The Daniel O’Connell Heritage Trail

Mikeen McCarthy was born on the Fairgreen in Caherciveen on Good Friday, April 3rd, 1931, he told us of the Travellers’ belief that anybody born on Good Friday would never grow to a great height - he was a little over five feet tall. He was washed in the first bucket of water drawn from the newly opened town pump; some years later a local man told him that his place of birth entitled him and his family to stop there whenever they pleased! His father, also Michael, was a skilled and a much sought after tinsmith, he was a recognized singer, storyteller, and musician, which gave the family some status with the settled community. As Mikeen followed him in that trade and took up his songs and stories, the family became well known in Caherciveen. 

Mikeen’s, mother, Anne Jane (Coffey), who was born on Valentia Island, was valued as someone called on to lament at wakes; an “ullagoner” (olagón - Irish).

Along with other jobs, Mikeen and his mother sold ‘the ballads’ around the fairs and markets; these were the printed song-sheets which were to be found throughout Ireland right into the mid- 1950s, sold almost exclusively by Travellers. He described the production process in detail: they would approach a printer in a town, where a market was to take place, and either present the written-out words of a song, or recite it over the counter, and an order be placed for the required number. Having taken delivery of the printed sheets, they were taken around the fairs and markets to be sold.