Speaking the Names

 

I went to a wake last night for a family friend, the last of her generation. It was well attended, as she was a much loved woman from a well respected family.

As is often the case, I met people I hadn’t seen since the last time I’d been at something like this. Among those around my own age or a bit younger, the refrain was familiar, we only ever seem to meet these days at wakes and funerals.

Many of the conversations circled the same ground, bereavements - parents, partners, siblings, and in the hardest cases of all, children.

At one point I found myself sitting beside a younger man. We got talking. He said he was from Creggan. I told him my mother had lived not far from there.

“What was her name?” he asked.

“McAnespie.”

He didn’t recognise it. Didn’t know anyone of the name. I explained that there’s no one left of the McAnespies in that area now.

My mother and her sisters, so I’ve always been told, were fine-looking girls, much sought after at the ceilidhs and fairs. All of them gone now and not a one left to carry the McAnespie name on as their one and only brother never married.

Later, speaking with another old friend, we talked about our deceased parents, about all the people who lived on the road where we were, about those who had died recently and those long gone. And it struck me then how these gatherings have become less about a single person and more about a kind of reckoning. A quiet taking stock. Who’s still here. Who isn’t.

There’s an idea that no one has really gone from this world until their name is spoken for the last time and that one day that will happen to most of us. So I won’t say every name that was spoken of on Saturday evening in the house beside the moss, in the townland of Drumkeeran, in the Grange of Shilvodan, but here are some of them in no particular order,

Pearlie Orr, Pat McKeown, Joe Byrne, Joe O’Neill, Martha Byrne, Seamus Byrne, Paddy Heffron, Susan Heffron, Sadie McAuley, Brian Heffron, Martha McKeown, Malachy Robb, Shaun Byrne, Brendan Byrne, Jonny Steingold, Bridie Lavery, Clare McAtamney, Father Felix McGuckin, Sammy Heffron, Sheena Heffron, and Sarah Fox nee McCrossan.

The person listed last was born in rural Tyrone in the 19^th century and is still being named. She was my great-grandmother.

Out and About

One very good reason why I have been neglecting this blog is because I've been getting out and about. Today Miss Martha and I hopped on a train and took ourselves off to Holywood to peruse its excellent charity shops. We do that a lot. Martha took the selfie at the railway station and we are both sporting some of our Holywood finds. The silk scarf I'm wearing (too tightly) is one I found on a previous visit and the sage green cashmere sweater was today's bargain. Martha's best buy was the vintage tweed cap she's sporting. You might notice that it's my granddaughter that seems to be wearing the cashmere sweater. The reason being that she set off without a coat (as youngsters often do) and when it turned cold and showery she asked if she could borrow my jumper. I agreed and because it looked so good on her I'm letting her keep it. On her it's oversized but that works.

I wish my beautiful silk scarf didn't look as if it was strangling me.