The Last of Them

It's my father's 21st anniversary today and it occurred to me that when he died I was almost exactly the same age as my oldest daughter is now. I thought I was a right old age when Daddy died but these days when I look at my first born I think she's just a slip of a girl.

Also, it was today that I learned that I have completely run out of uncles as my father's brother Dessie has just died in Australia at the age of 95. He was the last of his generation. I never knew him as he emigrated to New South Wales when he was very young. A family story has it that when he left his family home on the now Lisnevenagh Road the only one of his family who waved him off was his older sister Mary. His mother did not even come out to the bus stop to see him on his way. I don't believe he ever returned to Ireland again. His mother was a hard woman.

Anyway, Dessie made a good life for himself in Australia. Married, had two sons. He is the only one of my father's siblings to have made it to his nineties.

My mother knew him. She said he was a bit of a teddy boy. I think when they talked about teddy boys they meant any young man who didn't dress just like his da and his granda before him. There is one photo I have of Dessie, probably taken by Daddy and he's along with Mammy. It would have been taken in the early 1950s.

Photograph taken just up from the Wayside Halt, Dessie's home place. I think he looks more like James Dean than a teddy boy.

Myself and the da when he was in his prime and I just a slip of a girl.

Last Post Of The Year

Bert has been reminiscing today about parties long past and about what we might have been doing on New Year’s Eve twenty or more years ago. But time moves on far too quickly. We all, those of us who once partied together, have moved on and grown old. Some of us have even died.

He asked me,

Do you miss those days?

I had to think a bit about that, then I told him,

Not really. But I'm glad we had them.

Our plans for tonight don’t involve drink, drugs or rock’n’roll. Well, maybe a little of that last one for me - I might watch Jools, and Bert might even have a Guinness. We’ll see.

Wishing all who read this a good New Year. May you live long and prosper.

Twenty Years Later

 Today is the twentieth anniversary our father's death. This photograph, featuring Daddy and his granddaughter Katy is a particular favourite of mine. It was taken by my sister Tricia, one of a series of black and white pictures she took of him as he went about the farm. The pictures are from the mid-eighties. He would have been in his sixties then, probably around the same age that Bert is now. 

I only noticed today that he is wearing a tie so it must have been taken on a  Sunday. His cardigan is half-decent looking too but those are definitely 'working' trousers. He wouldn't have risked his Chapel Sunday trousers out fothering cattle. 

Daddy and Bert at our old place.

Portrait of  Seamus by his granddaughter Naoise. 

Portrait of Seamus by his granddaughter Zoe. 

Remembering Matty on Mother's Day

Tyrone (written twenty years ago)

Getting Offside

The Kerry sister wanted to do a bit of decorating for Matty. Dutifully, I asked if she would like me to help her. Instead, she requested that I take Matty out for the day so she could get on with it.

So, we headed in the direction of Tyrone, stopping first for coffee in Draperstown. When I was a market trader, I visited Draperstown twice a month. I had always liked the town’s wide streets and the way it nestled among the foothills of the Sperrins. I loved the soft voices of the people. I also encountered my first transvestite in Draperstown—wearing a cheap wig and a dowdy cloth coat, far from glamorous, yet possessing a quiet dignity.

While we were there, Matty said she wanted to look at some shops. She led me into the most old-fashioned hardware store in the world. The only objects that could possibly have held the slightest interest for me were some Pyrex measuring jugs.

‘Can I help you?’ ventured the young assistant.

‘No, just looking,’ I replied. Looking at what? Coils of rope? Shovels? Galvanised buckets? Then Matty piped up, ‘But I thought this was a dress shop.’

Onwards to Tyrone—Land of My Ancestors

Gortin

Matty’s parents came from Tyrone. Granda’s family were from Moy, and Granny was born in Newtownstewart. While Granda’s people had migrated to Belfast in search of work, Granny spent her childhood in Plumbridge. There were cousins in Gortin, so to Gortin we went, as Matty reminisced about a wonderful holiday she and her sister had spent there in the summer of 1947 as guests of their mother’s cousin, Mamie. We found the road where Mamie had lived, but the lane was overgrown, and the cottage was long gone.

This is one of the joys of driving Matty around—she starts remembering and telling stories. As this journey was one she had taken many times with Daddy, some of the stories were particularly poignant. Once again, I listened to the tales of their meeting and courtship. She told me about the funny sayings and silly games they enjoyed as they traveled together. She recounted the wonderful holiday she had with Mamie. It had been her first time apart from Daddy since they had started going out, and she had written to him three times in two weeks.

‘Did he write back?’ I asked.

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Sure, he never wrote a letter in his life.’

Apparently, she had written to reassure him that she hadn’t run off with some Tyrone boy. For according to Matty—and I do not doubt her—she had been very popular with boys in her youth.

Hearing Matty’s stories, I sometimes feel envious of the times she lived in. That holiday in Gortin, a mere 60 miles from home, had been such a novelty for her. She told a story about how she and her sister, out on borrowed bikes and having gotten lost, met a group of young, kilted men, also on bicycles, returning from Twelfth of July celebrations. These fellows escorted them back to the right road, and she recalled how exotic it felt to be riding alongside a troop of Protestant boys in kilts—something that would have been unthinkable behavior at home.

Matty and I behaved very well in Tyrone. We waved at passers-by and were extremely courteous on the road. ‘After all,’ Matty said, ‘anyone here might be your cousin.’

On the way home, Matty asked me, ‘Do you ever look at the clouds and imagine you can see pictures in them?’

I replied, ‘Not while I’m driving.’

A Dozen Years

 A collage for Matty's twelfth anniversary. One with each of her seven children. Let the pictures tell the story. She was well-loved and she loved well.

How Fred Came To Live With Us....14 years ago

  

Holly Is Not A Happy Cat...

...but Bonnie is pleased with her new kitten.

Sharing the scoff

On Friday I was walking on the Ballymena-Doagh road when I heard a tinkling and a squeaking. I looked around and there was a little ginger kitten following me. The tinkling was coming from a little bell on its collar. There were no houses nearby, and I could not understand why such a young cat was out on the road. There had been a woman driver behaving oddly about five minutes before I encountered the kitten. She had gone to pull in, spotted me and drove on. I looked behind me and she'd pulled to the side again. I thought she might have noticed a flat tyre and wondered if I should offer to help but she drove off again. Did she dump that kitten? I think she did. I couldn't leave it - the road was far too busy and dangerous. Maybe it was someone's lost pet but little cats do not tend to stray far from home and this one was at least a quarter of a mile from the nearest house. Nevermind. He lives here now and Holly de Cat is not best pleased. But Bonnie is delighted with her new kitten.

Resting up a spell

I Go To A Funeral

 It was the first funeral of the year, Aunt Maud in her 91st year. Bert said,

You must be running low on aunts by now. Have you any left at all?

I had to think,

There's just the one left in Australia but I don't know her at all.

In my younger days, I had heaps of Aunts.

On my mother's side, Aunt Kathleen, Aunt Josephine, Aunt Sadie, Aunt Bernadette and Aunt Clare.

And on my father's side, Aunt Roisin and  Aunt Mary

Then there were the aunts by marriage, all on dad's side, Mary, Bernie, May, Marian, Maud, Peggy, Maureen and Eileen.

Maureen is, as far as I know, the only one still living.

Maud was the last of the Irish aunts and we buried her today. 

This was the beautiful young woman that Uncle Brendan met and fell in love with. 

Brendan was murdered when she was in her early forties and today, almost half a century later, she was laid beside him in St Comgall's burying ground.

Maud never had children of her own yet the gathering today was full of children she had cared for and helped look after, the oldest of them in the mid-sixties, the youngest about five years old. 

She was a feisty woman, widowed twice, adored children, was incredibly kind, had a sharp tongue, loved hard, held grudges, was easily hurt, a grafter, sensitive, and fiercely loyal. The thing that I've been thinking about the most these past few days is the terrible grief, the despair she suffered in the days after Brendan's death. He was everything to her.

Maud and two of her godchildren, my brother Joe and my daughter Zoe.

Zoe was born three months after Shaun and Brendan were shot during the 1974 UWC strike In my naivety I thought that asking Maud to be her godmother would cheer her. Wrong reasons, the right choice. She spent the following Christmas with us which is when the picture was taken. When I look at it now I see her brave spirit. Even with a broken heart she still could raise a smile for little children.

 

Ten Things I Did on Mother's Day

 I woke up worrying about the Antarctic Ice Shelf, then decided that my fretting about it would not help.

Listened to the dawn chorus and estimated that there must be at least a thousand birds living nearby. Sounded like it anyway.

I thought about my own mother.

I sowed lots of vegetable seeds.

And entertained two adopted sons and a girlfriend. Received a Mother’s Day gift from Locky.

Participated in the naming of the most recent calf born on this farm. He is to be called Sparrow.

Spoke to my Katkin from Norfolk. She has had a bout of Covid. That’s all of my children have had it now.

Pondered my tendency to feel guilty about everything.

Did lots of knitting.

Did lots of weeding.

I'm Not Good With Old People

I'm not good with old people... which is strange, as I am myself old people. Nevertheless, there have been elders in my life that I have really cared about.

Let me list some of them,

Susan

Susan was our next-door neighbour when I was a young woman. She got me, I got her. I could talk to her about (nearly) anything. Young girls must have their secrets. She validated me. She was an honorary granny.

Paddy

Paddy was Susan's husband. He was prone to falling asleep in his chair while Susan and I chatted and put the world to rights. For some reason, he always woke up abruptly if the conversation ever touched on racy subjects. Susan was not afraid to talk about sex and because I had become a fallen woman she considered me someone she could speak to on such matters. God love both of us, we were each as unworldly as each other, she in her 70s, me in my very early 20s.

Pearlie

It was a long, long time before Pearlie and I saw eye-to-eye and to some extent, we were always at odds. The problem was, we were both in love with the same man and, in her heart, she never believed I was worthy of her son.  

James

James wasn't even old. Maybe mid-forties, but he seemed old to a teenager. Looking back I think he might have loved me a little but he never, ever made me feel uncomfortable. He loaned me an old fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder and lots of recordings of Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Howlin' Wolf, Lighnin' Hopkins and many other blues artists of that time. There was no text, just music. I had it for ages so I owe James a lot. 

Roy

It was March five years ago when Roy came to live with us. He'd been Bert's Aunt Nessie's dog and after she died he continued living with Nessie's partner Paddy. Now Paddy was dying and needed homes for all four of his dogs. One went to Paddy's carer, two went into council care and we got Roy.

I wasn't even that enthusiastic. I'd never met Roy but Bert was keen to give him a home. He felt he owed it to Nessie. We went to collect him. When Paddy went into the hospital, his carer had taken on the job of feeding the dogs daily but they were still spending most of their time alone. I stayed in the van while Bert climbed over the gate and opened the front door and two dogs ran out. The smaller one just sniffed around a little, the collie (our new dog) was thoroughly delighted to see him, jumping up, his tail whirring like a windmill. I gazed at our new dog, the one that I was only mildly interested in and thought to myself, "I love him!" Love at first sight.

Close up, he was shaggy and smelly, rather worried. He'd never travelled in a vehicle before. We got him home. Introduced him to Judy and Jess who weren't impressed. Fed and watered him. He settled in.

Roy liked people, food, dogs, cats and lying just outside the door watching the world go by. Roy didn't like vehicles, collars and leads, walks, upstairs, balls.

As he became even more settled he learned to enjoy treats, herding pigs and walks.

But walks had to be on Roy's terms. There were rules. Only the back lane and woods. If he was spoken to on the back lane he would turn and go back to the house so we learned to pretend not to notice him. If he got as far as the woods he'd go off and do his own thing and then come back at a time of his own choosing.

We took him to Donegal once. Obviously, he did not enjoy the journey and when we got to the caravan he refused to go to the beach and spent the entire time either in the caravan or just outside it. That was his one and only trip away. Afterwards, the only journeys he ever took were occasional visits to the vet's surgery.

He never ever went upstairs. He wouldn't play fetch or chase balls. He was just Roy and he did things his way.

Y'know he wasn't even that old. Around eight when he came to us he must have been thirteen when he died. In the last year he stopped being able to jump up, wasn't able to get on the sofa any more. Even his tail didn't whir so much. He still loved his comforts, first in the queue for supper, had his favourite visitors, Les, Ben, Mel. Harassed Bert for walks in the woods, me for treats.

And then, this Tuesday past his legs just stopped working. They'd been wobbly for a while and he'd been taking arthritis medication. Bert tried to help him but he kept collapsing. Zoe said he seemed bewildered. Yesterday morning, first thing, I called the vet to request a home visit. We made the decision to have him put peacefully and gently to sleep.

He is the fifteenth dog to be buried here.

Polly, Molly, Danny, Penny, Chip, Jock, Rosie, Peppy, Paddy, Charlie, Bonnie, Holly, Maeve, Frank and Roy.

Nine family dogs and six belonging to friends

We'll never forget you, Roy..

Father's Day

So, Father's Day again...

But they do get easier as time goes on. This is the fourteenth one since he died. The first one was very hard as he died in early June and right from the start the shops were full of Father's Day reminders. I remember feeling ridiculously annoyed and cross about it.

It passed. Father's Day is just another day now. To do with other people, not for us. I had a lot of company this weekend, the Banjos, Dr Leitrim Sister and her husband. Six people, not one of us with a living Dad. Memories were shared.

And here are some more.

A handmade card that Daddy received from his granddaughter in 1989.

One of a series of photographs that my sister Patricia Moriarty shot. They are some of the best pictures ever taken of our father.

One of my own photographs. I think he might have been calling me an eedjit as I was trying to get him to smile.

The pair of them.

Bonnie's Stuff

Bonnie, March 2009

Bonnie came to us as a neglected and unloved dog who had lived her life on the end of a chain. Her collar, a stiff, cracked old thing, had chafed all the fur from underneath her chin. She was matted and smelly and very timid. The first thing we did when we knew we would be keeping her was to give her a bath. Afterwards, I wrapped her in old towels and covered her with a woolen blanket. She seemed baffled by the attention but not unhappy. As soon as I could I bought her a new collar, soft leather, and bright red. She seemed pleased with it and wore it the entire time she was with us. I kept it for a long time after she died but eventually disposed of it.

That was her first possession. She never 'got' balls. Her thing was squeaky toys. She loved them even after she had carefully detached squeaker and eyes. I kept her stuff in a straw basket and every night she'd take them all out item by item. And the first thing out of the basket was always the plastic Santa Claus. Bonnie really did like her stuff.

Bonnie, in January 2012. 

Father's Day

My father died in the month of June, not long before before Father’s Day and I found the run up to that third Sunday in June almost unbearable. I remember feeling bitterly resentful at all the advertising and posters encouraging shoppers not to forget that most special man in their lives. Twelve years have gone by now and I don’t mind so much. Father’s Day is just another day. It belongs to other people now.

But there are still some important fathers in my life. The children’s father is celebrating his day in sunny Cypress, Martha and Evie’s father went on a family day out canoeing and James and his father and mother are sweltering in Suffolk. Closer to home, one of my best ever girls, Miss Erin has given her partner his most wonderful present ever, a baby daughter who arrived yesterday afternoon, just a few hours early for her dad’s first Father’s Day.

Death and birth, birth and death and that all-important bit in between. It’s what keeps us going.

Seamus and Bert

Looking Back

24th most viewed on Flickr, 774 views

Miss Hannah from ten years ago, a photograph taken to celebrate a snazzy new haircut.

The 24th most interesting picture with 206 views

I put this one up not so long ago to mark Mother's Day. Matty is on my mind a lot right now as it is coming up to the fourth anniversary of her death. What a lot has happened since then. How delighted she would have been to know that Katy, the child in her embrace, is expecting her first child this summer. It makes me a little sad to think that Matty only got to meet her first great-grandchild, her namesake Martha, who she adored.

This is my blog from four years ago posted on the 21st April, the last one written while she still lived.

I woke just before 7am and decided not to get up. Immediately I fell into dreams. I dreamed that my mother was dying and that I held her in my arms and would not let her go. We lived in a succession of damp, dilapidated and tumbledown sheds and still I would not let her go. She got frailer and smaller and eventually she was as small as a baby. She was my baby, she was also another person called Shirley and still she was my mother. She was dying and I had to get her a coffin. She was small enough to fit in an infant's casket but I knew that because she had been a woman I needed to get her a woman-sized coffin.

These are the dreams I have without opiates. God only knows what Matty dreams. She told my sister, in one of her lucid moments, that it was like 'being in two places at once.'

Today was my Miss Martha day. We went to Matty's then out for a run with Great Aunt Ganching (with whom Miss Martha has become most enamoured). Next home to see Bert, a picnic on the lawn and a very relaxing afternoon with toys and pigs and dogs.

When Martha went home I spent a while watering the vegetables (this will be my role and it is a very important one) and then gathering sticks, a proper outdoor barbecue (no charcoal) and pork chops, spinach and baked potatoes for supper.

Another normal day. Tomorrow I go shopping for funeral clothes.

Motherless Sunday

Mother's Day again. There are yellow and purple flower buds unfurling on the kitchen table. There was chocolate too which was shared with Bert in the very earliest hours of Mothering Sunday. But, as always, this is Matty's day even though she is not with us any more.

There are so many of us today mindful of our dead mothers. On Friday a young friend called round and he mentioned that his son, aged six, was having a difficult week. At school all the talk was of making Mother's Day cards but his mum died suddenly about a year ago. He chose not to make a card. It's sad for us grown-ups but how much harder it must be for a little child.

My mother Martha with her granddaughter Katy

This is one of my most cherished photographs of  my mother who would have been my current age at the time it was taken. So - I'm wishing a happy Mother's Day to all us mothers and sending caring thoughts for all the motherless children.

It's Bert's first Motherless Sunday too.

Revisiting the Past

Sorting out the photographs on my external hard drive has me living in the past and tonight I'm back in 2011. I wondered what was happening on this day four years ago and as there is this online diary thing called Nelly's Garden I was able to find out in just a few clicks. It seems I was right here in Springhill after spending a short spell in Drumkeeran looking after Matty.

Things weren't working out exactly as I'd hoped.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

The Cleansing Pow'r

I decided to have a lovely relaxing bath this afternoon. Lots of hot water, lots of bubbles, a towel to keep my hair out of the bubbles and something intellectual to peruse. Heaven. It's wonderful to live in the quiet of the country.

Hark! There's Plum crowing. Never mind. A rooster crowing is part of the country atmosphere. Outside Bert opens up the chainsaw. Never mind. The noise of wood clearance is all part of living on a farm. The back door opens. It's one of Pearlie's carers. It's the singing one. She is singing, at the very top of her voice, “Washed In The Blood Of The Lamb”. She puts the kettle on. Singing away, thumping time on the counter tops as she waits for it to boil.

I lie in my suds. I usually seethe at the Singing Carer but who gives a hoot? I'm home for a little while. Let her sing her hymns. The mad old bat.

Remembering

This would have been Daddy's birthday and he would have been 92. I'm glad now that he didn't make it to that age because he wouldn't have liked being so old. He enjoyed being active and getting out into the fresh air. The picture above shows him in his sixties. He was weather-beaten and gruff but always with a look of kindness. Kerry Sister, who took the picture, used to call him 'Badger'.

In the picture he's taking a bag of hand cut turf out of the boot of his car. He was never happier than when he was cutting turf and working in the moss.

Thinking about you today Seamus, oul hand.

Remembering Rosie

Rosie, originally uploaded by NellyMoser.

When I look at pictures of Rosie I remember how she felt. She was a dog that loved to be cuddled, petted and handled. She was the sort of dog that crept on to your lap so that you wouldn't even notice she was there until you looked down and realised that you were rubbing her head and stroking her silky ears. She was the sort of dog that helped to calm you.

I also remember how she smelled. She smelled of good clean earth with undertones of dog. She loved to be nuzzled. I loved to nuzzle her head, that flat hard part between her ears. Behind her ears was a good part to knead and rub. We both liked that. It was also good to play with her feet. Some dogs don't like that but Rosie did. She liked to have her toes separated and gently massaged. She liked the rough pads on her paws to be scratched. She liked to be rubbed under her chin. And I liked to do it. She was the most tactile, sweet-smelling dog I've ever known. I loved to rub my face on her head and smell the sweet hayish, grassy. earthy scent of her.

Bert had another name for her. He called her The Bitcher and she knew that was her name. She knew that Dirty Rotten Scunging Devil Dog was her name. She knew she was Rosie.

Kerry sister has a new pup. It's a Kerry sheep dog. I have envy.