Tape 130 Mikeen McCarthy July 1977

Contents

T/a self and family, born 29.7.3l.

Father from County Tipperary but born in Kilrush, Co. Clare.

Family were metal runners, “half and half" (part settled part Travelling)

Grandfather from Cashel, Co. Tipperary, Grandmother from Kilrush.

Mother, Janie Coffey, born on Valencia Island "nears enough a Yank".

Mother's mothers name was Gemell.

Father's main trade metal runner, then tinsmith.

Name of tinsmith tools.

Worked on ships.  Father came to England to work, worked in mines in Wales.  Became professional fighter.

Joined army, was in Dunkirk, deserted from the army.

Father born 84-85 years ago.

Mother sold ballads at fairs, description of selling ballads.

Mikeen had to read ballad from her as she couldn't read, in this way he would learn the air of the songs.

Mother's father, Mike Coffey nicknamed "the Pippler" because he was renowned as a step dancer. 

Worked mostly as farm labourer.

Mother sold holy pictures, statues, rosary beads around Christmas.

Travellers as basket makers, mat makers, mops1wireworkers, pegs, flowers made of timber.

Mother’s uncle made life sized horse out of wire at Chapeltown in Valencia Island.

Fishermen made all their own equipment.

Carved life sized man out of trunk of tree, sold it to Englishman for £5.

Modes of travelling, horses and caravans, tents.

Father never left the three towns Cahersiveen, Kilorglin, Dingle, "if he left these three towns he would be on holiday".

Grandparents travelled in donkey cart with tents, prior to this would live under the carts.

Travelling with donkey and saddlebag.

Sleep in workhouses in wintertime, in cowsheds.

Family well respected by settled by settled people.

Gorgies attended Travellers funerals, in some cases paid for the bellringing.

Family names,  Gemell , Coffey (grandfather, mother's side of family),  McCarthy (father), Faulkner (grandmother). Dooley (Mikeen's wife), Doherty (mother), O'Brien (grandmother), Mikeen's sisters, Delaney, Coffey, Dooley, Kennedy

Other names related to family, McCann, Reilly, Delaney, Driscoll.

Father from Tipperary called foreigner by mother's family, objected to marrying outside family.

Arranged marriages still take place, common up to twenty years ago.

Brother John (died aged 23), sisters, Eileen, Peggy, Biddy, Kathleen,

Ages. Mikeen 47, Katie 49, Biddy 51, Peggy 53, John would be 55, Eileen, (“don’t tell her”)  56 or 57.

Lived in Cahersiveen for 4 years, received his only education there.

Always went into house in winter.

Lived in houses for four years in Cahersiveen then only 3 or 4 winters.

Jobs worked at; first man to build caravans for The Cork Caravan Company, Scrap, tinsmith, making 3 leg tables, chimney sweeping, turf cutting, fish gutting, ballad selling, street singing, making flowers, horse and donkey dealing.

First came to England 25 years ago with 2 horses and a caravan.

Number of children (only 12),?’and 24, Biddy,22, Kathleen 20, Michael 18, John 16, Peggy 14, Josie 12, Richard 10, Eileen ? Patrick? Thomas 6.

The Seahorse (story)

J C       Okay Mikey, first can you tell me where you were born.

M Mc   Cahersiveen, County Kerry.

J C       What year?

M Mc   Twenty-ninth of June, nineteen thirty one.

J C       Now what was your father….. where was your father from?

M Mc   Well, he was from Tipperary like, but he often told me himself that his mother and his father, they had a bit of a punch-up and she was pregnant at the time and she went back home to Kilrush in the county Clare and she was born there….. he was born there rather.  So his father before him came in Cashel in the county Tipperary, Fethard, all them places like.  They were half-and-half Travelling people that time, you know, what we call between the Travelling man and the settled community.  They were metal runners like and that was their business.

J C       They what?

M Mc   They were metal runners, what they call metal runners.

J C       What’s that Mikey?

M Mc   Well then, making socks of ploughs now and pots, kettles, smoothing irons, all that, that time, out of cast iron there, they’d melt it down, that’s why they were called the metal (te).  So there was seven brothers of them there, that was my father’s father and his brother.  So that’s where…..

J C       So let me get this straight, your father was actually born in Kilrush.

M Mc   Born in Kilrush in the county Clare.

J C       And his family were from…….?

M Mc   His mother was from Clare, she was Faulkner.

J C       And his father was…..?

M Mc   And his father was from Tipperary.

J C       And who was it that was half-and-half?

M Mc   What I mean by that is like, they were Travelling people but they lived in houses all their life.

J C       Both of his parents were?

M Mc   Yeah, both of them, yeah.  She was a Traveller, so was my grandfather a Travelling man.

J C       Where was your grandfather from?

M Mc   Tipperary.

J C       Where, do you know?

M Mc   Cashel, Fethard and all round that way, do you know.

J C       There was no one town mentioned.

M Mc   No, no, they used do…… they all lived in houses like my father before me, but still they were Travelling people,  That time you had the majority that time, they were all settled down in houses, my mother’s people was the same way but still they were Travelling people.

J C       Now your grand…… oh no, I’m getting mixed up.  Now your grandfather, where was your grandfather from?

M Mc   Tipperary.

J C       Where was your grandmother from, that’s what I was going to say?

M Mc   Kilrush, county Clare.

J C       Kilrush, that’s what I was going to establish.  Now your mother.

M Mc   My mother, she was Coffey, Jane Coffey was her name, and she was born in Chapeltown in Valencia Island.

J C       In?

M Mc   Valencia Island.

J C       Valencia Island, ah?

M Mc   Yeah, she was born in there.  And how she was born in there is her mother again, they used to do a bit of what they call hawking (te) that time like, selling stuff out of baskets and all that, and she was doing a bit of hawking, because they’d spend a week inside in Valencia Island like, because it’s an island seven mile long, five miles square, something like that, and ‘twould take them about a week to do their bit of hawking all round that island, so during the time my grandmother was inside in the island anyway, my mother was borned in Chapeltown, a small little village back behind the island.  So that’s where my mother was borned, so she must be near enough a Yank (laughter).

M Mc   And her name was Coffey?

M Mc   Jane Coffey, yeah.

J C       Do you know her mother’s name?

M Mc   Yeah, her mother’s name was Gemmell.

J C       Gemmell?

M Mc   Gemmell, Bridget Gemmell.

J C       You don’t know where her grandfathers came from.

M Mc   You could keep tracing them back now Jimmy, for the next twelve hours to come, and you still…… Travelling people all that time, they were all a kind of first cousins, d’you know, and all that.  But my grandmother’s people, Gemmells, there is Gemmells in Rathkeale in the county Limerick and all around there.  I never heard tell of a Gemmell in Kerry barring my grandmother, so she must have strayed up along there to meet my grandfather or something (laughter).

J C       Right, now first, what was your father’s main trades Mikey?

M Mc   He was a metal runner at first, he changed down into a tinsmith, he was a marvellous tinsmith.  He’d see all these….. He used to set up shop like, on the side of any road, you know, and he’d all those great tools that you wouldn’t get now like, jennys and rollers and all them age of stuff like, big stakes that you wouldn’t be able to carry around and hatchet stakes and all those great tools.  And he’s work on ships then as well, boats, during the time of the war when there was no coal like, thing like that, you know.  What do I call it, he changed over those furnaces and all that, you know, in boats, in Dingle town and Cahersiveen town.  He was a man of many occupations, anything, he could turn his hand to anything.  He came to England and worked here in England, worked in Johnny Wright’s, worked there for years, he worked in Dunlop’s in Birmingham.  He came to Wales, he worked in the coal mines in Wales for twelve shillings a week.  He done a bit of pit fighting in Wales.

J C       Professionally?

M Mc   Yeah.  His first fight was in Liverpool, second one was in Cardiff, next one was in Swansea and he joined the English army after that and went out to war.  He was in Dunkirk and then France, all over the country, and bejay, about two months before the war as over he got leave for holidays and there was a Kerry feller with him , since that he went away to America, whether he is dead or alive.  So the two of them deserted, they never went back.  So bejay, he often told me this, John O’Brien was his name, he said, “come on down to Kerry, we’ll never be got again”, he said, “Because there’s parts of Kerry I know”, he said, “We’ll never be found”.  So bejay, they went down to Kerry, the two of them.  So he’s, John O’Brien’s brother was married to an aunt of mine and that’s how my father got implicated with my mother, he met my mother and got married to my mother, so he never left Kerry.  (Laughter).

J C       But he deserted from the army?

M Mc   He deserted from the army.  But he never got really a pension like, but he used get lump sums, every three months, a thing like that, you know.

J C       Do you know when he deserted?

M Mc   Oh dear me, ah, it must be sixty years ago.

J C       You don’t know the year though?

M Mc   No, no.

J C       Did they go abroad with the army, where did they go with the army?

M Mc   Oh, he was in France; he was in Dunkirk, all over.  He was iceberged (?) into Portsmouth, they came in there, he was in hospital in Portsmouth for a long time.  He was frostbitten, you know, he used to be telling me about it, how they used to be beating his feet with straps to get the cold away from it, all that, you know.  He was really a marvellous man like, to… how he lived so long.

J C       Do you know…. You don’t know…. Do you know the year he was born at all Mikey?

M Mc   Oh, I don’t Jimmy, but ‘twould be……

J C       What age was he when he died?

M Mc   He was…. I think sixty four. What age is my girl now?  Twenty four, eighty four… he’d be eighty eight years I’d say, eighty nine maybe.  I might be wrong Jimmy.

J C       What year did… what year was it he died?

M Mc   He died twenty four years I’d say, next May.

J C       That’s twenty four years nineteen seventy eight

M Mc   Sixty four.

J C       Fifty four, fifty four, yeah.  Now, your mother, what jobs did your mother do Mikey?

M Mc   My mother, like my father, like all Travelling people, she’s a hundred occupations again.  But fair days she was a ballad seller, you know, she’d sell ballads, d’you know, and that was main occupation like for fair days and meetings and all that now, but all ballad selling.  I used be with her and I a young lad and she’d have all the hit tunes that time like, the old songs like the new ones now.  Well, the songs that time like, Barbry Ellen now, all them old songs, she’d have all them in ballads and into the pubs.  She’d be getting we’ll say tuppence for a ballad that time, d’you know.  Then again, they’d know her so well like, they’d give sixpence, you know, she’d charge tuppence but then they’d give her six and they’d say “keep the change Jane”, d’you know, all that.  Oh yeah, that where I’d learn the old songs the, I used be in with her and I about thirteen or fourteen and all this, and that’s maybe ten (?)  And I’d read the old ballads for her because she was unable to write like, and I’d sing them.  We often had three mile like, to walk to a fair and she’d say “read that ballad now, see do I know it”.  So I’d read it, and as you know yourself like, young fellers like, they’d pick up very fast, bejay, I often had the song off by heart before I get to town, because I’d sing three or four times agin I’d get to the town like and she’d be telling me the air of it.  She didn’t know the exact word sometimes.

J C       You’d be teaching the words to her and from that you’d learn the air?

M Mc   That’s it, yeah.

J C       And you’d learn the ballad?

M Mc   But she’d already know the old songs like, but the air of it she’d be singing to me like, she’d be telling me the air of it.  But I never really learnt the songs off of the ballads, ‘tis off of my mother and my father like, all that, all the old people.

J C       Now do you remember the occupations of any of your grandparents?

M Mc   Well that was what I was going to tell you there now, about my mother’s father, old Mike Coffey was his name, The Pippler they used call him.

J C       The…?

M Mc   The Pippler, he was a small, little man, The Pippler.  He was a step-dancer, and that’s why they called him The Pippler, but he never did it for a living like, but when he’d go into a pub for a pint they all knew him so well, they’d say, “Mickey, give us a step-dance and we’ll buy you a pint”.  He was dealing in donkeys and all that at that time.  That’s why they call him The Pippler, he was a great step-dancer.  What he used do for an occupation mostly farm work in that time, there was really nothing to do that time for Travelling people but tinsmithing, chimney sweep, all that, you know, poor occupations.  My mother was the same, she’d make flowers now for the Christmas and all that, and she’d be selling….. different times of year like, coming on, we’ll say Christmas, she’ll be selling all holy stuff for the coming Christmas like., it was a remote country that time and they wouldn’t be near enough to villages to get rosary beads, we’ll say, prayer books or things like that, and that’s what she used be on then in the Christmas times.  Coming on Easter then run something else and it went around that way, they worked according to the time of the year, they had their head screwed on while we haven’t.

J C       Can you think off hand Mikey……we know tinsmithing, flower selling, erm… making flowers and things like that,  can you think of other trades that don’t… that sort of went out of use that Travellers did?  Did they make anything with rushes and things like this?

M Mc   Oh gee, yeah, oh, they were the finest basket makers of all times, mats, straw mats like, out of straw.  You’d the mop makers, making mops for shops like with the long handles on them, you know, out of feathers, turkey feathers.  I can do all them like.

J C       You done this as well?

M Mc   Yeah.  Well I never done it for an occupation but I’ve seen those people making them and I could make them myself.  They were calf buses (?) out of wire, flower baskets out of wire, there was wire workers, there was tinsmiths, there was various trades that you couldn’t get nobody to do now like, they were at the highest skilled men I thought I ever seen in my life.  @Tis now I know it like, we thought nothing of it that time.  Pegs, proper clothes pegs there now, we’ll say.  You had the flowers made out of timber, elder tree, proper flowers, not like the rubbish you get now, those flowers’d last for twenty, thirty years, you could dye them any colour you want, any time of the year you want.  You’d only buy the amount you wanted and every Christmas or any time of the year you could dye them a different colour again, they’d last for twenty or thirty years, they never wore out.  Er…. my mother’s uncle, he made a wire horse, a natural horse, the same size and all of a horse.

J C       Out of wire?

M Mc   Yeah, out of wire, natural horse same as you’re looking at him.  ‘Twas a colonel’s wife that was in Valencia Island.  He could make anything like, and she asked him, “well make a horse”, she said, “out of wire”, for drying her clothes out in the garden.

“I’ll do anything”, he said, “for money”.   And in three days he had a horse complete out of wire and now the same as you’re looking at him.  One that horse ‘d be covered with a couple of sheets you thought it was a horse you were looking at.  He was there, I remember that horse, my mother used often show him to me, he was in a front garden as you go back to Chapeltown there from Valencia Island.  I think it was a colonel’s house, I’m not sure.  But they were the highest skilled men I ever see.  They were fishermen then and they were the greatest skilled fishermen I ever see ‘cause they never had the proper equipment, only a fishing rod they’d make theirself out of a shaft out of a trap, that was the real hickory was in that like, and they’d fine that down to a proper fishing rod and you could tie it around your waist.  Then they had their own gut, their own line, their own hooks.  There was one of them made a…. he said, “a fisherman”, he said, “need a fisherman’s knife”.  And he made a knife and the handle of the knife was a trout and he even had the eyes natural that’d look so real that a fisherman came out one day and he looked at the table, he never saw the blade of it, (laughter) he thought it was a trout and he begged him to sell it to him, and he said, “you can have it for a present”, and he gave it to him.  They were the highest skilled men I ever see.

One of them one time, that’s the feller’s… well they were all great men to make fishing rods.  But he cut out a natural man out of a junk of a tree, the fishing rod and all in his hand, a natural man, the same as you’re looking at him, it took him weeks like, but he just made him.  And for blaggarding he used put him at the fire like, or the bank of a river, and several fellers got shocks like.  But an English man came along one day and bought him, I think he gave him five pounds for him, I think I heard him saying that, years ago.  (Laughter).

J C       Now you travel in a trailer, yea?

M Mc   Yeah

J C       What did your father travel in?

M Mc   Horses and caravans and tents more times, in the summertime we’d have a tent, and more times we’d have a caravan, horse-drawn waggon like, one he’d build himself during the winter, and in the wintertime we’d go into a house that time, we always lived in Cahersiveen or in Dingle,  he always lived in the…. we’d go into a house during the winter because that was near the fishing ports then like, you know, fixing boats, while they used be doing the boats and all that, and making tinware.  But he’d travel off then for the summer, making tinware for the bogs and the hay, well that was his life like, d’you know, ‘cause that was the time there was demand for his work during the time for cutting the turf and saving the hay and all that.  And more time then he’d work for the shops, Killarney and Kilorglin.  And he really never left the tree towns, Kilorglin, Cahersiveen and Dingle.

J C       They were the three towns?

M Mc   If he left them three towns he’d be gone off for a holiday (laughter).  He’d do nothing till he come back again. (Laughter)

J C       Now you were saying it was half-and-half, it was your father you described as being half-and-half?

M Mc   What I’d call half-and-half now is… his father, well his occupation, they couldn’t travel, d’you know, ‘cause their tools are so heavy so they lived in houses then although they were still Travelling people like.

J C       What occupation is that?

M Mc   The metal runners.

J C       Metal runners, yeah.

M Mc   So their tools like, ‘d go tremendous weight, you know.  He often told me now that there was seven brothers and they might have five mules, big mules and common cars to bring their gear from one town to the other, displaying their work in towns like.  They might pull into a market now and they’d get out all their equipment and they’d make something that they’d want and they’d put that on display then in the side like.  The farmers’d come on looking at it then like,  pick up and they’d be judging the stuff like, and they’d say, “we want a dozen of those socks of ploughs”, or “want a half a dozen of boards of ploughs”, or some shop’d come out and they’d say, “give us two dozen smoothing irons”.  So they’d take all the amount that the people wanted and their address.  They’d go back home then and they’d make all them, melt them down and then, when they’d have all that ready they’d deliver them then like with their mules and cars again, you know.

J C       Now do you remember what your grandfather….. when your grandparents travelled, what did they travel in?

M Mc   Oh, donkeys and cars and tents.

J C       Tents?

M Mc   Well, they didn’t know nothing about a tent that time, they’d only get what they call a cover of canvas and throw it over the old car and they’d lay…. I’ve laid underneath the cars myself m with my mother, they didn’t know how to make a tent either (Laughter).  No tents, they didn’t know how to make a tent right that time.  They’d put the…. we’d get a bale of straw, well, no bales, what we’d call a baft of straw out of a farmyard that time and in under the car and there we are, that’s your home and you’d have to be ducking and dodging all night in case your head’d be hitting the axle of the car and everything and the wheels and everything, but you’d get used to it like.

J C       Would you ever know whether they ever travelled without transport of any sort?

M Mc   Oh yeah, oh yeah.  What we call the donkey and saddlebags, that’s what my mother’s people used to have.  Without….. they might’ve had a donkey at that time, you’d get them at any house for nothing.  But if they hadn’t a donkey, up on their back the canvas and whatever gear they have to make a tent, but the donkey and saddlebag, that was the transport that time.  I remember them very well, walked with them in fact.  You’d make a saddlebag.  Did you ever see the donkey with the two baskets?  Well they copied that off of the Travelling people, that’s where the Travelling man used have his gear.

In fact if they’d too many children they could put all their luggage into one side of the saddlebag and if the child wasn’t able to walk too, they’d put them into the other side, the donkey ‘d walk along with the whole lot.  But that’s…. you’d see five or six of those donkeys going along and five or six saddlebags as well with them, that’s what they used call them, wherever they got the name of the saddlebags from, from the cowboys or something.

J C       Would they ever sleep in anything else other than in a tent, would they ever sleep in old buildings or…..

M Mc   Oh yeah, or workhouses in the wintertime.  Well, they were so very well known like and they were so honest, they’d knock at any farmer’s door, and they wouldn’t knock at all, they wouldn’t disturb the people, they’d go in theirself into the hayshed or into the cowshed, many’s the time I did it myself with them.  But they were so well known and so honest like, everybody knew them.  They’d say, “oh, we know who that is, that’s all right”, if the dog barked or anything,  you know, they wouldn’t wake the people, they’d know who ‘twould be because you could be within ten miles of that house and those people know you’d be coming along that district like, “oh, so-and-so’s coming on back along such and such a place, I passed him out”, something like that.  People ’d know them, well they were very well known people.  I meets old people now here in England whenever I mentions Kerry and know they were a Travelling man they’d mention the Coffeys straight away, that was all my mother’s people, they knew them, they were very well known.  When each one of them died then ‘twasn’t Travelling people at all was at their funeral mostly, ‘twas all Gorgies.  I remember well that even to the bell that’d be ringing in the chapel, it’d be Gorgies that were paying for it, everything. They were so very well known.  Well they used to attend all the funerals theirself like, the Gorgie houses and all that 

J C       Before I finish with your parents, you know, could you name for me….. could you give me all the names that you can think of who are related to you by marriage or whatever.

M Mc   Oh, my grandmother was Gemmell, my grandfather was Coffey, that was my mother’s side, my mother was Coffey, my father was McCarthy.  Well, my father’s side then, his mother was Faulkner, his father was McCarthy.  Do you want to go into the wife’s people now is it?

J C       Yeah, right through the lot.

M Mc   Nonie is Dooley, protestant name by the way (Laughter).  Her mother was Docherty, Dockerty they call it sometimes, her father now, his mother was O’Brien, his own name was Dooley like.  I’m out of count now for the rest of them Jimmy, that’s Nonie’s people like.

J C       Now going forward now to the young…..  the children, who’s married in your family Mikey.

M Mc   Oh, my sisters now is it?

J C       Yeah, your sisters.

M Mc   Oh jakers, Ive one sister married to Delaney, Michael Delaney, another one Jim Coffey, another one Johnny Dooley, another one john Kennedy, that’s it.  Now with all their daughters now, they’re all gone mixed up now.  McCanns, Rileys, dear me, we could be calling them out for another month  (Laughter).  Delaneys Driscolls, if you told my I was going on she wouldn’t like a bit of it (Laughter).

J C       That’s what I was going to ask you Mikey, was there ever any time when it wasn’t considered that families didn’t sort of marry in with other families.

M Mc   Oh, it was yeah, my father was from Tipperary sure, my mother’s people used to call him The Foreigner because he was from Tipperary and we were from Kerry, my mother from Kerry (laughter).  They wouldn’t like a bit travelling out at all, a stranger.  There was Coffeys married into one another for years and years and years.  Well if a feller, Cahersiveen side now we’ll say, Killarney, Kilorglin, well now Tralee was only sixteen miles across like and that’s what they used call the Travelling people, oh, the crowd over the hill, anybody joined in there was a foreigner (Laughter).

J C       But they didn’t like it?

M Mc   No, they didn’t.

J C       Did they ever do anything about it?

M Mc   No, no, they never did nothing about it.

M Mc   They just didn’t like it that way.

M Mc   No, no.  Once you were one of the tribe, first or second or third cousin you was all right.  You were out from the hills out.  (Laughter)  But now they’d never throw it in your face like or thing like that, maybe they did like it but maybe they had a funny way of saying it, you know, but that’s what they used call my father, the foreigner.  (Laughter).

J C       How long ago was it Mikey, can you remember, when there was arranged marriages?

M Mc   Er… Oh, not long ago.  There’s a bit of it happening yet Jimmy.

J C       Yeah?

M Mc   Oh yeah, oh that’s not very long ago, twenty years, it’s still going on.

J C       Yeah, ok, I want to talk to you separately about that Mikey, but not tonight, you know, we won’t do that tonight.  Has it ever happened in your family, arranged marriages, do you know of?

M Mc   Yeah, it did.  My Jean now, Sauce got married to Jim Driscoll.  But you’d kind of know what’s going to happen like.  So that bit of pride like, they’d be ashamed to go up and talk to the father and all that, or the mother.  So you’d kind of guess it like, you’d get a hint from behind some place, so you’re almost taking the word out of their mouth now, the way things are going, because ‘tis happening, you know it is going to happen then.

J C       Did you hear of it happening when the couple being married didn’t approve of it, didn’t want to get married particularly, did that happen?

M Mc   It could have very well happened Jimmy, but it wound up happy, whether it was agin their will or not they lived together for the rest of their life, the most of them I saw they did.

J C       Yeah, ok, I’ll talk to you about that some other time anyway Mikey.   Now you were born in Cahersiveen, yeah?

M Mc   Yeah.

J C       Now could you name for me your brothers and sisters.

M Mc   I’d only one brother, John, and he died at twenty three years of age.  And then I had Eileen, my sister Eileen, then Peggy, Biddy, Kathleen.  As far as I know they were all born in Cahersiveen.

J C       That’s all there was though?

M Mc   Yeah.

J C       Could you give me their ages now, how old they are now.

M Mc   Oh, I’m forty seven, Katie’d be forty nine, Biddy’d be fifty one, Peggy’d be fifty three, John, he’d  be fifty five, Eileen, don’t tell her, about fifty six or fifty seven  (Laughter).   She’d tell you she’s only forty (Laughter).

J C       So you were the youngest in fact?

M Mc   I was the youngest, I was the baby.

J C       Now when you left Cahersiveen where did you go to?  You lived in Cahersiveen for a while didn’t you.

M Mc   For a while only Jimmy, that’s all, during my father working here in England at the time, so we lived there that time for four years, that’s where I got any little bit of education I have.  Well that’s the time my father was in England.  So he went on the third of November nineteen fifty three…. forty three he came to England.  And he didn’t come back then till forty seven when the brother died, so that’s…. we left the house then like, went off travelling, you know.  We always….. we nearly always went into the house in the winter, in the summer we were off on the road again.

J C       In that time would you guess of how much time you spent in a house and how much time you spent on the road.

M Mc   Oh, ‘twas nearly all on the road, I’d say four years that time in Cahersiveen and I’d give it….. I’d say myself that time like, before I got married, maybe, maybe three or four winters beside that in houses.

J C       That’s all?

M Mc   That was the lot yeah.

J C       When was the last time you stopped in a house Mikey?

M Mc   Well I’d five houses of my own in Cork City, one after the other like.  I bought one, I bought two in fact.  I’d a site and I’d two corporation houses, and I left all of them, I could never stick it out for the year.  Nine months, ten months at the most.  The wild ‘d call me again and I’d have to go on again  (Laughter)

J C       What did you work at when you were in the houses?

M Mc   Scrap all the time nearly Jimmy like, building caravans, flat cars, dealing in horses, all that, mostly building caravans.  I’m a skilled caravan maker.

J C       Could you name for me the jobs you’ve done then Mikey?

M Mc   Er, I was the first man to build wagons for the Cork caravan Company, cork City, I was the first man to build them tourist wagons now you see, I was the first man to put them on the road for a Mr Murphy.  I was on Radio Eireann….. I think it was the BBC radio behind in Puck fair one night,  how I made them, what I made them out of, and the material I made them out of,  Other from that, scrap, I was a tinsmith, I used make those tables, little three-legged tables, four legged tables and chairs and all that.  I’d sweep chimneys in the Christmas times, cut turf, and we used go on in teams then cutting turf up in Bord na Móna, anything there was money in.  I counted fish at three o’clock in the morning till seven, gutted them, cleaned them, packed them in boxes, everything.  What else?  Ballad selling, sing in the streets, I sang… for years I sang in the streets, that was the best living I ever got I think (Laughter).  Cushiest one I ever like.  Making flowers, I used make flowers with my mother, sell them as well, feather dealing, went on then as I was growing up then into the horse dealing, then donkey dealing.  Used go from town to town dealing in horses and donkeys and everything.  All the remote parts of Kerry, back there, dealing in donkeys, we go on with one batch and keep swapping and trucking all day long, that was our living.  We might have twenty going out in the morning, we might have twenty coming back in the evening, exchanging, trying to rob the people and the people trying to rob us and all this (Laughter).

J C       Now when did you first come over to England Mikey.

M Mc   Oh, it’s twenty five years ago Jimmy, came across to Fishguard, brought off two horses and a caravan and a flat car.  I thought it was America I was landing when I got off of  boat, Id didn’t know what way to go, says I, “Which way to Birmingham”  (Laughter).  And I saw a big hill in front of me anyway and Nonie was with two kids, “Jay”, she says, “we’ll never get up that hill”, d’you know, I had to walk her on.  A feller called me then and showed me a way around like, to the level of the road all right.   We got over it.  Ten days it took us to come to Birmingham.

J C       On a flat car?

M Mc   And a waggon.

J C       A waggon?

M Mc   Yeah, a piebald mare.

J C       Now finish this, would you tell me how many kids have you got?

M Mc   Only twelve Jimmy.

J C       Only twelve, you’re young yet.

(Laughter)

J C       Could you name them Mikey, and their ages?

M Mc   Yeah, well Jean ‘d be twenty four, well Biddy I’d say ‘d be….. I’m not exact of their ages now, twenty two I’d say, Biddy, then we’d Kathleen, I reckon she’s about twenty maybe, something like that.  We’ve Michael then, Michael is gone eighteen, no, he’s just eighteen now, April.  John is going on sixteen, September, then we’ve Peggy, fourteen, Josie, she’s twelve I’d say, thirteen maybe.  Next, I’ll see, Richard, Richard’s about ten or eleven, Richard and…. Eileen, I don’t know what age Eileen is.  Jimmy, there’s Patrick and Thomas, but Thomas is six, the oldest one is twenty four.

J C       So from six to twenty four?

M Mc   Yeah.

J C       Have you got any… how many grandkids have you got?

M Mc   Oh, two, don’t tell nobody.  (Laughter)

J C       They wouldn’t believe it Mikey.  Ok Mikey, we’ve just got a little more of this.  Could you tell us that story.

M Mc   Oh well, about the seahorse?

J C       Hm hm.

M Mc   Well there was a very poor old man back in a place called Ballyheige, back in Kerry and bejay his horse died.  He’d a few kids as far as I believe and he was struggling to make things meet.  And I suppose the man above was looking down on him and he said, he said, “We’re going to starve now”, he said, “our horse is dead”.  Bejay, he woke the following morning anyway, there he looked out on the acre where his old, old horse used to be, and what was there only a sea horse.  So as far as the old people tells me like, he roped him and jay, he said, “Is it possible at all to train a sea horse”?  And he got at him and he trained him and he done all his work with him down through the years.  And when his family anyway, was well reared up and all and everything, all his work done, he looked out one morning and he saw the sea horse and he going back into the sea again.  So he came by surprise and he went that way.

That’s as far as I know of it now Jimmy.

J C       That’s a story from your father, yeah?

M Mc   Yeah, I don’t know if it was from my father or the old people, I think it was my mother used to tell it to me.  ‘Twas better than that, like, I’m only…… bits and pieces.

J C       Alright Mikey, lovely.