Tape 131 Mikeen McCarthy 28.4.78.   

Contents

Mikeen And The County Home (story).

Brothers go To America (story).

Jack 0 Lantern (story).

Description of Jack-o-Lantern.

Freeze Or F*** (joke).

Flowery Nolan (song) (good).

Wherever There's A Goose (1 v and lilted verse).

Start of nonsense story.

J C       OK, if you can start Mikey.

M Mc   Yeah. 

Myself and Nonie, we’d an awful fight one time down in Kerry, so my horses was gone and every whole thing, so I rambles on up for the County Galway.  So bejay, I runs out of money and I keeps walking the roads all night anyway.  But was an awful stormy night anyway and I’d a butt of a fag and a match in my pocket.  So I laid agin’ the ditch from the storm and the rain and the wind blowing and everything and I hears a walk coming agin’ me.  So in Galway like, the men and the women, ‘tis very hard to distinguish the man from the woman in the night moreover, because they wear the same type of boots, big heavy nailed boots.  So I heard the walk comin’ agin’ me and I goes over, I says, “have you got a match sir please?

“Oh”, she said, “I’ve a match all right” she says, “but I’m a woman”, and she says, “what have you out this hour of the night?”

“Well”, say I, “I’m after having an awful fight with my wife”, say I, “and my horses is missing with a week and I can’t   trace them”.

“Well”, she said, “I’m after having a fight too with my husband”, she said, “and I’m on the road too”.  But she said, “there’s a convalescent home here above”, she said, well, a county home they calls it in Ireland, “and if you signs me in”, she said, “as your wife”, she said, “the two of us can get in there”, she said, “until tomorrow morning.

“Oh, I’ll do anything at all”, said I, “to get in off of this bitter cold”.

So on we goes anyway and into the convalescent home.  So there was a man at the office anyway, going in the gate and I signed her in as Mrs Michael McCarthy.  So bejay, we went in anyway and she was put into one room and I was put into another, as I said, ‘twas very dark.  So I was up the following morning at a very early hour.

Said I, “I’ll try and get back home to today”, and off out to the office. 

And the feller at the gate said to me, “where are you off to”, he said?

“Oh, I’m off out now”, said I for myself, “and I’m very thankful to you for the nights lodgings”, and all this, do you know.

“Well”, he said, “what about your missus?”

“Oh”, says I, “she’ll come along after”, d’you know.

“Ah well”, he said, “you signed her in”, he said, “So you’ll have to sign her out”.

“Oh”, said I, “I’ll do that”, said I, “is she ready.

“Well she’s not”, he said, “because she’d a confinement last night”, he said, “she’d a young baby”.

“And”, said I, “what’s going happen now?”

 I couldn’t go now because I’d have to go back on my name and all this and I’d had to be telling lies and everything and get into trouble.

“Well”, he said, “you have to work now”, he said, “until such time she come out”.

So I had to work for nine days and nine nights anyway, digging the garden and washing the ware and sweeping up the yard and doing every whole thing anyway, and bejay, the child got christened anyway and the child had to be christened Michael McCarthy, because any other way we’d be arrested and brought in and tried at court for telling lies and everything.

So bejay, we comes out as far as the gate anyway and there was a small little thatched pub outside the gate.  So I signs her out Mrs Michael McCarthy.

She says, “Will you come in while I give you one pint”, she said, “before you go home”?

“I will then”, says I, and in I went and she called for a pint for me, and she called for a bottle of Guinness for herself.

So bejay, there was an old man inside in the bar anyway.

She said, “Will you hold the child there”, she said, “until I go and get a bottle of milk”.

“I will then”, says I, “will you be long”?

“Oh, I won’t”, she said.

So bejay, I was drinking the pint anyway and I had the child up in my arms, and it went on for a quarter of an hour, and on for half an hour, went on for three quarters of an hour, faith, and I didn’t see her coming and the child was getting a bit incontrary and everything and I was getting contrary myself and I didn’t know what to do.

So, “Jay”, says I, I’d better think of something, and the hour passed and she never came back.

So says I, “is there any chance that you’d hold the baby there”, says I to the old man, says I, “until I see where she’s gone”.

“Oh, I will of course”, he said.

“I don’t want to be taking him out in the cold”, says I.  And away I goes.

So bejay, it was twenty years later anyway, myself and Nonie, wasn’t we travelling up around the County Galway, so I never tells Nonie nothing like.  And there I see this big new pub anyway and Michael McCarthy wrote over the door.

So bejay, says I, “I have to go in here, see what’s happening”.

So I pulled my lorry and my trailer outside anyway and I went in for a pint of Guinness and cigarettes, I just went in to find out what happened.  And there was a big blondie haired boy inside the bar and he was about twenty years of age.

And says I, “give me a pint of Guinness please and ten Players”.

“I’m sorry”, he said, "we don’t serve any Travelling people in here”.

M Mc   He was often telling me about them.

J C       So what’s that Mikey?

M Mc   There was two fellers one time back in Kerry, I do not know what part of Kerry ‘twas now, and they made up their mind to go to America.  And they worked and worked and worked for about two years and everything to get their fare to America and their clothes and everything ready.

So they hit for America, never to part of course,  Whatever they earn, one feller getting ten pound a week and the other feller getting five, they still split it.  And oh, they had everything in hand, even to the….. they nearly used the one toothbrush.

So bejay, the two of them gets on the boat anyway, and they gets off the boat in America and they never saw one another no more for twenty years until the two of them landed back on holidays back together. 

M Mc   Well, I went off, some donkeys strayed belonging to my father one night you see, and away I goes.  So bejay, when donkeys ‘d go like and when you get a track of them you forget about the dark because you say to yourself, “I’ll only be doubling the journey in the morning”, so you’re as well off to finish the journey that night as doing it again the following day. So I kept walking and walking and walking anyway, and bejay, it got dark, and very dark, and it got windy and lightning and thunder all over the place and I laid agin’ the ditch.  So bejay, I hears a walk coming anyway and I saw a big tall man dressed in black and he said, “isn’t it a cold night you’re out?”

“Oh, it is sir”, says I to him.

So he said, “would you come into the house”, he said, “and get a heat of the fire”.

“I’ll do that”, then says I to him, and on I goes and he opened the door of the house anyway, and I’d a cigarette in my pocket but I’d no match and there was a big blazing fire on, and bejay, I took the cigarette out anyway and got ready for the heat and over to light the cigarette and there was no heat at all out of the fire, couldn’t even get a light if you stick your hand into it.  And I said to myself, “I don’t like this”.  And I turned around, I was going to make for the door now, d’you see, but I said to myself, “I’m going to make for it now, he’s going to stop me”.

“He said, “I’m a long time waiting for blokes like you to come around”, he said, and he said that and the next thing, and said I to myself, “this is the end of the tune”, says I to myself.  And he called my down the room, and when he called me down the room there was three heads of men and women and the hanging up below in the old room anyway.  He takes out his hatchet and he was edging the hatchet anyway, and bejakers, I stepped sideways and he thought I was gone out and he took the latch off of the door and bejay, I got out between his legs and away to go.

So I falls into a bog-hole and I running through the bog anyway and I goes on from that and I goes into this old barn.  So I takes off all my clothes anyway and I hangs them up on the rafters of the barn to dry and I covers myself up with all the hay inside anyway, and bejay, I hears the dogs barking and the very minute I hear the farmer coming out like, and they’d be worried about you putting the hay-barn on fire, a thing like that, so they’d be giving you what’d be coming to you says the man.  So bejay, I stepped down along the hayshed in my naked skin and away to go.

So I sees a light anyway a distance from me and away I heads for the light.  So bejay, I thought I was getting fooled for a while by Jack-o-the-Lantern, but it wasn’t Jack-o-the-Lantern at all, ‘twas a light on and ‘twas a wake going on in the house.  So I knocked at the door and out came a woman.  So I kept back like and I told her, “I’ve no clothes on”, says I, “and don’t come out”.  And says I, “have you got any clothes at all you can give me to get to get on me out of the cold”, I was shivering.

“Well”, she said, “the only clothes I have”, she said, “is the clothes belonging to the dead man”.

“Well”, say I, “any clothes at all ‘ll do me whether he’s dead or alive, sure, they’ll do me fine”.

“But”, she said, “he was a very tall man”.

“It doesn’t matter”, says I.

So, “here you are”, she said, sure, she give me out the trousers anyway and I put the trousers on me,  sure, I was rolling it up for about two hours before I got them to fit me and the arse of it was hanging down round the yard. 

So she said, “here’s his shirt”, so she gives me out the shirt, sure I put on the shirt on me and it was hanging on the ground too, I could tear off the two tails and ‘twas still too long.

And bejay, she said, “you’ll have to take the lot now, d’you know”, she said to me, “you can’t take one, she said “without the rest, and say a prayer for the souls”.

“I will do that ma’am””, says I.

So she gives me out his socks, sure, the socks would have made a suit for me altogether, and the boots were about size fourteens and I had to get them on me.  So bejay, she gives me out the waistcoat and I put on the waistcoat and the two tails was hitting the road and the short coat was dragging along, never mind the swallow tail.  She gives me out the swallow tail and there was two tails of it hanging around.  As I walked out the yard with the hat hitting my shoulders that I put on my head, I had to put two holes in it to see out through it.

Bejay, away I was making, anyway she give me five bob and give me a lump of bread and milk or something and off I was making out the yard.  Sure, anybody‘d get a surprise, no more than the old gander anyway, and next thing the old gander sees me and he with the crowd of geese.  And he leapt on to of the two tails of my coat and away skirts of me out through the gate and the old gander and he leppin’ on top, having great sport out of the two tails of the coat, they must be six or ten feet behind me.  And away to go.  But sure, when I got up the road I had to take off the boots, I couldn’t go no further with them, I took them all off and away to go agin’.

Well I landed in along through anyway, I got lost in the bogs and I sees another light.

“Oh bejay”, says I, “I’m right this time, I might get something to fit me here and to get rid of all those clothes”, yeh, they’d go a hundredweight and a half I suppose altogether.  So bejay, on I goes anyway and I sees the light.  Sop there is what they call a moss in a bog like, and for a long time I thought it was the light off the moss that was carrying me on like, that I could see.  And bejay, every time I’m going this way to the left you’d see the light on to the right and ‘twas making a fool out of me and a fool out of me anyway, and I kept going and I kept going and I kept going until break of day in the morning, I could never see wherever the light came from until I fell asleep agin’ a hedge and I woke up.

J C       What was that about the moss Mikeen?

M Mc   There is a kind of a moss in a bog and in the night like, it shines, you know, like light, it is light actually.  And you’d imagine ‘twould be light, thought ‘twas that for a long time that was fooling me, ‘twasn’t, ‘twas a real lamp, so I went back to te barn the following morning and I got my clothes off of the farmer and back home with me again.

(Laughter)

M Mc   There was a feller back in Ireland and he’d an awful crowd of kids.  So bejakers, he pulled up in this place anyway and oh, ‘twas a very cold night.   So he’d only a tent, he’d no caravan or nothing.  So bejay, Jack and Mary as they said, and he’d about ten or twelve kids anyway and a sop of straw underneath him anyway.  Jay, this big lord anyway, he was riding a horse down from his demesne anyway, seems everybody knew him around there.

“By jay Jack”, he said, “haven’t you an awful lot of kids”.

“Oh, I have”, he said.

“How in the name of god”, he said, “how can you have all them kids”, he said, “in that cold place in there”, he said, “and look at me in my big ten roomed house above”, he said, “and myself and the wife can’t have none”.

“Well”, he said, “there’s only one thing”, says he, “for it, when me and Mary go into that tent”, he said, “and lie down”, he said, “we either freeze or f***”, said he.

(Laughter)

Oh he lived upon the Stokestown Road convenient to Arphin,

A man called Flowery Nolan, a terror to all men;

He reached the age of seventy one, he thought himself it was time

For to go and get a missus, his wedding ‘twould be no crime.

So the news it quickly spread around how Flowery wished to wed,

Oh, several maids came offer to him and from them all he fled,

Except one young fair maid, her fortune was rather high,

So he took and he married this young fair maid to be his wedded wife.

Oh the wedding it lasted two nights and one day till one night going into bed,

 Oh Flowery turned all to his wife and these are the words he said,

“You think you are my wedded wife, but I’ll tell you you’re not,

You are only but my old serving maid and better is your lot”.

So when Mrs Nolan heard those words she thought her husband queer,

Oh packing up her belongings from him she went away,

She tramped the road to her father’s house, ‘tis there she did remain

And then all the men in the Stokestown Road wouldn’t get her back again.

Now then all ye pretty young fair maids, a warning take by me,

Never marry an old man or sorry you will be,

Never marry an old man till you’re fed up of your life,

Or then you’ll be coming home again like Flowery Nolan’s wife.

M Mc                         

Oh wherever there’s a goose there’s a gander,

Wherever there’s a will there’s a way,

Wherever there’s a goose there’s a gander,

And they call it a cloudy old day.

                  (Lilted verse)

Tis the way my father used start off stories one time, he used tell you about animals, and a thing like that;

When once upon a time when dogs ‘d shit lime

And turkeys chewed tobaccy,

And very good times they were.

D’you know, he’d start of like that like.

J C       The story started off like that?

M Mc   Yeah, yeah.  Well he’d always put that like, in front of two or three, maybe a dozen stories.  He’s be telling you about  more….

J C       What stories would he put them in front of, d’you know?

M Mc   Jay, I disremember now Jimmy.  I mean that was an awful crack of his anyway like, it might be a funny story he was starting off then like, d’you know.