fr. Sweeney for our only religion class of the week. Fr. Sweeney was off tending to his flock of sheep, literally.
It was 1979 and Ireland was gearing itself up for Pope John Paul II’s visit later in the year. The country was at fever pitch. Continue reading THE HOLY TRINITY →

Memoir

TROUBLES

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“You find this bloody funny, mate?” he asked menacingly, with a gun pointed at my head.
I had been chatting with two young Cork girls who were travelling to Donegal for the first time. They were worried about the journey through the north. I, being a gentleman, confirmed all their fears. It was likely that we would be stopped, questioned at gunpoint and all aboard would be strip searched. It seemed like fun at the time to tease them and see the anxiety in their faces as we approached the border. It was 1981 and I was travelling on the express bus from Dublin to Letterkenny. Continue reading TROUBLES →