Tape 135  Mikeen McCarthy. 19.1.79. 

Contents

Travellers horses, never work for anybody else.

Never need to tie them up.

Travellers horses sold to farmer would go back on the road when Travellers passed.

Trotting horses, names of famous horses.

Horse named after Jack Dempsey the boxer.

Different dogs kept by Travellers.

Old Traveller’s dog catches elusive hare.

Rogue horses break into field to feed.

Horses wary of drunk men.

Mikeen's uncle used to sell his dog then dog would come back to him ten minutes later.

Trotting Jennets.

Jennets either wicked behind or wicked in the head.

Travellers trained horses by instinct.

Horses return to the same spot to foal.

Horses "as sensible as Christians".

Horses refuse to trample child fallen in the road.

Horses break into food boxes.

Horses most valued by Traveller, black and white, palominos, yellow and white, chocolate and white the most valued of all.

Travellers horses more valuable than gorgies horses because of the training.

Dogs train each other.  Jack Russells hunting instinct. Kerry Blues as fighters.

Badger hunting with dogs.

Dog fighting, cock fighting, trotting horses.

Lurcher dog worth £20,000.

Gypsy mans dog on back of lorry doing 40mph, Jumps off, kills hare and jumps back.

Fishing, fishermen's lies,

How to get your finger out of an eel's mouth.  Skinning and eating eels.  How to catch eels.  Eels coming out of the water to clean themselves.

Man caught ten pound trout, biggest fish Mikeen has heard of.

Foul and game fishing

Jennett and mule.  Unlucky to cross pony and donkey.

Horse warning of danger (supernatural). (Story about Mikeen).

J C       Can you tell us what you were talking about with horses?

M Mc  Well, the Travellers horses like, that’s the horses they reared theirself and they had the grandmothers before them, so well, those old horses, they wouldn’t work for nobody only the Travellers theirself because you could yoke them up under the wagon now like and they’d pull a wagon from here to Birmingham if you wanted to, but you give him to a farmer and they’d do nothing at all for the farmer ‘cause they were used to the wagons.  Then all hours of night they’d go off the road, the old horses would, and when their belly ‘d be full they’d come back and they’d lie down behind the caravan.  And we reared them ourself, that you never need put a rope on them or anything at all, just go along and they’d follow you on the wagons.  We even had goats following the wagons from place to place, dogs, goats and donkeys, they were trained into the roads like and they’d see the wagon pulling out, they’d all walk on after it like, same as ourself.  In fact they’d be playing with the kids going along the roads, and they were old ponies, some of them ten, fifteen, twenty years of age, more of them foals.  They’d be playing with the kids going along the road like dogs.   And the goats was the same way.  There was many times that there was a horse sold to a farmer and he’d be quite contented on the land like the Travelling Man himself, and the very minute that old horse ‘d see a wagon passing te road he was out over the hedge and away to go after it, so that he’d wind up back in the travelling again, the farmer ‘d sell him back to the Travellers, he couldn’t do nothing with him.  ‘tis the same way with the goats, the goats was reared on the road with the kids, everything, you’d see the smallest kid, he’d be lying down under the old goat and he’d be milking her into his mouth, not into a bottle or a cup or anything, and the old goat ‘d be standing there, d’you know.  I often did it myself.  And there was stories like that then.  There was trotting horses, we’d trotting horses among ourself and they used to trot up to thirty six mile an hour, drove her myself at that.  And they still go on, the trotting matches.  But we bred them down from the grandmother down to the mother; we’d the great grandmothers of them, Spots and Fans and all their own old, old names like, d’you know, Queenies and Gypsys and all that.

J C       They are the names of them?

M Mc  All the names of them, yeah.

J C       What are they, Spot….?

M Mc  Spot; well then you’d Young Spot and you’d have a foal out of her again and she’d be called Young Spot again.  And then you’d Fan, and Fan of the West, they were all famous trotters.  You’d Blue Ball, and you had Black Ball and you had Dempsey; we christened our names ourself on them; why we call Dempsey is you’d go into the field to catch him in the morning and he’d stand up on his two hind legs and he’d start sparring with his two front feet, so we called him after Dempsey the boxer.  But he was a great pony.  And you’d all that like, we’d our own names on them, you know, Daisys and Gypsys and all that.  But ‘twas the same as the old dogs then, we used to keep lots of dogs; we used keep the famous fighting dogs, Staffs, Kerry Blues, Wheatens, we’d Boxer dogs, we’d the pure thoroughbred Greyhound, we’d the proper Lurchers.  The Lurcher dogs we used to have; there was a man one time and he pulled in with a horse and wagon and he’d a Lurcher.  And there was this hare and he was passing about a hundred yards above us about seven o’clock.  But time and time and time again Travellers tried him and tried him and no good, ‘cause agin you get to the destination where he’d be like, he’d be well gone.  But he must have been chased hundreds of times and never got.  But this man pulled in anyway, Willie Hogan was his name, and he’d a Lurcher dog.  So I was up early in the morning anyway and he was fond of a bit of game himself.

So, “Did you ever hear Willie”, say I, “he’s after being chased by every Traveller”, say I, “in the county”.

He called him from under, “Go on Spring”, he said, but Spring lost him.

He said, “I’ll show you that hare”, he said to me, “tomorrow morning”.

So I made a laughing stock of him, and I going into bed, you see.  And he called me at six o’clock the following morning, and he showed me the hare back through the back window, he had him; and his old dog alongside him, d’you know.  Well, ‘twas the dog actually, fed his family, kept him, and himself as well.

J C       What did you call the horses at the beginning, you called them something, they’d be the ones that….. roguery horses?

M Mc  Oh, we’d the old rogues then.  They were reared onto the road like, you know. 

J C       What do you call them?

M Mc  Rogues, you know.  They’d watch you there till it get dark, we often got blamed over them; the farmer’s ‘d blame us.  But you’d know it like, you know, they’d be among the horses like.  Animals like, if you have them long enough, you know, they grow into a person’s manner, d’you know, and those old horses man, there, they go on in the night and they’d wait till it’d be pitch dark, and whatever field they’d get in, and he’d fill himself and he’d be back out the following morning, you know. Oh jay, I’ve known hundreds of them.  And the old farmers ‘d be stopped up all night us, sure, it’s no good watching us, we’d be sound asleep, we wouldn’t even know it’d be going on maybe.  Ah jay, they’d come back and he’d lie himself there at the back of the wagon like a dog, full to the tick, plenty full of new grass.  (Laughter)

J C       Would you train him to do that Mikey?

M Mc  No, no.  Well I suppose it’d all start up when he was a foal like you see, and the old mother before him.  We’ve known them to scratch agin a gate, you know, to drive it in.  And we’ve known if one of them wasn’t able to drive it in the other feller ‘d come on and two of them ‘d go together, they’d drive it in with their backsides, they’d bust in the gate off of the hinges, you know.  If they were dry, that time, you see, the old Gorgie women, they’d come from he well with buckets of water like the Travelling women, and we’ve known them to take the bucket of water off the Gorgie women.  (Laughter)  Stop them in the road, take it off them; they’d have to drop it like.  (Laughter)  They’d be drawing hay home, the farmers now like, they’d be drawing home hay with the hay carts, with horses that time, and we might have a bundle of horses, they’d all get after the hay stack and they going along, gee, the man mightn’t have half of it again when he get to his destination.  Would they go away?  Not at all, like cross dogs, they wouldn’t.  (Laughter)  They’d make on there in the wintertime, they’d get in there and they’d get into a hayshed, whatever way they sneak in, dogs, they wouldn’t care about no dogs, jay, they’d kill all the dogs in the country.

J C       Have you ever heard tell Mikey, of anybody dogs….. the story I heard was a man who used to….. he trained a horse, and he sold it to a farmer, and then he went off and a couple of hours later the horse just followed him off.

M Mc  Oh, that was going on with dogs as well.  But we’d horses among us, I had them myself, every man had them, and there was no-one who could drive them only the man himself.  I had them myself.  ‘Twas the one training like.  But several men had horses.  I knew a man had the best pult mare you could see to pull a big wagon like, that’s what we call a good pult mare, you call it a horse now, we call it a mare like.  And that mare ‘d pull….. if you tied two wagons one after the other, that mare ‘d pull them along if he was driving them.  But you give them to me, I’ll give them to you, she wouldn’t move off of the road, she wouldn’t move.  But I well remember one day, I had a pony, I reared her and I gave her to Nonie’s first cousin, chap got killed after, God have mercy on him.  So I was minding the kids, says I, “You drive Daisy into the town”, for the women was doing a bit of shopping.  And she flew into town; I told him the side to sit on, say I, “Don’t talk at all, just pull the reins”, ‘cause there eyes ‘d be covered you see, with the winkers.  Bejay, he lands into town anyway, himself and the wife Nonie and his wife, and bejay, he came back and they walking, the three of them.    He said, “She wouldn’t move for me”.  He said, “She saw me”, he said, “I forgot myself”.  But ah, there was more of them and they wouldn’t go at all.  But whenever I see the Travellers jumping up when they get a few pints and get drunk.  If the man was sober now like, he could have a stick in his hand, and she’d take on a few pokes of that stick with her, she’d go on.  If he came out the pub and he drunk, he’d jump on the flat and two men wouldn’t hold her, she’d know the beer ‘d be on him, you know.  They’d never trot as good in all their life.  Well, they knew the talk.  If a horse was getting tired the Travelling man ‘d start singing; we were often late at night like, coming home from fairs he starts either singing or whistling, and that ‘d keep the horse in company and he trotting away, yeah.  Oh, they could almost talk to them.

J C       Can you think of any particular incident of somebody selling a dog and then going off and the dog following him?

M Mc  Oh sure, my uncle, he’s dead now, he was a noted man for the job altogether.  He’d a dog and he often sold him for a pound, and sure, if he was short of a pint he’d sell him for two bob, sure, t’would be all the same ‘cause he’d have him again in ten minutes, he’d make sure the way he timed like , you see, with a bit of rope, and the dog ‘d eat the rope, and he’d be waiting (Whistle), whistle, (Laughter) he waiting at the end of the lane so when he’d be gone.  But the same man was inside in a pub one day and he’d a very sleepy old dog, jay, he’d make yourself buy a dog, or me ‘cause he was a professional salesman.  And this feller came in anyway.

He said, “How much for the dog Tom?”

“Oh, will you give me a pound for him”, says Tom.

“Ah, no Tom”, he said.

So the old dog was sleeping, d’you see.

And he said, “Oh, I’ll give you half-a-crown for him Tom”.

“I wouldn’t wake him out of his sleep for that”, says Tom, “I wouldn’t wake him out of his sleep for it”. (Laughter)

Oh yea, they even had trotting Jennets, you know those mules now.

J C       Yeah?

M Mc  Travellers even made trotters out of them, yeah.

J C       They’re very bad tempered though, jennets?

M Mc  Yeah, but the Travelling man was the only man to drive them, sure.  You see, in the jennet or the mule like, they’re either wicked behind or else wicked in the head, d’you know.  If they are quiet in the head you can bet they’re wicked behind, with the hind legs.  If they’re quiet in the back they’re wicked with the head, you see, you couldn’t get a bridle on them or anything.

P Mc   The trotters Mikey, did you have them in races?

M Mc  Well there used to be no trotting races that time, only the American trotters then, they came on, they were a crowd from Dublin, and they came on, sure, the Travellers wiped them out.  Travelling man again, they went in to professional trotters, but sure, they’d have them in the field alright, but not on the road; well, a Travelling man is used to the road, and a Travelling man’s horse like.  But they’d win inside in the fields alright because they were only blood trotters, you know, but they wouldn’t have them at all on the road, they wouldn’t trot on the road.  But there’s hundreds of them put thousands of pounds down on them every day.

J C       What’s the cleverest horse you’ve ever come across Mikey?

M Mc  Jakers, there was hundreds of them, there was the old horses, you just yoke them up under the wagon and you could take away the winkers they want no winkers or anything on him.  And you could sit on your horse and flat on the front, I mean no driver, and every hill and hollow you go he follow you, turns and twists, he was so well used to the caravan, the waggon, you know.  He’d take the corners, he’d know to take the corners, and study up, and he knew the fall of ground.  If you went on fast now with the horse and flat in a fall of ground, well he’d take it easy until he get to the bottom and then he’d catch up with you again.  Ah, they were that well trained into it like.

J C       The Travelling Man specialised in the animal?

M Mc  Yeah, but they never really meant train them for that like, you know, it was just pure height of ignorance, they didn’t know they were doing it, you know.  You’d mares then, you’d have to watch the mares when they’d be foaling because if they foaled, we’ll say, where we are now here this year, well you might be thirty mile, forty, fifty mile from that the following year and if you wouldn’t watch her she’d make off to that same place to foal again, she’d come back all them roads and stop hungry till she get back there.  That’s the first thing you’d say if they were missing, “Where did she foal last year?”  You’d sit in your horse and car and if you didn’t get her foaled along the road you’d find her there, yeah.

‘Twas known for horses, when we leave company we’ll say, and we’d pull away, leave the company here now, we’ll say, and we’d pull away thirty miles, and ‘twas very well known, you’d have to tie them up that night, because they’d land back to the Travelling People we left the following day, they’d land right back there, even if them people ‘d left the ground and they went a different road, we’ll say, well you’d him there in that spot again the following morning; you’d have to tie him up for a few nights and feed him like, tied up until they’d forget about it again.  They were as sensible like as Christians.  And there were roads that they knew as well as ourself.  You could go along there now, you’d see a horse turning off left, or turning right like.  We’d be going to our destinations, you could have just dropped the reins on their back and they wouldn’t turn left or right till they land there theirself, with the cart on them and all; oh yeah.

J C       You say they never trained them?

M Mc  No, no, never meant to train them like, they’d train them, the way they’d train their own son.  Oh yeah, you’d often see the policeman coming there, they’d know us, gone.  I could go out now and I’d stop a hundred horses, and I guarantee Travellers horses, because they smell the wild off us or something.  You’d see maybe five or six Gorgie men with dogs and all, they wouldn’t be able to stop them.  They’d know the danger was there you see.  (Laughter)  They’d jump down on top of them.  And there was one thing about horses; you could leave a kid there in the middle of the road now. We’ll say, sitting down, a young kid, and you could drive twenty or thirty or forty horses on there galloping and they’d all avoid that child, every one of them.   There was….. ‘twas known for the shafts of the caravan to break off; it happened, I see it happen myself, and that horse ‘d hold that caravan there, he’d know the shafts ‘d be gone, he’d know the dang….. he’d hold it there and he’d be getting hurted and all and he’d still hold it.  Or a child falling out of a front of a caravan now, which often happened, you see the horse and he holding there and he wouldn’t trample the child, ah, he would just hold the caravan there like, tap there in the right spot, you needn’t pull the reins or nothing at all.  They were so well used to it   You’d see their legs getting caught in the shafts, which often did happen, they’d be pawing in the front of the shafts, if you giving them (????) or anything, their legs get caught in what we call little pull-bar, that’s why we avoid them things after; you see that horse holding that there,, he wouldn’t pull it because he’d see the caravan coming, you see, and he’d hold the leg there until you release it yourself, there’d be nothing tying him or anything.  Or the food; we used have the tents now at home; you have to go away and hide the food ‘cause they’d watch you to go out, the horse and dogs, and there’s what they call grub boxes like, for minding the food, you know.  They’d break that with their leg, they get out the bread and things.  (Laughter)  Ah yeah.

P Mc   Is there any particular kind of horse that a Traveller would set a lot of store by, more value on Mikey?  I notice when, in Ireland you see probably more skewbalds and piebalds.

M Mc  The black and white and the palomino and the yellow and white, they were the most famous, and chocolate and white, they were famous, there’s chocolate and white the best of all.  But then the black and white like; everyone was after the black and white, but you’d see twenty black and whites to one chocolate and white, and the same with the yellow and white, the palomino, whatever you like, they were the most expensive animals.  But the old ones we bred ourself, whether they were good or bad, you’d meet the Travelling man ‘d give two times as much money for one of them that he would for the Gorgie man’s horse, although the Gorgie man’s horse ‘d be a better one ‘cause he’d know the ropes, he’d know the road, you know, no matter how refreshed you give to him. Oats; and you could fill him with oats and hay and everything, they wouldn’t get one bit ‘freshed (?)  Where you got out the fresh horse and fill him with oats, he’d run away with you, the old Travelling horse, you could fill him with all the oats you like, not a bit.

J C       What would you pay for a horse then, say thirty years ago Mikey?

M Mc  Oh, thirty years ago, you’d want a good horse for twenty pound, thirty pound.  Even today if you met the old Travelling man’s horse today, you’d still give….. it didn’t go by value.  You used get the man to sell him, that was it, you know.  That old horse know the ropes then like, you needn’t be one bit worried about him.  I done all Great Britain with a black and white mare I had, I reared her, I brought her right back again to Ireland.  I was getting a terrible price for her, I was getting better horses that herself and I got plenty of money as well, no.  I landed below in Liverpool,; I got her in foal in this country off a trotting horse; I got her off of the boat in Liverpool and got the vet and put her right across’ I could have sold her in Liverpool; she was even stole from me and I got her back.  The man that stole her, he wanted to buy her for his daughter and all that.

“No”, say I, “what’s your house… your house….. I wouldn’t sell her for the price of the house I wouldn’t sell her.  But the man meant give me two, three times the price for her, no, I wouldn’t part her for any price.   A place called Bobbington outside of Birmingham.

J C       How about the dogs Mikey; you had to train the dogs did you?

M Mc  No, they trained theirself Jimmy.

J C       Really?

M Mc  What we does, we brings on a trained dog and while they’re a pup, three months old, we bring a dog and they’re the one trains him.  They trains theirself.  Some of the boys ‘ll tell you….. it’s up to yourself like, well, the more you course them and the more you bring them with you, the better they’re getting trained.  But really it is theirself is training theirself.  You’ve the Jack Russell there now, well you could lock up a Jack Russell until he’s five years old and never leave him see a field, the very minute you loose him he’s off hunting, ‘tis in him d’you see.  That was our dogs, one dog trained the other always.  But burrow is one thing, and the bush one is in the other one; you’ve the courser then like, that’s the feller below now, you’d like to have a hound or one of them fellers I’ve down there, Lurchers.  And we trained the fighting dogs as well, say the Kerry Blue and Staffs, all them, you cross breed them.  You’ve the temper of the Kerry Blue and you’ve the strength of the Wheaten, you see.  And the Wheaten’s a smooth haired dog but he’s stronger than the Kerry Blue, and he Kerry Blue has all the temper, you see, the Kerry Blue fights till he die.  ‘Cause once you get one off a Wheaten and a Kerry Blue, you’ve the strength then of the Wheaten and you’ve the temper of the Kerry Blue, they could never beat, couldn’t beat them.

J C       Did you ever have any good dogs yourself Mikey?

M Mc  Oh, I’ve bred the best of them; I was in clubs in Ireland sure; I’d Staffs myself and they went twelve stone weight, and I used keep two of them.  Double Staffs I used to have; could I lead one at a time, give me all I could do, providing I didn’t meet any I told him.  I often seen a man coming agin me with dogs and he rose on me; “run away with your dogs”, I wouldn’t be able to hold him, you know.  And what I used to do when I’d have the straps on, the chains on him like, I’d run to the junk of a tree and wrap the chain round it, you wouldn’t hold him any other way; he’d just drag you along the road like a dog, like a horse; you’d hold a horse easier.  (Laughter)

Oh yeah, all badger hunting, I was in trials, I was in a club in Cork, Fair Hill, I was at that four years.  Oh, I knew every badger in Ireland, every den that was in it, County Cork, County Limerick, County Tipperary, County Kerry, down Waterford.

J C       Do they still have the dogs now Mikey, do they still…..?

M Mc  Ah, ‘tis dying down.  They still have dogs at home in Ireland, ah, they have them here as well, you’ve great coursing in this country.  But you’ve one man out of every ten, out of every fifteen with good dogs.  I remember a time every man had good dogs. 

You’ve the bantam cocks, they were all sportsmen like.  You’d bantam cocks, you’d trotting horses, you’d good dogs, you’d everything, you’d all your sports, you’d your own little farm to yourself.  We used keep all pedigree fighting cocks, all that, you know, fighting dogs, you’d have to always have two fighting dogs, if one was beat like, you’d have the other one, d’you know.  And if you’d two good dogs now like, and one ‘d be better than the other.  ‘Twas the same with trotting horses, well you’d flash the bad one, the worst one of the two like, well if he was beat then, you’d the other feller then coming up, d’you see.   And the same with trotting horses, you’d one horse better than the other, well, you’d flash the worst one.

J C       How do you mean, flash?

M Mc  That mean leave him out to trot, you’d trot the worst one and if the best one got beat, d’you see, she was gone down in price, d’you know, it’d hold the best one till some other day, d’you see.  And there was always excuses, oh, every man had an excuse, his horse never really lost like, there was always excuses.  (Laughter)  “Hungry the night before”, “I drove her a long road”, used to have something, you know.

J C       What’s the best dog you’ve ever heard of Mikey?

M Mc  That was the best dog I ever see now was that man I was telling you about that killed a hare at six o’clock in the morning that was the best dog I ever see, the best Lurcher I ever see.  He was a one dog like, that’s what you call a dog (te).  You’d have a man there and he’d have three Lurchers now, and that’s not fair run like, after the one he had, but this is only one man one dog like, and he’d bet what he had and that wasn’t a whole lot, on top of his dog, that he’d kill any hare in any run, in any mountain.  If he missed him one morning he’d get him the next, yeah.  But oh, they’ve some great dogs in this country.  Patrick Docherty have a dog over, he’s getting twelve hundred pound for him, he’s only a Lurcher.

J C       Big one?

M Mc  Yeah, the cream one.  Well you wouldn’t buy that dog for twenty thousand. Well every time he runs him like he wins two and three and four hundred pound, five hundred pound.

J C       He runs him regularly does he?

M Mc  Yeah.  Well the bets is on there that he’ll kill five out of six, d’you see.  And you’ll meet another man, “I’ll bet five hundred pound my dog takes four out of six”.  Well it’s a great dog like when you say, “I’ll bet my dog kills five out of six”; I mean you’re going in then for the top like.

But ‘twas known for a Gypsy man having a dog up on the back of a lorry about nineteen sixty four or sixty five, that way, and he was driving along the road, whether you could believe him or not now, I don’t know.  Well he claim he was driving along this road and his dog up on the back of the lorry.  The dog jumped off of the lorry, killed a hare and jumped back on the lorry again with the hare in his mouth.  (Laughter)  And he was doing forty mile an hour  (Laughter)

Ah yeah.  But there do be some of them terrible liars you know; myself and all. I was talking the other night now there about fishing, hand fishing like, we does a lot of hand fishing.  And I was telling little Alfie Reilly.  “I got into a pocket one day”, said I, “and I got three trout out of it, three trout like”, d’you know; which did happen.

“Yeah”, he said to, “that’s nothing, I got nine”.

If I go in the hole, nine trout inside in the pocket with your two hands how are you going to get them over one way.

“How do you do”, said I to him.

“Well as ‘cause I catch them inside I got one in here, one in there, one in there and one in there, and the same in the other hand”.   (Laughter)  Oh, fisherman’s lies.

J C       Can you think of any more stories like that about horses and dogs and……

M Mc  But I was inside in the river one day and I saw a trout like, one side of a big brown stone that was in the middle of the river.  And jay, I got my hands around it as I poke around, and then I find another one the other side, and what I had to do was to take up the stone and all, you see, I had the trout in one hand, I couldn’t leave it go.  And I turned the stone and the two trout out in the field.  (Laughter)  Ah yeah.

If an eel caught you now, we’ll say, in the finger like, you know, what would you do if you were hand fishing now and an eel grab you?  They’d swallow your finger now, they’d keep sucking your finger.  How would you get it out Jimmy?  Would you pull?

J C       No, how would you get it out?

M Mc  You shove your finger right down his throat and choke him.  That’s what you have to do to get his mouth open, you’d have to choke him to save your finger.  But to skin an eel then like, you have to go round to his head like, you know, with your peg knife, then you break back the skin a small bit, well, you’d have to get it off with your bare hands like, that way.  But you only get an ordinary newspaper, grab it, the skin comes out, just falls off with the newspaper, grand easy. Oh, you use lovely spring water, lovely, pure white.

J C       Do you still….. can you catch them over here Mikey?

M Mc  Yeah, if we were out, yeah, oh yeah.  Some of us ‘d sooner eels than trout or salmon, they’re nicer, you know.  But we often catches trout, I see the boys now, catching trout there down in Swindon; they go on five pound weight and they’re even hungry trout.  You’d know them that they’re hungry trout like because their head is bigger than their bodies, d’you know.  Oh, several of them caught eels sure, six foot long in spring rivers.  They’re the boys to get them out of a hole.  You get the…… under the eye of a bridge now, that’s where you get the eel, but to get them out like, you’d want to be a skilled fisherman.  You get your line and hook like; you’ve no fishing rod, you’ve only just a long bit of a kippen with an eye in the end of it like, that you make yourself.  And you push in your hook with that, but you have your line now with it, a good strong line.  And you shove in your bait on the hook; so what you do with that is, the kippen ifs for shoving the hook right into where you want it in the hole.  Then when you get your eel, you know you have him then like, but you get three men, you wouldn’t get out that eel, no, you’d break a rope trying to get him.  he gets his tail you se, around the rocks inside and two men wouldn’t get him out.  So you have to play him out you see, you have to keep the pull the whole time, and when you keep the pull there, he’ll come, and then you go again.  And that’s the way, it’s no good of trying to pull him out, you’ll never get him out, you’ll have to leave him there.  But that’s what you do, keep the pressure on all the time, it might take an hour to get him out, the one eel out of the one hole.  You see some old fellers there, “Pull, pull”, three or four of them at it and they pulling, and they waste their time, the line ‘d go in the end, you know.

J C       Michael was telling us the other week about eels coming out of the river and rubbing along the grass, did you hear that?

M Mc  Yeah.

J C       Why is that?

M Mc  Well they comes out to clean theirself, everything have vermin, you know, even to the salmon, trout, eels, everything have vermin.  They comes out, and ‘twas known for them to cross a field to another river, change rivers, they does that in the night, yeah.  They comes out and cleans theirself in a field and go back.

J C       What’s the most fish you’ve ever heard being caught by one man, or the biggest fish?

M Mc  Ah, there’s an old man back in Ireland now, he’s an invalid now like, but he’s the kind of a man I believe, you know, and he told me he caught a trout ten pound weight.  I often heard people saying ‘twas a salmon, no, he wouldn’t.  ‘Twas quite easy for him to say a salmon, but he said ‘twas a trout; ten pound.  But that was the biggest like.  But you never know like, what you’re going to catch; I often heard tell of a feller catching twenty, twenty five trout.

J C       That’s with a line or by hand?

M Mc  Oh, a line and hook, ah sure, you could never count up your fish with your hands like, you could catch maybe a hundred, but ‘tis foul fishing, d’you know, ‘tisn’t game fishing.  You could be fined an awful lot if you were caught.  ‘Tis foul fishing like, ‘tis a game, ‘tis a sport like.

J C       Do they have competitions for hand fishing?

M Mc  No, we never had, no, except we wanted some for the breakfast or something like that now.  But if we caught small ones, sling them back in again, go for the big ones.  And if we were up early in the morning, get the salmon; watch them, we often did it.  We’ve waterfalls back round where we were and you’d be up there four or five in the morning, and when they be making for the fall you see them jumping thirty feet high, and they’d miss, d’you se, and they’d land on the bank, and you’d grab them off of the bank then, have your coat around one of them.

J C       Just one more thing Mikey, before we go; have you ever heard of animals, horses or dogs, having friendships with other animals, different types of animals at all; like a horse and a dog or a horse and a rabbit or anything.

M Mc  Ah sure, that’s how the jennet and the mule comes, from a pony and a donkey, d’you know.  Well the donkey is the mother of the jennet, then you cross the donkey with the pony, and the pony’s the mother of the mule.  But no, nothing ever…… I know what you mean like, no, I never heard nothing like that now Jimmy, no.  But ‘tis up to yourself like, and ‘twas an unlucky thing to cross the pony and the donkey, a man has to arrange it himself, they wouldn’t do it themselves, except they’d be reared up together like, or a thing like that.

J C       Why is that, why is it unlucky?

M Mc  No.  Well we found it unlucky because….. by happening by mistake like, that’s how the most of them came actually.  Well there was never no unlucky in that way, but a man doing it himself now, crossing the two together, jay, that man used wind up unlucky d’you know, something would happen that year, or something like that.  There was a man used do it back in Kilorglin, he got one jennet foal the first year and he made a good price out of it.  And he put his head together and he said, “I’m going to start breeding them”, and he bred two of them the following year, and just when two of them foaled he found the two foals dead, ah, ‘twas remarkable like.  He never bothered no more either.

J C       Is there any other things unlucky about horses at all Mikey, like that, you know.

M Mc  To us, horses like, if we were going along now, in the dark, in the night, lonesome roads, we could have understand the horse.  You’ hear a horse snoring like, as he go along, well that’d be a natural thing like, snogging we used to call it.  But then you’d get the heavy snore that he’d continue, well you could bet your life that the hair ‘d start standing on your head then, there’s something there, d’you know.  Because you’d see him going to one side like, the old Travellers horse, and he’d be snoring, and we wouldn’t be able to say anything, ‘cause you can bet your life there was something there that time.  Always, always.  ‘Twas a kind of a competition with Travelling People to go lonesome roads in Ireland.  And you’d get the horses and the horse ‘d talk for theirself, they’d know it, you know.

J C       Did you ever have that happen to you?

M Mc  Yeah.  I rode a horse into Killarney when I went for a doctor; a friend of ours got sick.  And oh, it was a lovely moonlight night.  And a grey one, she belonged to another man in fact.  And flew in anyway, I was a great man to ride a horse that time, when I young.  And she was doing about thirty mile an hour going in, and I on her back, well, I was in a hurry, d’you see, ‘cause the woman got very bad.  And I got into the doctor and the doctor didn’t know I had a horse.

He said, “Hang on now”, he said, “and I’ll give you a lift out”, because it was about three miles out, you see.

“No”, said I, “I have a horse with me”.

So he said, “That’s not a very pleasant road going out”, he said.

“Ah, don’t mind”, say I to him, and I jumped on her back and away to go.

So I was leaving her cool of like, you know, ‘cause you couldn’t….. three mile, if you rode a horse fast now…… ‘twould be all right doing the three mile in, but coming out there ‘d be six mile like, that’d be too much, d’you know.  So you’d have to leave them get their wind.  So I leave her get her wind anyway, and I was sitting sideways on her back ‘cause they used to sweat like, and you’d have to get your legs and sit sideways, the way the sweat wouldn’t go into your trousers  And here I am sitting away like, singing or something, you’d always do something when you be afraid.  And she gave a lep from underneath me, jimmy, and into the ditch, and wanted to turn back the other way.   And the car….. the doctor just came out with the car, the lights.  I got her up.  I didn’t go in that road no more.  (Laughter)

J C       Is that because they are more sensitive do you think?

M Mc  Yeah, yeah.  Ah, we’d have them on in the middle of the night there, going on; we’ll say, we’d have five or six of them together, maybe ten, maybe twenty, you know.  And they’d be all dead and easy walking along and they’d be getting a bite of grass here in the road and a bite there in the road, d’you know, they’d be taking it nice, quite contented like.  And you’d be shouting at them at the one time, you know, same as dogs.  And all of a sudden they’d take off, it often happened us, they starts galloping, you know, and we turn the other way and we’d start galloping the other way then.  (Laughter).

J C       Ok then Mikey.