Tape 132  8.5.78.    Mikeen McCarthy

Contents

Description of Puck Fair riots between travellers, Gorgies and police, circa 1945.

Riot caused by argument between policeman and traveller named Paddy Kennedy; policeman batons Kennedy over argument about Harness.

Description of' fight, ash plants, driving cattle into travellers.

Arranged fist fights at fair.

Travellers disciplining bad members of their own community.

Relationships between travellers and gorgies.

Description of travellers as "house ghost".

Inter-marriage among travellers and gorgies.

Traveller families identified by where they travelled.

"Tralee was like America to us".

"Saint Patrick was a Welshman”.

Superstitions about Jackdaws and Magpies (rhyme about magpies).

The Tinker and The Landlord. (Story).

J C       Ok Mikey, will you just tell us what happened?

M Mc  Well as far as I remember like, I was only a young boy at the time, and there was an old man, Jack Kennedy, ah, he’s dead since.  So he’d the first motor and trailer that I ever seen at Puck Fair anyway, or any other place, and he pulled into Puck Fair.  So he was getting a cup of tea off an old woman, Mainy Sheridan was her name, and ‘twas at her caravan door that he was standing and he drinking the cup of tea.  So his motor and trailer was across the road.  So there was a set of harness and they were threw down in the roadway like, and it wasn’t a main road, ‘twas just leading up to the cottages like and there was a guard came along with a bicycle, he was walking, I disremember the guard’s name now, and he told old Jack Kennedy, old Paddy Kennedy rather, his son was Jack, he said, “Pick up those harnesses off the road”, he said, “don’t have them thrown there”.

So old Paddy Kennedy, which he was right, he said, “I don’t own those harnesses”, he said.

So he disbelieved him because he saw him drinking the cup of tea like, at the waggon, d’you know, and he said, “Pick ‘em up”, he said.

So he said, “I don’t own the harness”, he said, “to pick ‘em up””, and neither he didn’t.

All the guard done was put his bicycle agin the caravan, the side of it, came back, drew out his baton and up shot and hit him down straight in the middle of the head.  I was looking at it; his head split open like that, no blood or anything came out of it, but the skin turned pure white.  So the man turned around anyway, he was an aged man, and he turned around, and turned, and the cup fell out of his hand, and staggered like, and staggered.  And so there was a horse’s cart and ‘twas heeled up in the front of the caravan, and he stumbled and he fell right into that.

So he… they rang for the ambulance anyway and the ambulance cane and took him away to Killarney Hospital where he remained, for….. I disremember now how long, he was there during all Puck anyway.  So all the rest of the Travelling men, they were away at Cahersiveen Fair, the sixth of August fair, ‘twas well before Puck like.  And when they came back they found out what happened the old man, because he was a very liked old man like, he was a very quiet old man, and they came up to his son Jack and they said why didn’t he do something about it when he was there.  So Jack was also a quiet man, so when he had a bit of strength behind him he went on, he did do something, but he couldn’t get into the house.  So it started from that.

So the guards started first and then the Sheridans and the Flynns and the Hegartys and the Mahoneys and the Bryans and the Coffeys, and they all got into it.  So with the Gorgies anyway and the Travellers there was no Puck Fair.  It went on right through Puck as far back as I remember anyway.  The fights started and kept going and kept going and kept going and ‘twas one side over the bridge and the other side back and the Gorgies trying to come to this side and the Travellers trying to get on through the other side.   But that’s as far back as I can remember like, but there was hardly much of a Puck Fair anyway, with all of the fighting, ‘twas all fighting from that on.  But the same guard anyway, I never saw him on duty in Puck Fair ever after.

J C       What were the fighting with Mikey?

M Mc  Ash plants, sticks, everything they got in their hand, fist fighting, there was a lot of hardy boyoes there that time.  But they sent for reinforcements to Tralee, at Farranfore, Killarney, all over the guards came and the Gorgies.  But the fight was really like….. there was…… could be two hundred men of Travelling people there, could be more.

J C       Two hundred? 

M Mc  Yeah, could be more.  The bridge was narrow and when there’d be twenty men in force like, d’you see, they hadn’t enough room to get on behind one another.  So they retreat back again to the crossroads where the caravans was and the fight ’d open up then again, d’you see, because they had the crossroads then like to spread out, d’you see, and they spread the Gorgies back over the bridge again, and the guards.   So they drove a herd of cattle down from Puck, the Gorgies, trying to scatter the Travellers, and they beat the cattle back through them, kind of a stampede and they put one bullock in over the bridge altogether, ‘twas like a high dive, he went right into the Lowne River he went.  But this is what I remember like.   So I think they were sending for the army, whether the army arrived I’m not sure now, I think they did, but the Travellers retreated anyway, but they weren’t beat, they left because they thought the gun force might come in or something like that, you know.  But they left, they won but they still left.

J C       What year was this Mikey, do you remember at all?

M Mc  Oh dear Jimmy, it’s a long time, er…..

J C       How old were you?

M Mc  I’d give it the seventeen, maybe eighteen.

J C       And you’re what now?

M Mc  I’, forty seven; I’d only be about seventeen I’d say.

J C       Probably thirty years ago?

M Mc  Ah, could be thirty two, could be more like.

J C       And it was Gorgies against Travellers?

M Mc  Gorgies and guards against the Travellers.  They went into the dance hall, they’d beat what was in the dance hall out of it, there was no dances, there was nothing there that year.  It all started over one old man and a silly guard.

J C       Was there ever any more trouble like that Mikey, on that scale, have you ever heard…….?

M Mc  No, I’ve been in Puck all my life, mother and father before me, no, I’ve never….    You’d see great punch…..  I saw great fights there, great fighting men like, professional fighters; I saw those great fighting men fight there; Paddy Casey, Big Paddy O’Brien, Onie O’Shea, there’s Mick Ward the boxer, there was all great fighting men, but hey fought like, a challenge fight, but they’d be inside in the pub drinking after, it’s like two professionals going into a ring to fight, those were the same men like; they’d come there to meet one another for that reason, but that didn’t say that they were bad friends or anything like that, d’you know.

J C       But never anything on that size, on that scale before?

M Mc  No, no, never before or since, not that I know of anyway.  There’d often be a punch-up like, d’you know, life if it happened in any pub up the town here; no. I’ve never seen any violence like that before or since.

J C       The feelings between the Gorgies and the Travellers years ago was good, wasn’t it, or was it?

M Mc  It could be good and it could be bad, it depended on who the Gorgie feller was and who the Travelling man was; maybe one could be bad, you could pick a bad boy out of any street of houses like.  We could have the same among us fellers, it could take one of us to start it.  But we knew the bad feller, we’d never follow him up.  If we saw the bad feller we’d try and get him away and keep him quiet or something like that, d’you know, but in the regards of backing him up, we wouldn’t back him up.

J C       Would you say it was any different now Mikey, than it was then, between Gorgies and Travellers?

M Mc  Well, where we were all our life we were reared, bred, born and reared, we never met a Gorgie that would insult us in life hardly, because we were well in with them, d’you know.  They knew us; we were like what they call it, the house ghost, we were the country Travellers, we belonged to that country, and many more besides us.  We were very well know like but er….. it’s like a person can be very bad until you get to know them, you know, and then, once you get to know them there’s no such thing as a bad man, no matter how rich or poor or what you are.

J C       What’s this….. what did you say, house guest, what’s a house guest Mikey?

M Mc  A house ghost.

J C       Guest?

M Mc  Ghost.

J C       Ghost?

M Mc  Yeah, that’s what they used to call us.

J C       House ghost?

M Mc  House ghost, well, I mean that’s what we were like, we were like their country tinkers if you like, d’you know.

J C       Why ghost, do you know?

M Mc  Well that’s an old saying, the house ghost, d’you know, ghost in the family and all that kind of going on, d’you know.

D T      Going around.

M Mc  Yeah.

J C       Never heard that at all.

M Mc  But since a lot of that like, and before that there was Gorgies married into Travellers, I had a lot of cousins married into Gorgies, world of them, dozens.  Some of them away in America, England, all over Great Britain, more of them stationed back in Ireland, farmers, everything, they’re just the same as ourself, or we’re the same as them, whatever you like to put it. 

J C       Do the Gorgies have different names, or did you have different names for different types of Travellers; you said house ghost….?

M Mc  Ah well, there was…..  my mother’s family now like, we were Cahersiveen to Killarney, that was our lot, Kilorglin, Dingle, back around.  I was a boy of eighteen years of age before I saw the town of Tralee.  Well Killarney was our life like, Cahersiveen and Kenmare now, Dingle.  But the regards of Tralee, Tralee was like America to us when I came sixteen or seventeen years.

J C       It’s like America now Mikey, full of Yanks (Laughter).

M Mc  Well, that’s what they say (Laughter).

J C       Mikey, a couple of things I wanted to ask you that we’ve not asked you before.  Did you ever hear any stories or Pisrogues or anything about holy people like Our Lady or like Saint Martin or Our Lord or anybody?

M Mc  I’d nearly have to get time to think about that Jimmy, d’you know; ‘tis a kind of a…… stories like that is like one conversation gathering into another always, you know, once a feller talk about that there’d be another always, you know, once a feller talk about that there’d be another one, you’d have another one upstairs waiting like, something like that, you know.

J C       You never heard anything about Saint Patrick at all, you can’t remember?

M Mc  Oh, as far as I hear that Saint Patrick was a Welshman, and what was he, a teacher or a preacher in Ireland or something like that; they brought him back over to Wales and he came back over to Ireland again and he banished all the snakes out of Ireland, you know, you’d hear all those old yarns.

J C       Would you think about that Mikey, you know, stories and Pisrogues?

M Mc  Yeah.

J C       You told us some, you know, like about the bulrushes with the red tops, but thinks like that connected with either Saint Patrick or Saint Martin or Our Lord or Our Lady.

M Mc  There’s Pisrogues like, with us Travelling people now, if we see two jackdaws together like they says we meets more Travellers, but I think I was telling you something about that before.

J C       Yeah.

M Mc  About the seven magpies, one for bad luck and two for good luck, three for a wedding, four for a wake, five for silver, six for gold and seven for a story that was never told, al that, you know.

J C       Mikey, Tony’s note heard this, we’ve recorded this before, but would you tell us again the story of the Tinker and the landlord, d’you mind?

M Mc  Oh jay no.  Which one is that now Jimmy.

J C       The one where the landlord gives him the house.

M Mc  About the rabbits and all, Jack and Mary, yeah.  Excuse me.

Jack and Mary, they were two old Travellers like, you know, and jay, they used be always used be travelling round the country.  But Jack was very badly off anyway, ‘cause he was fond of the old pint and all that.  So bejay, they came along one day, so he was putting down a tent and ‘twas in the wintertime and you know what the winter looks like anyway and he was trying to stick up the old wattles and trying to put the canvas over the old tent and the ground was wet and he was in an awful heap.  But the landlord anyway, he was passing with his coach and his four horses and his driver and jay, he looked out the window and when he saw it he told the driver, “Oh, pull up”, he said, “till I see that poor man and woman”, says he.

He got out, “Oh”, he said, “have you any place at all?”

“Oh, no place at all”, he said

“Have you got any….?”

“Oh, I’ve no money”, he said.

“I’ve a cottage”, he said, “up the road and if you give me two shillings a week for it”, he said, “I’ll leave you have it in rent, but can you afford it?”

“Oh, indeed I can of course sir”, he said, “once I have some place to get in”.

So they got in anyway and well, the old landlord, he was very fond of money.

“Well”, he said, “by paying me every year now”, he said, “come a lot handier to me”, he said.

“Oh jay, that I’ll do”, said Jack.

So whatever it was by the year anyway, Jack went on and worked away and the landlord never came anywhere near him till the year was up.  So bejay, he was expecting him coming anyway and now he says to Mary, says he, “Bejay, we’ll have to think up something Mary”, he said, “because the landlord is coming tomorrow”.

“Oh, fair enough Jack”, she said.

So bejay, he got two little wild rabbits anyway, so bejay, didn’t he put one into the box anyway inside in the kitchen.

“Now”, he said to Mary, “when he come”, he said, “you let him out of the box”, he said, “and tell him go down for Jack”.  So he’d the other one inside in his pocket, d’you see.  So bejay, in came the landlord.

“Oh, how are you landlord”, she said.

“Ah, hello Mary”, he said, “where’s Jack?”

“Oh, he’s down the bog”, she said, “he’s doing a bit of cutting of turf or something”.

“Well”, he said, “today’s rent day, d’you know”.

“Oh, that’s right, I’ll send down for him now”, she said.

So she takes the little rabbit out of the box anyway and, “Go on down”, she said, “and bring up Jack”.

“Ah”, he said, “you daft old woman”, he said, “that rabbit won’t tell the man come up”, he said.

“Oh faith then, he will”, she said, “every time”, she said, “that he’s wanted for the dinner”, she said, “I just sends him down”, she said, “and he’s up for the dinner; it saves me ringing the bell and all this”.

Away goes the little rabbit, sure, the little rabbit run off through the fields somewhere, she didn’t know where he went.  And sure, jack is watching from the bottom the bottom of the ditch below, d’you see.  And on came Jack anyway and he takes the other little rabbit out of his pocket and starts rubbing down the little rabbit and puts him back into the box in front of the landlord.

“Well”, says the landlord, “I never saw nothing like that in my life”, says he, “when you can train anything like that”, says he.

“Oh, that’s my living”, says he, “training rabbits”, he said, “to do all them things”.

So, “Oh Jack”, he said, “you’ll have to sell me that rabbit”.

“Oh, I wouldn’t sell you that rabbit for no money”, he said.

“Well”, he said, “if you don’t sell me that rabbit Jack”, he said, “you’d better get out of the house right now”, says he.

“Well”, he said, “I’ll do anything”, he said, “before I go out, but what way are we going to fix up?”

“Well”, he said, “I’ll forgive you for the years rent”, he said, “if you let me have the rabbit”.

“I can’t refuse the landlord”, he said, “let him have the rabbit Mary”.

So Mary was kicking up of course, and all this, d’you know.

“All right then”, says he, and he gives him the box and all and home goes the old landlord anyway.

“Well”, he said to the wife, “you don’t have to bother blowing the whistle any more now”, he said, “or ringing the bell or anything”, he said, “any time you want me just leave out this rabbit”, he said, “and he’ll come down and tell me below in the bog”, he said.

“Oh jay, that’s great altogether”, she said. 

So bejay, the dinner was ready anyway, the following day and he said, “Don’t ring the bell now, don’t blow the whistle or anything”, he said, “I’ll know”, he said, “that rabbit ’ll come down and tell me”.

So Jack told him the words to say anyway.

Ah bejay, the poor old landlord was below and he working all day in the bog, and the missus left out the little rabbit and away goes the little rabbit, sure, off through the fields.  Sure, the landlord was starving with the hunger below in the bog all day and the dinner gone cold, and on came the landlord.

“Did you leave out the rabbit”, he said, “did you forget?”

“I left him out”, she said, “two and a half hours ago and he never came back since”.

But he went back to Jack and Jack said he must have spoken the wrong words and all that, you know, but he got away with it.

But next year comes and when he went on next year Jack had an old jennet and the old jennet was inside in the stable.  Yerra, he got ten bob notes saved into thruppeny bits anyway, and sixpenny bits and he mixed up the sixpenny bitsand the thruppeny bits with the oats and the bran and he gave it to the old jennet and bejakers, the old jennet ate the whole lot down, he was so hungry.

And jay, he said, “We have to think this one up well Mary”.

So bejakers, on came the old landlord anyway, “Ah now Jack”, he said, “today is the rent day and you’d better have it”.

“Oh , right you are”, he said, “sit down there for yourself and get a cup of tea”.

And he takes off his coat and he and he folds up his two sleeves and he gets this big stick and he goes out. 

“Come out here now landlord, bring out the old dish there Mary”, he said; and out he brought the old dish and he tied the old jennet and he up shot with the old stick anyway.  So the old jennet made his manure anyway and Jack started poking the manure and started picking out sixpenny bits and thruppeny bits out of the manure, d’you see.

And he up shot and hits him another box and out came more anyway and he was throwing the sixpenny bits into the dish and Mary was washing them.

“Yerra, what’s this about”, said the landlord, he said?

“Oh, sure, I’d starve with the hunger only for that jennet sir”, he said, “that’s the jennet that feed me and keep me with the last twelve months”, he said, and he cost me an awful lot of money myself”.

“Oh jay Jack, hold it a while, says he, “don’t kill him”, d’you see.

“Arrah, not at all”, he said, “I does that to him three times a day”, he said, “any time Mary want to go to the shop”.

But up shot, another puck anyway, and more came out.

“Oh jay, wait a while Jack”, he said, “he said, “if you kill that jennet”, he said, “I’ll have you shot, I’ll have you thrown out of the house and all”, says he.  He says, “As rich a man as I am”, says he, “I’ve nothing like that, so you’ll have to sell me this jennet Jack”.

“Oh not at all”, says Jack, he said, “I’ll starve with the hunger”.

And on goes the hopping and the trotting anyway, and the fighting and the arguing inside in the yard.

“Get out of the house altogether”, he said, “if you don’t sell me the jennet”.

On goes the hop.

“Well I’ll tell you”, says Jack, he said, “I’m a broke man barring the money I’m going to pay you now”.

“You’ll pay me no money at all”, he said, “you’ll give me the jennet”.

“Well give me two years rent so”, said Jack, “and you can have him”.

“Oh, all right then”, says he.

“Well don’t came near that door now”, says Jack, he said, “for two years”.

“fair enough”, he said, he wrote it out anyway and bejay, away goes the old landlord over.

Well he told the serving men anyway, “Fill him up”, he said, “with all the oats he want and the bran”, he said, “and give him everything, we’re in for a goldmine”.

And the old landlord gets out the following morning, gets the stick, and he beat the old jennet to death inside in the yard anyway, and there was no more in him (Laughter).

He came back to Jack and Jack made up another excuse anyway, that he’d hit him in the wrong place and all this going on.  But he gets away with that one.

But time rolls on anyway and time, and Jack was running out of yarns.

“Oh jay Mary”, he said, “we’re nearly finished.

So Jack goes away and he gets an old cow’s bladder and he fills it of blood.

“Now Mary”, he said, “you know what to do”.

And Mary sticks that down inside her bosom anyway, d’you see, and buttons up her shirt again and whatever she’d on her and Jack have the knife anyway on the table and he’ve a bit of a hazel stick overhead the press or the table, whatever they call it.  And on came the landlord.

“No more excuses now Jack”, he said, “that’s it, I want my rent today and that’s that”, says he.

“Yerra jay”, he said, “I always have your rent for you”, and he said, I’ll pay you two years this time I think, instead of one now”, he said, “keep you away from the door”.

He said, “Pay the man there Mary”.

And Mary said, “I gave you the money yesterday Jack”.

“Oh no”, he said, “I give it back to you, ‘twas in a brown purse”.

Yerra, on goes the argument between himself and Mary, and up he reaches for the knife anyway, sticks Mary in the chest, out goes all the blood and Mary drops down on the floor dead anyway and all the blood running”.

“Oh”, he said, “you’ve the woman murdered”.

“Yerra, not at all”, he said, “I murders her”, says he, “three times a day, that’s nothing”.  Getting down the bit of a hazel stick anyway and saying; “Nickerbocker boo bunzali whitewash brush”, over her like that and up jumps Mary anyway, and “Jay, what did you do that for again”, she said to him, started giving out, “he’s after killing me four times this week”.

And the landlord anyway, the eyes turned inside in his head, he didn’t know what to make of it.

“How did you do that jack”, says he?

“Ah sure, that’s easy”, he said, “yerra, I does about twenty murders a week”, he said, you see.

“And how did you do it?”

“Well”, he said, “you just stick them with the knife”, says he, “and that’s the wand, that’s a magic stick”, he said, “the magic wand they call it”.  And he said, “Whatever you shake that at”, says he, “If I’d have had the word the day the jennet died”, says he, “with that wand, I’d have brought him up anyway and he’d have walked around the yard again.

“Oh jay”, he said, “that’s marvellous altogether.

“Where did you put the money Mary?”

“Don’t mind the money at all”, he said, “will you sell me that wand”, he said, “and that stick and tell me the words to say with it”, he said.

“Oh now”, he said, “you want too much off me, and the last two deals we had”, he said, “didn’t go down lucky at all with you”.

With the hopping and the trotting and the arguing and the fighting he was giving him five years rent but Jack wouldn’t settle.

“No”, says Jack, “you have to give me the cottage altogether”, he said.  “If you don’t sign the cottage over to me for good”, says he, “you’re getting no wand off of me”.  Sure, he had an empty purse in his hand and letting on to be paying him.

Well, the old landlord anyway wouldn’t stop or stay, “alright”, says he, “get out the forms”, and he filled them all in and signed them, the house is over to Jack and Mary, and home he goes anyway, with the knife and with the magic wand.

Yerra, he goes into the kitchen anyway and the wife was inside, and he’s mad picking an argument with the wife, and he didn’t know….. the dinner wasn’t happy or everything was wrong, yeah, this and that.

“Well”, she said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you at all”, she said, “you’re mad for a fight all day, whatever it is”.

“Ah, ‘tis you looking for a fight”, and he’s mad for the fight, yerra, he up with the knife and he stuck it through her heart anyway and down she goes.

All those maids inside, “Oh, you’ve her murdered, you’ve her murdered”.

“Yerra, not at all”, he said, “I’m after murdering her three times today, and down he beats the stick, the bit of a stick anyway, and if he was saying that magic words again anyway, I forget it now again, “nickerbocker boo bonzali whitewash brush”, he was that all day till twelve oclock that night, and no wake-up the wife.

Well bejay, the guards came out anyway and arrested him, put handcuffs on him and brings him on for murder anyway, for murdering the wife, and there Jack and Mary and they standing at the gate and he passing by and a pair of handcuffs on him.  (Laughter).

P Mc   That’s a lovely story.