Even on Days when it Rains (13 page)

DURING HIS SCHOOL
days I became aware that Daniel had a great love of people. I didn't know then just how far his popularity with folk would spread. But I recall one incident that made me realize I had a very special boy.

Daniel would travel by public bus to and from secondary school in Dungloe. One day, after shopping in the town, I returned on the same bus with him. As we waited to board, the driver said: ‘Let all the schoolchildren stand back now while the adults get on and get seated.'

Daniel said, ‘Mammy, you go on and if you see everybody seated keep a seat beside you for me.'

So I went away up to the middle of the bus and found myself a seat, with a spare one beside me for Daniel. I heard some people behind me saying, ‘Danny's not getting on.' I thought they were talking about one of their own. I glanced round and it was a man and a woman, an elderly couple who were neatly dressed, well groomed and both had beaming, friendly faces.

Then my Daniel appeared at the door of the bus, and I heard the lady saying in an excited tone, ‘Oh, Danny's on.' And Daniel came down the aisle of the bus wheeling a trolley. I thought to myself, where in the name of God did he get the trolley? He came down to where I was sitting, and then he left the trolley standing alongside the couple behind me.

Daniel sat down beside me and the lady said to him, ‘You're not sitting beside your girlfriend today.'

And I said, without looking back, ‘Oh, but he is sitting beside his girlfriend.'

The lady asked, ‘Do you know Danny?'

‘Well, a good right I should have to know him,' I said.

She asked, ‘Do you live near him?'

I told her I did.

‘Don't tell me,' she said in an excited state, ‘you're not his mother by any chance?'

‘I am, that's who I am,' I replied.

‘Well, do you know this, you must be the proudest mother in Ireland today,' she said. And she told me their story and the difference that Daniel had made to their lives.

‘We came down from County Down in the North because we were afraid of the Troubles. We bought a little house down here. Every so often we go up with this trolley to the supermarket in Dungloe for our
groceries
. Before Daniel came to that school up there, some of the youngsters used to kick the trolley in front of them in a stampede. Sometimes it would tumble over onto the road and the groceries would all be tossed out. Since the day Danny first saw us, he took the trolley off us and made us go on and get a seat on the bus. Then he would take the trolley on and leave it beside our seat. And when he would be getting out at Kincasslagh, he would take the trolley to the door of the bus to leave it handy for us when we were getting off at our stop. He is such a lovely, considerate young boy, we absolutely love him. Now that's my story about Danny.'

All the pensioners had a similar tale to tell about Daniel. ‘Our hearts will be broken the day he leaves that school. Daniel is always helping us on the bus with our bags. And if there's one of us who needs support getting in and out of the bus, it's Daniel who steps up to lend a hand. That boy has so much good in him. He would make a good priest; oh, he would be a lovely priest,' they would say.

Daniel, of course, would sit there red-faced with embarrassment whenever he heard anyone paying him compliments like that.

Daniel had a lovely singing voice as a child, and, just as I did with Margaret, I always encouraged
him
to use it. There were singers on both sides of his family but particularly on Francie's side. Francie's mother and father had lovely voices. Every one of Francie's sisters and brothers could sing. So Daniel didn't lick it off the ground, as they say. It was in the genes.

Whenever there were concerts in our local parish hall, I would always take Daniel down to sing. The priest would invite him up on to the stage, and he would perform for the crowd. I remember the first song he ever sang was called ‘Little Cabin Home on the Hill'.

One time there was a local talent competition in Castlefinn and I brought Daniel along to enter it. That was his first time ever performing in a talent contest, and he came second. On another occasion while we were on a visit to County Mayo, Daniel entered a local talent event and won it. He was only eight years old at the time, but he was beginning to cause quite a stir. The crowd in Mayo thought he was something special. Everybody was saying to him, ‘Oh, you are going places.'

It's not that I was pushing Daniel towards the stage. I had no dreams of him becoming a professional singer. I just saw it as part of his growing up, something that would give him confidence. It takes a lot of bottle to go out and sing in front of a crowd.

Even though he was my youngest child and I was left on my own to bring him up after Francie died, I didn't smother Daniel. I kept a close watch on him during his very young years, but as he got older I let him find his feet in the world. I allowed him to go away on holidays to relatives and friends. He used to go to Arranmore Island and stay with a cousin of ours, Agnes Sharkey, who originally came from Owey. She had married an Arranmore man and settled on that island. I recall how Daniel once spent six weeks there. He would go up to Sligo and stay with Ita Carney, a friend of Margaret. I never worried about him because I knew he would be safe with the people he was visiting. I'd send him off on the bus, and somebody would meet him at the other end of the journey. Some of the money he earned working in the Cope during his schooldays covered the expense of a holiday every year in Scotland, where he stayed with relatives in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth and Callendar.

Daniel loved his visits to Edinburgh, and I remember him coming home after one holiday and telling me a story about the cuckoo clock in the city's Princes Street. The cuckoo would come out of the clock on the hour, as I recall, and Daniel was fascinated with that. It was something of an attraction in Edinburgh, and a crowd would gather to watch it.

‘Mammy, do you know what, that cuckoo isn't real at all. I always thought it was until last week when I heard some of the crowd saying it was a great invention! And I loved that cuckoo,' he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

One time Daniel came home from Edinburgh with a lovely pair of shoes that had gold tips. He was a real dandy in them and couldn't wait for Mass to come round the following Sunday when he would give them their first public outing.

Coming out of Mass a local lad said to Daniel, ‘They're a fine pair of shoes you're wearing.'

Daniel's face lit up with pride.

‘And they're a quare good bargain too at £4.99,' the lad added.

Daniel stopped in his tracks and asked, ‘How do you know what I paid for them?'

The local teenager pointed to the sole of one of the shoes. Daniel checked it, and there was the sale sticker still on it. The whole chapel full of people had seen it when he knelt down at the altar to receive Communion. ‘Isn't that shockin' embarrassing,' he said later.

As Margaret became more and more successful as a singer, she shared her good fortune with the family. In 1972, she even sent Daniel and myself off across
the
Atlantic by plane to visit my sister Maggie and many other relatives in America. Margaret had gone over there the previous year to do a tour and she had met a whole army of our relations. A big party was arranged for Margaret in New Jersey, and everyone who was related to us came along. She realized that night that I would love to have been at the party surrounded by all those family members, most of whom I'd never met. So she decided before she came home that she would send me out.

She'd also left the party that night with a bag full of envelopes. People would go up to her and say, ‘I'm a cousin of your mam's' and slip her an envelope. The next day when Margaret opened them she found that they were filled with cash, and the whole lot came to about $500. It seems everyone among the family connections in America was aware that I'd been going through hard times. They all wanted to give a little to help Julia back in Ireland. And I really appreciated their kindness, particularly as $500 was a fortune to me. I'm sure every family throughout Ireland has a similar story to tell. The American cousins, even though they might not have been to Ireland themselves, never forgot us all back home on the old sod. And they'll never be forgotten for their generosity.

The following year I found myself on a plane for
the
very first time in my life. A trip to the States was a major undertaking way back then. You'd spend six months preparing for it and another six months getting over it. Nowadays I hear of Irish people going to New York for a weekend to do their Christmas shopping. How times have changed. But that trip to America over 30 years ago was worth it for many reasons, not least being the look of excitement on Daniel's face. If Margaret had sent him on a space shuttle to the moon he wouldn't have been more excited. Not many people of Daniel's age – and not many of my age group either – got the chance to travel abroad in those days. A trip to America was really out of the ordinary, unless it was to emigrate. It was the talk of the whole community around Kincasslagh that we were off to the United States of America on a holiday.

I wasn't looking forward to the long journey on the plane, but I was excited because it had been such a long time since I'd seen my sister, who was living in Bayonne, New Jersey. I said the rosary as we took off from Dublin, praying for a safe journey across the Atlantic Ocean. I had been frightened going onto the plane, and I wouldn't sit at the window because I was afraid to look out. But once the plane took off and the journey was under way, I settled down. It was a long, long trip, about seven
hours
, but I dozed off for a time so that helped it to go by quicker than I imagined. Eventually the captain announced that we were on our descent and before long we were safely on the ground at John F. Kennedy Airport. I crossed myself in thanksgiving for a safe passage as the plane came to a halt, and I couldn't wait to get off and meet up with Maggie.

It was an emotional reunion and a very happy time for us. Maggie wanted to know all the news from home and what had changed since she'd left. There was a litany of births, deaths and marriages to fill her in on, not to mention how the area had been transformed since she'd emigrated, with new homes springing up here and there. Maggie lapped up all the stories, and, as we reminisced, all the memories came flooding back; it was lovely to share them with everybody.

The red carpet was rolled out for us, and shortly after we arrived there was a big party organized so that we could meet all our relatives and their friends and neighbours. I remember how there was a big table in the middle of the floor and it was creaking under the weight of bottles of drink. Most people at the party were having a drink, but I had never touched alcohol in my life. People would come up to me and say, ‘Will you have a drink?' And I'd tell them that I didn't drink. ‘Would you not take a drink
of
7UP?' someone asked me. I didn't know what 7UP was at the time, and, thinking it was alcohol, I refused. Daniel became the centre of attention, and all eyes were on ‘the cute young Irish boy', as I heard someone remark. Daniel even sang for them. He performed ‘Little Cabin Home on the Hill' and ‘The Philadelphia Lawyer', and there were loud cheers and lots of back-slapping when he finished. He was beaming with pride.

Daniel and myself spent a total of six weeks in America on that trip, and we visited many relatives, including Bill and Margaret O'Donnell. Daniel was very happy there and he enjoyed the company of their children, John and Bridget Mary, who were around his age. He even accompanied them to school one day on a big yellow bus, a visit that caused quite a stir among the American schoolchildren. When he returned home later in the afternoon, Daniel told me that all the young Americans had been going on and on about how they loved his accent. ‘Gee, would you speak for us?' they would ask. He loved all the attention.

I was like a child myself on that trip as I discovered things I'd never seen before. Like cranberry sauce. One day when we sat down to a turkey dinner I saw the cranberry sauce on the table and I presumed it was jam. I thought it was very odd when
I
saw everyone digging in and putting this ‘jam' on their turkey. When I got nobody looking I dipped my finger in the jar and tasted it. Well, it was lovely, so ever since then I've been a fan of cranberry sauce.

My daughter Margaret had a boyfriend who was working in New York at the time, and she came out for a visit while we were there. It was a surprise for Daniel and myself when she walked through the door. I look back now on that period with a lovely warm feeling. That was a great holiday for us, and I'm so glad that Daniel still has those wonderful memories of our time together in America.

On our return to Ireland, Margaret was waiting to collect us at Shannon Airport. At that time there were no restrictions on the amount of luggage you could take with you on the plane, which was just as well because I think I brought half of America home with me. I took everything that was given to me while I was on holiday. There were people throwing out trash, or what they called trash, but it was real good stuff to me, so I offered to take it off their hands and home it all came with me. I remember Daniel going up to Margaret in the airport at Shannon and saying, ‘God, Margaret, we've an awful lot of stuff!'

There was a carnival dance that night in Killala, County Mayo – it was in a marquee – and Margaret
was
performing with her band. So we packed everything into her car at the airport and off we headed for Killala. The car boot was stuffed, there were cases and bags tied onto the roof with ropes, and you couldn't see Daniel in the back with all of the bits and pieces that were packed around him. I don't know what the fans must have thought of Margaret when they saw her car pulling into Killala that night with what looked like all her worldly possessions.