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.

One From Eighteen Years Ago

 

Hunting The Rhubarb

Yesterday was Kerry Sister's mumbly-mumbleth birthday. As her birthday was almost totally forgotten last year we decided to mark the occasion with a Rhubarb Hunt. I told them I'd found rhubarb growing in the moss but no one believed me. So I led an expedition to prove that I was right.

The Kerry Sister and the Leitrim Sister on the hunt for The Rhubarb. The Kerry Sister is kicking spoor for clues. The Leitrim Sister prefers to sniff the air for that elusive Rhubarb scent.

The Rhubarb has been spotted! Leitrim Sister says it is a lot of bollocks and that it is False Rhubarb.

The Rhubarb

Bert is horticulturally highly qualified and he thinks it is Rhubarb. It looks like, smells like, tastes like, and smokes like Rhubarb.

Macy prefers to wallow in a moss hole.

The Mystery Solved

Rhubarb growing in Drumkeeran Moss remained a puzzle until, six years later, I met Bobby.

Bobby was Lord O'Neill's man on the ground, the mossy ground, to be precise. The day I met him he was admiring a patch of narcissi that he'd planted the previous autumn. He told me that his wife was throwing the bulbs out so he thought he'd plant them in the moss to see how they'd do. Now, as far as I know, he just got the one year out of them as I never saw them again. I did ask him If he'd ever tried rhubarb and he said he had but it hadn't made much of a plant. The mystery solved!

The Wooden Gate

Once again I am attempting to sort out a huge cache of photographs, my own, my mother's and Pearlie's. This evokes a great deal of nostalgia. Sometimes it's not the photographs of people that do this, but places and things.

I have always liked these pictures...

...of a little wooden gate in my parent's garden that led on to the Drumkeeran Road which was rarely used. Looking at the picture it's hard to imagine that it was yards from a busy dual carriageway.

Then there is this one.

Probably taken by one of my sisters in the year before Mammy died. Perhaps someone can enlighten me. There was a period of heavy snow that year and I remember our cousin John came out with his backhoe to clear a path for the carers to come in. Our mother was so fortunate in having wonderful neighbours who thought the world of her.

So today, whilst going through her photographs, I found this one. It was taken when our parent's house was fairly new and the evergreen hedge not yet planted. The sign shows that the dualling of the A26 had reached Tannaghmore but the farmhouse in front of the garage is still there. I don't know who the little girl is but she might be one of the McGills.  She looks to be around two years of age so that would help to date the photograph.

And who made the gate?

A Trip to Leitrim

 Lough Gill from Slish Wood in Sligo

On Friday morning I caught the train to Belfast and boarded the bus to Enniskillen. Mooched around Enniskillen for a while before I met Dr Leitrim Sister. It has been a long time, way too long, since I visited there. 

There have been quite a few changes to their house since my last visit - new kitchen and bathroom- both completed during the lockdown and a lot of the work was carried out by my multi-talented sister. 

No visit to Drumkeeran would be complete without a visit to the delightful Wynne's Bar. I did not spot any sheep the night I was there. I expect they were all rounded up by the time we got there.

We also took a trip to Sligo, where the sister and I did a bit of shopping and my brother-in-law went to the theatre (where he works). We all met up for a bite in Lyons, an old-fashioned department store with a popular cafe. And on the way home, we took a walk with the dog in beautiful Slish Wood.

It was a lovely, relaxing visit.

I only brought one book with me, knowing that if I finished it too soon the sister's house is well-stocked with literature, much of it to my liking. However, my Tana French lasted the course. I started it on the coach to Enniskillen and just as the train pulled into Ballymena station I finished it. 

It was great to see Bert and the dogs in Cullybackey and a relief that the kitten had not been lost. We watched the very silly Handmaid's Tale and Simon Schama then off to my own wee bed. Pippin too. And back to Elizabeth Jane Howard where Mrs Hugh Cazalet is having a baby. I got her the length of her bed last night. And stopped reading. Today she was still labouring away. I stopped reading. I expect her to deliver (hopefully safely) when I pick it up again tonight.

Drumrankin, Drumkeeran, Dublin and Dingle.

 On Monday night I put the moth trap out and captured just two yellow underwings. It's not advisable to catch moths on consecutive nights as it prevents them from feeding and breeding. But... two yellow underwings. Against my own (and Rachael's) advice, I tried it again last night. The trap I'm using at the moment isn't that efficient but I'll take that as a good thing. The moths are fine without being trapped and I do get to see a few nice specimens.

This one is a burnished brass, not uncommon and really beautiful. There were two of them. Here's hoping they were male and female and will be out there tonight, making sweet, sweet love. 

This was the only photograph I managed that didn't feature an egg carton so that's the one to share. Who needs to see yellow underwings at rest? They only look good when they're on the move. 

This beauty, a Gold Spot, was in the trap four days ago. The best picture I got was of the moth positioned on my hand. Unfortunately, my hand looked as if was attached to a drowned cadaver so far too vain to show that one. Have to make do with the grey egg box shot.

It was another scorching day. Sometime in the afternoon, the clouds began to gather and there were distant rumbles of thunder. The rain never came, just a couple of spits in the early evening. I'd be glad to see a shower and so would my flower and vegetable beds. As always, the fine weather brings out the heavy grass harvesting plant. The machines rolling through this yard get bigger every year. Just a few branches ripped off the horse chestnut and a gate post knocked over. Thankfully, the dogs know to stay out of the way.

We had visitors this afternoon, a couple of younguns, Emma and James who'd never stroked a hen before. Dolours obliged them. Dolours is moving around more and can now travel about four metres. She's eating and drinking well, pecking at vegetation and searching out insects. I am thinking of applying for a Carer's Allowance. 

In other news, I am delighted that Ganching will be visiting Nellybert for a couple of days. She is doing a tour of all four Ireland-based siblings. Drumrankin, Drumkeeran, Dublin and Dingle. Exciting times. It's a ridiculously long time since we've been together.