Rory & Ita (31 page)

‘I’
d knitted Aran sweaters for the children, and I must point out that they weren’t knitted especially for Kennedy’s visit.
^*
But I think it was an NBC crew came over to us. They were very keen to put the four kids on camera. They filmed them waving at thin air, but they were going to make it appear as if they were waving at President Kennedy. They told us it would be on American television that night but, naturally, we didn’t get to see it. But when he came out of Áras An Uachtaráin
^†
in the car, we had our cine-camera ready – there weren’t many other people there – and he waved out at us. I was amazed; it was very easy to see him, while he’d been crowded out everywhere else. But all we got on the cine-camera was his hand. The rest is darkness, but the hand is still there.

‘The camera came from my brother, Joe. He was over here on holiday.
^‡
He slept in Terenure, but had most of his meals with us and we went around a lot with him. And when he went home to Washington, he sent us this cine-camera. It was a great thing, a Kodak Brownie. We got it the year Shane was born, and we have his christening, the First Communions and holidays on film, and
people like my father and stepmother, and aunts and uncles, in Coolnaboy and Kilmuckridge, and Rory’s mother; they’re all long dead now.

‘Joe wasn’t bad at that time. He was slow walking but he was able to drive. He was still working, over in the embassy in Washington, so he was able to care for himself, more or less. But he often said that the people he worked with over there were more than kind to him, and he probably couldn’t have stayed that long, only for them. The one name he mentioned above all others was Noel Dorr.
^*
He said he was the kindest man that could have been. He’d often get Joe up in the mornings and bring him in to work. He was very slow, and I’m sure he was suffering. It was rheumatoid arthritis.’

Her father died in 1963. ‘He wasn’t ailing for long. I was in bed with the flu – I very seldom got sick. We still had no phone, but Mrs Rosney next door took the message and she came in and told me. He’d had an operation; we didn’t know what for – we didn’t ask. We didn’t think he’d die; I thought he’d be alright. He’d stayed in good form while he was in the hospital. He was buried in Mount Jerome, with my mother. He had a fine big funeral, but
I’ve very little memory of it. When my father retired he used to go walking in the park off Templeogue Road and he’d meet three or four other retired men, and the state of the universe would be discussed. We went in to see him in hospital nearly every night, and these men were often with him, chatting and talking. I think they got a bit of a shock too, when he died.

‘He had a desk; it was one of these old-style, glass-fronted bookcases, with a desk underneath it. The front of the desk lifted out, and you could write on it. It had lots of little cubby-holes and, underneath, there were three drawers. After his death, I opened the desk and found this small black leather folder. Really, it was paper made to look like leather. And there were letters in it. They were from a John J. Beekman, in Hempstead, New York. And I remembered: there were little poetry books in the house when I was a child, with the name John J. Beekman on the covers. I read two of the letters, and I realised that the wife of this John was my mother’s sister, and that her name was Mary. But I’d only barely started when my stepmother came in and told me that I’d no right to be reading them, because everything now belonged to Joe, and to put them away. Which I did. There was no use arguing. I just put them back and left them there. I knew they were there and I never forgot them.

‘Pearl was in a very disturbed state after my father died. She’d go in and sit in the front room and just stare out the window for hours. She wasn’t eating properly, and she got very, very ill. She spent some time in Linden Convalescent Home; she was there a few weeks. She really was very upset, and I was very sorry for her at that stage. We went to see her regularly. She’d gone fairly
deaf and, as a result, she shouted everything. She’d point people out, put her hand beside her mouth, as if to muffle her voice, and remark on other ladies in the day-room: “Look at her! She’s very nice but she drinks!” or “See her? She’s nice but she’s a Protestant!” We used to be mortified but, when we came out, we roared laughing. But she got alright after that, and she went back home again. And thanks be to God for television; she sat at it practically all day, and every night. She never turned it off. I’d swear if the Pope had come in, he’d have had to watch her favourite cowboy films. She had an elderly friend who lived near her, on Templeogue Road. This lady would cross the road nearly every night, to watch television with Pearl. She didn’t have one of her own; she couldn’t very well have had one, because she was drawing the blind pension. They spoke very formally to each other; she always addressed Pearl as “Mrs Bolger”. They’d talk right through the film: “Is this a goodie, Mrs Bolger?” “No, they’re all baddies.” “Look at him, Mrs Bolger; he has awful eyes.” “He’s the goodie.” And there was another one: “Who are they, Mrs Bolger? Are they the goodies or the baddies?” “No, they’re the cattle.” She had another neighbour, a widow, who dropped into her regularly. And this one time, she dropped in to show Pearl this new pair of shoes she’d just bought. When she went home, her lodger offered to make her a cup of tea. And when the lodger came back with the tea, Pearl’s neighbour was dead in the armchair. The neighbours discussed how to break the news to Pearl, so as not to upset her too much. The next time I visited, Pearl told me about the neighbour’s death, and she said: “They were worried about how to break the news to me. But why would it upset me? It
wasn’t me who died. She’d only bought new shoes. There’s waste.”’

‘Jimmy Peoples, my sister Máire’s husband, always said he was going to have a heart attack. He used to have his heart tested. His father had died suddenly; I think he was fifty-six. And Jimmy was the same age. He was actually going to Mass – it was during Lent – and he just dropped dead. And the next thing, a Garda arrived at the door to tell Máire that he was dead. That was an awful shock for her. She phoned here, and I phoned Rory, in the office,
^*
and he went over to her.

‘She hadn’t worked since she was married and, at that time, civil servants’ widows had no pension. She was fortunate in that she had been a civil servant, and she was allowed back in. She got a lump sum when Jimmy died, but she went back to work and, mentally, it was great for her. Their son, Jimmy Junior, was to be married a month afterwards, and Máire insisted that it go ahead. But going back into the Civil Service was her great saving.’

‘You shopped every day, because there were no supermarkets. And Peter Butler’s shop was great; it was nearly an outing – you met people out shopping. I’d have a roast on Sunday, and all the trimmings. And always dessert; every day, we had dessert. Then, on Monday, I’d make a shepherd’s pie, which was a great way of stretching the meat – it was the remains of the roast. I had a mincer which had belonged to my mother. The shepherd’s pie was lovely, actually. And then there’d be stew one day,
and there’d be maybe mashed potatoes and sausages another – things like that. It must have been acceptable. No one complained, and the plates were always cleaned. And Rory did the shopping, sometimes, in Moore Street; fruit and vegetables and fish. There’d be fish one day a week, on a Friday. The whole emphasis was on getting the best value. There wasn’t much variety.
^*
I used to make burgers, our own burgers. They were nicer than the shop ones. They were softer, and I mixed in a bit of potato, and an egg and onion. And I’d make chips. And, of course, I used to bake every day. I had little glass bowls and I did fancy jelly, and banana chopped into it, and a dollop of cream on top. Or, sometimes, something soaked with custard – a sponge with a bit of jam and custard on top. All kinds of fancy little dishes. I wouldn’t have dreamed of having dinner without a dessert.

‘The Rosneys lived next door. First, there’d been another couple, the Arnolds, but they didn’t stay very long, and the Rosneys came, Peter and Peg. Peter was a vet. We had an insurance man called Mr Durkin, a very nice man; he came every week to collect the insurance. He came in one day, and he said, “Mrs Doyle, could you give me an idea of what the man next door does for a living?” And I said, “That’s Mr Rosney; he’s a vet.” “Good,” said he: “That explains it. He’s after coming out of the house with a little pig under his arm.” And I remember, one of their sons had come in to play in the garden, and he kept saying, “Daddy’s gone to kill a cow in Ballyboughal.” They eventually moved, to outside
Malahide, because it was nearer to his work. And then the Clearys came, Breda and Seán; they came up from Limerick.

‘Kilbarrack changed an awful lot. The road changed from a country lane to a wide thoroughfare; it changed from a very quiet place, to traffic going up and down – it’s a main road to the airport. A lot of things came into being that couldn’t be held back. But it wasn’t the same any more. It had been like a little village – you knew everybody, and the few little shops that were there – a little community. I’m not saying it’s not still a good community, but it’s a much wider, bigger community. But it changed at a good time. For example, we had no street lighting and we had very little in the way of transport, or anything like that, and, gradually, we got these things.

‘I remember when the big sewage scheme was started, going down the centre of the road, the drilling of the road. Some of the windows at the front of the house were actually cracked, broken; the house used to rattle. They put down the big pipes and, of course, all the children in the neighbourhood had great fun running up and down those. They put a pumping station at the end of the road, at the sea. It was ugly, but it was only in later years that the ugliness began to annoy us. At the time, we thought it was great. We’d wait for the tide to come in – we’d look up the times in the paper – and there’d be an exodus down to the end of the road. We’d go in behind the pumping station; there was a platform and steps down to the sea. All the children would swim there, and their mothers met and had great chats and talks. So, it was a great place really.
^*

‘Flood’s farm, opposite, was eventually sold, which was sad, because they were very nice; we’d been good friends with Jack and Cathy. Houses were built on their land, and the new estate was called Alden. Later, more houses were built, Verbena Estate. And Barnwall’s farm up the road, their land opposite was sold. I remember when Bayside, further afield, towards Sutton, was being built, walking there one evening, a lovely summer evening; some of the houses were newly built, and we walked through them. It was extremely sandy, all along. And we met some man that Rory had known in the College of Art, and we stopped and Rory talked to him. I thought they’d never shut up.
^*
I remember feeling midges biting my legs, but pushing them away and paying no heed to them, and coming home that night, and my two legs were swollen, like never before nor since. And I was shivering and shaking; I was in a terrible state. That was my introduction to Bayside.

‘The Corporation bought land, Barnwall’s, and the next farm, Loftus’s. And the Corporation houses were all built. And one thing that brought us was a church, which was a great asset. And schools – although they were built too late for our children. It became a very lively place. Originally, you felt that you didn’t want it getting so big, but you settled into it and accepted it.

‘The Walshes were on the other side of us, after the Winks. I remember being pregnant when they moved in. Then they moved up to Sutton, and Mrs Eastwood came, with her two daughters, and she was a lovely woman. She had Joe’s affliction, rheumatoid arthritis. I went in to her on a Monday, and kind of helped her
with the washing. And then, Tuesday was my official calling day; we made a joke about it. I can still remember her making apple tarts; her little hands were all twisted and she used her knuckles to press down the pastry – and lovely pastry it was too.

‘Over the years, Joe deteriorated an awful lot. We were always very close and anything he ever wanted done, it was me he turned to. So, eventually – he was in his early forties, and he just couldn’t manage; he was in a wheelchair. And he decided to come home from Washington. He wrote and asked, could we find a nursing home for him, near us. My stepmother was still alive but there was no chance in the world that he’d go and live with her. Anyway, she was getting on and she wouldn’t have been capable of looking after a man in a wheelchair. So we didn’t quite know what to do. Then our doctor at the end of the road, Dr O’Leary, found this nursing home, in Howth. It was just a kind of stop-gap, to see what we’d do when he came home.

‘I remember him arriving, and I felt awfully sorry for him. There was some kind of a strike in America, and all his things were held up there, including his wheelchair. He was very upset about it. But, eventually, he arrived, on two sticks. He was barely able to walk. In fact, if there was silence, you could hear him creaking. His bones creaked.