Tape 137Mikeen McCarthy 07.5.79.

Contents 

How his family spent a year.

Winter in a house in Caherciveen.

Towns they would visit and the types of work in each place.

His father would make tinware while his mother sold it.

When he was eight his sisters and himself would work at the tin.

Apart from his visit to England and his war experience, his father only travelled Counties Cork, Kerry and Limerick.

Crossing the Connor Pass with horse and caravan.

Tinware prepared beforehand in preparation  for selling.

Selling bad buying horsehair and feathers.

Economics of tinsmithing.

Chimney sweeping.  

Donkey dealing

Way of work different to that of his father; quick turnover. 

Overall he probably handled more money that his father, but his father actually made more profit in the long term.

Father started work at 4 o’clock in the morning preparing the tinware.

Michael and his father working on Valencia Island

Singing, dancing and storytelling as they stopped in the farmhouses while travelling around.

Welcome given by farmers, visits treated as an occasion for entertainment. Relations with settled people changed "since they all got fitted carpets".

Donkey dealing in the Gaeltachs carried out by the postmen on behalf of the Travellers as the locals didn't speak English.

Helping the neighbours at the potato picking, payment in kind.

Fishermen building a new house in Dingle for his father but he wouldn't accept it.

Chimney sweeping good trade in the winter.

Enough earned during the summer to keep the family during the winter.   

When he had money his father would go on the beer until it ran out. 

Renowned as a singer and storyteller among Gorgie.   

Preferred Gorgie men's company to Travellers.

Sharing work when there was enough to go round.

Michael’s family the only McCarthy's among Travellers in Kerry.

Brien's and Coffey's the only other Kerry travelling families.

Rambling Horses would lead other horses astray.

Kerry horses returned to their county, horses have their own smell associated with the county they belong to.

It was the responsibility of a Traveller with a rambling horse to tell the other Travellers on the site.

J C       Now Mikey; when you were travelling, when you were with your father, you know, when you were young; could you tell us how you spent the year… the year while you were travelling; I don’t mean what you did all through the year, but how much did you spend travelling for instance?

M Mc  Well my father was the kind of man like, he’s always settle in the house for the winter, d’you know, because as I was telling you, he was a tradesman and he had to follow his trade from Dingle, that was a fisher town like, to Cahersiveen, that was another fisher town.  So he might spend one winter, or maybe a full summer in Cahersiveen and maybe the same in Dingle.  But he’d always pack up his work, we’ll say, in Cahersiveen now, for a start, and once it come the seventeenth of March he’d be starting getting ready then, as he would say, “The wild is calling us, we’ll have to move on, and if we didn’t get the weather fine enough on the seventeenth of March, he’d wait until he get the first fine weather; might be May, could be June for that part of it.  But we’d leave Cahersiveen then; we’d always horse and cart like and horse and caravan, you know, and he’d pull to a place called Glenbeigh that’d be halfways between Kilorglin and Cahersiveen.  There was an old camping ground below the railway then and we’d stop there.  He’d stop there for a few days, maybe a week, and he’d do his bit of work all around there, like working for the farmers in tinware. I’m on about now, fixing churns, creamery churns and he’d often work for creameries, fixing creamery churns and lids of churns and making tinware for the bogs and all that. And then he’d move on to Kilorglin then, and he’d do his bit of work for the shops, he used to work for the shops in Kilorglin; so he’d supply them with what they wanted.  And then he’d move from that to a place called Castlemaine, and there was a creamery there, and he’d work there maybe a week or maybe two weeks.  And he’d move back then, back for Keele.

J C       To where?

M Mc  Back into a place called Keele; and there was a place we used to stop there, in the White Gate then; so he might be there maybe two or three weeks, maybe a month.  And then we’d pull to the Sandpits we used call it in Anascaul and he might be there a week.  And then he’d move on then to a place called Lispole: they were all about ten miles from one another like, or twelve, d’you know.  And then he’d stop around Lispole a couple of days and in to Dingle.  Then he’d work away for the boats in Dingle, whatever he used to do that time like, those big chimneys and all that.  And then we’d hit away back for the West of Dingle they call it, Ballyferriter and Black Fields and all those places, you know; Ventry; we’d our own camping grounds like, every year,  the same place every year.  So he’d turn back all around then and over, they call The Connor Pass, back into Dingle again and over The Connor Pass.  And into Brandon and Clahane and return back again out of that, that’d be about six or seven miles down like, off of The Connor Pass and into a place called Camp.  So we’d stop in a disused railway near Castlegregory.  So he might spend a week there, maybe a little more.  Move on near Tralee then, a place called Bennerville, and there was another stopping place there.  He’d stop there until he’ve a bit of work done, and out for the Horsham Bend they call it.  And into Miltown again, back into Miltown, Castlemaine, you know, back into the same way again now, and back into Killarney.  Then he might pack up all his gear altogether, forget about work then; we used call it a holiday, and on in for the twenty-one-mile road, on out into Kenmare.  And on we go back for the west of Cork, back to Castletown Berehaven.  And on from Castletown Berehaven then, we’d hit across for Aghellies Mines and into Bantry, all those places around; into Durrus, Kilcrohane and Ballydehob and Scull and Goleen and back into Skibbereen.  And return back around the West of Cork again and he might wind up in Dingle for the winter again; it could be Cahersiveen, one of the two.

J C       That was the same route exactly every year?

M Mc  Every year….. well he might change his route sometimes; he might go the opposite way, d’you know.  He could be leaving Dingle we’ll say and start off the other way, round by Tralee like, it’d be different.

J C       But would always be the same places?

M Mc  Yeah, always the same places.

J C       And would he be expected?

M Mc  Oh yeah, oh yeah; well he used work mostly for shops now in Kilorglin like because my mother couldn’t go selling tinware through the country; well she could like, if ‘twas ordered, you know, because he’d be opposition then to the men he’d be after working for, d’you see; they wouldn’t be able to get rid of the work he’d be after doing for them if he started selling stuff the farmers around and the bogmen and all that.  So my mother ‘d never go selling ware then like, there.  She might do something else, selling stuff out of a basket like, or something else, d’you know.  But she’d never sell tinware around Kilorglin that time of the year, that’d be during the season like, of the bogs.  ‘Cause if the shopkeepers found out like, that he was selling like, they wouldn’t take maybe half of the stuff off him because they know they wouldn’t be able to sell it.

J C       Did he mainly sell to shopkeepers and dealers or did he sell to farmers as well?

M Mc  Oh well, it depended on orders like.  I remember him when he used to pull in the side of the road like, the shopkeepers ‘d come down, they used well know, they’d be waiting on him like.  But they’d come down; they’d leave in their order and he’d be at the caravan, you know.

And they’d say, “I want maybe three gross of flat saucepans and two gross of quart saucepans and half a gross of half gallons and maybe three dozen of balers, what they used call them like, for baling milk and all that.  And they might want maybe two dozen, three dozen buckets, whatever they’d want.  And then another shop ‘d come along and order the same.  And then there was another shop then, Moriarty’s and Stephens’s, they used order the same off him.  Well then, he’d have my sisters then, and my brother, he’d have all them working for him as well like, the sisters was as good a tinsmith as himself.  And me, when I was seven or eight years of age, I used be working, helping him out there as well.  I’d be what they call tacking the bottoms, (te) rounding them like, and grooving them and one of them ‘d be making the handles, more of them turning the bodies`, more of us ‘d be making the rivets; ‘twas a kind of a team; badly paid team.  (Laughter)                          

J C       Were there other Travellers on the same routes as you or……?

M Mc  There was but….. such as other tinsmiths now like, if my father was working in Kilorglin, well other tinsmiths ‘d come along with….. they wouldn’t be any opposition to my father because my father had a contract like, all the time, with the shops, so they wouldn’t take it off of nobody else.  And they might go on selling ware but they wouldn’t….. not round where my father ‘d be working like; well, they wouldn’t do it because they wouldn’t make any great sale anyway`, you know. 

J C       What’s the furthest your father travelled; I’m not talking about when he came to England, I mean in Ireland, to sell, what’s the furthest?

M Mc  That was the furthest; he never left Kerry; the County Cork, and a part of the County Limerick, not very far into the County Limerick, although he came from between Limerick and Tipperary, but he was never there like, I never remember to see him there anyway.

J C       And would he work at anything else at that time?

M Mc  Oh, he used be on feathers as well; well he used get feathers in exchange like and he’d keep on his feathers, maybe until he’ve a load.  So several occasions he used sell them in Killarney, and ‘twas….. twenty-five and ten, thirty-five and three….. thirty eight miles from Cahersiveen to Killarney.  So he’d start in the middle of the night with a horse and cart, and she’d be loaded up, and he might have two horses and two carts, and they’d be loaded.  And he was a great man to brag about how far his horses travel, and the funny thing about it, every step that his horse ever took, himself took the same because he never owned the reins, he’d always walk with the head.  So me and my mother ‘d be asleep up on the feathers like, in the middle of the night and he’d get into Killarney at the break of day, but he’d be walking away with the horse by the head himself.  And when he come back home then after doing the thirty-eight, then the thirty-eight again, and he might land back to Cahersiveen then the following evening and he’d be bragging then inside in the pub what great horses he had and he never thought of himself what a good man he was to give walking with them.  (Laughter)

J C       J C       You say you went over the Connor Pass?

M Mc  Oh, several times, yeah.

J C       How did you take a trailer over there, over the pass.

M Mc  Well in my times….. ‘tis all a tarred road now like…. you’d four mile up and four mile down.  Well when a horse had a caravan on the top of that hill you’d a good horse.  My father used have a horse and he’d have a mule as well like, a tandem;  you’re all right; the horse is fresh for the first half mile of it, or a mile.  Well then, after that she’d have to get a rest every hundred yards, and again and get to the top she’d have to be getting a rest every twenty yards or maybe ten. And you’d see people….. I remember people used to have to change three or four horses to get over although it was only four miles, you know.  ‘Twas what they call a constant drag, (te) there was no such thing as a break at all, just keep pulling the whole time.  And agin you get to the top of that hill with the horse and wagon you knew you were there; ‘twould take you all the day like.  And then you go down, well it was easy going down the other side like.  Ah; we’d always stop on top of it then and make our tea up there like, and my father….. well, there was nothing to eat there for a horse, but he’d always have something for them to eat like, at the top of the hill; give them water and they’d be fresh again.  And then stagger on down the other side,  but ‘twas wonderful like, you know.  And we’d stop then in the foot of Connor Hill.  So he might be there then to give the horses a chance, you know, after their long hill and then he’d pull away on again into Brandon and Clahane and all them places, back out and into Castlegregory.  He’d finish off his few weeks in Castlegregory, because every place was near around him like.

J C       How long would he stop at each place; would there be a set time or would he just move off when he’d done his business?

M Mc  It depended on what he wanted like, d’you know.  Of course, may father, he’d have an awful lot of work made in the winter; he’d have all his bodywork done, his bottoms; he’d have everything done like.  'would take a man now, to make a gross of work; you could put him in around a week like.  Well my father, he’d do it in two days because he’d all his work ready, you see, he’d nothing to do only stick ‘em together, everything done; all he’d ever do is turn them, because he’d be cutting out his work all winter and then he’d be packing them away all on top of one…..  like you see in a factory now.  So he’d everything like, his rivets made and his bottoms cut out and his handles made and if he was making buckets he’d have them all, what they call grooved (te) and wired and….. he’d have them all ready like, just stick them together, that was all.  And he used to stick a vessel together in about five, ten minutes, which, if he hadn’t his work ready, you mightn’t make a bucket in an hour like.

J C       Would you know how many he’d sell in the course of a year?

M Mc  Well, a box of tin, a large box like, that’s a hundredweight of tin now; you’ve eight dozen and four sheets in it.  Oh, that was the small one; sorry.  In the big one then you’d have eleven dozen and eight sheets.  I disremember now how much.… well, it depends on the size of the work like, he get out of them.  But he’d work an average of a ton a year like, about a ton.

J C       That’s a ton of tin?

M Mc  He’d work more.  He’d work a box of tin a week; I’d put it like that; and he’d go on for the season of the summer then, well say six months, twelve…. . yeah, around a ton or twenty five hundredweight of tin in the six months.  And I suppose he’d work two-and-a-half ton in the year like, the winter and summer.

J C       You say that you worked at the feathers as well?

M Mc  Oh yeah.

J C       Where did he get the feathers from; could you tell us a bit about the feathers?

M Mc  Well, when a person ‘d die in a house like, well the people in the houses that time, they wouldn’t use the feather beds no more, you know.  So then they’d send for my father, although he wasn’t a professional feather man like, but he knew a lot about them.  Well they’d give him then the feathers then, the feathers in exchange for whatever they wanted done like, you know, their churn cans fixed and all that.  So he’d pile away his feathers then until he have a big stack of maybe a ton, thirty hundredweight, and he’d sell them all in, in Killarney then; he might do that maybe two or three times a year.  And horses hair, they hair you cut off a horse; he used collect all that until he have maybe ten or twelve hundredweight, or maybe a ton of it.  But that time like you mightn’t get sixpence a pound for horsehair that time, where you’d nearly get a pound a pound for it now.  You might get maybe ten bob a stone for feathers that time, and I saw them later on in the years myself ten pound a stone.

J C       Would you know what he’d pay for say a years tin.  How much would he pay out and how much would he take in do you think?

M Mc  ‘Twas fifty shillings that time for the small box of tin, and by me saying a hundred of tin now, well, well you wouldn’t be getting it double like, you’d get what they call a large box of tin, (te) and what that meant, you’d bigger sheets.  So you’d pay, I think ‘twas four pound then for the big one; you’d bigger sheets of tin.  Well the smaller sheets of tin; the way he used work out like, with his compass and his scriber, that he usedn’t have any waste off of the small tin because he’d cut out the bodies of small vessels and they just came in exactly right, d’you see; which if he start cutting out the bodies of small vessels out of the big sheet of tin he’d probably be throwing away a quarter of it.  So you see nothing after my father now, waste, only little bits of tin about the size of your nail.

J C       So do you know what a year’s expenditure would be; would you have a guess Mikey; say how much would he pay out a year?

M Mc  How much money would he earn in the year?

J C       Yeah, how much would he earn, yeah?

M Mc  Well he never had a really lot of money like, but them times I’d put it down like big wages in them parts like; we’d say twenty quid a week, with us helping him, you know.

J C       Yeah.

M Mc  And I’d say he’d nearly have that profit like, you know, that time.

J C       That’s profit, twenty quid a week?

M Mc  That time, yeah; at that time like.

J C       Now what would he do in the winter….. sorry, before we get on to that.  What else would he do, is there anything, would he sweep chimneys or anything like that?

M Mc  Oh yeah, he’d sweep chimneys coming on Christmas then.

J C       All right; I’ll talk to you about that in a minute.  How about in the summer, what else would he do in the summer?

M Mc  Ah well, he’d several sidelines like.  He’d be dealing in donkeys and horses.  Well he’d never keep a lot of horses because he was a man used to stop in the one place for a long time, d’you see.  So if he kept a lot of horses he wouldn’t get to do it because the horses ‘d be trespassing and everything, so he wouldn’t get to stop, d’you see, so all he used to keep was a mule and a horse.  But then again, he might have ten or twelve, fifteen, twenty donkeys, because they wouldn’t do any damage like. But he was always dealing in donkeys as a side again, and feathers, as I say.  And he’d a bit of dealing, all that, fairs and all that; he’d all sidelines like.  But ‘twas always Monday morning he’d be back into work like, with his tinware the whole time again.  ‘Twas like a weeks work.  The end of the week then, you could….. well, during the day he’d be dealing away in a few donkeys and all that.

J C       When you set up on your own Mikey, when you got married and went off on your own anyway, did you travel the same way as he did?

M Mc  Yeah, done the same places.

J C       Exactly the same places?

J C       And would you pick up his trade?

M Mc  I didn’t Jimmy, I packed it because there was better opportunities for me coming up in feathers and selling tarpaulin and dealing in horses and all that, you know.  It amounted to the same thing like, but ‘twas from his experience I took up in a bigger kind of a way, you know; where he had the donkeys I kept horses, well I could afford to keep them like when he couldn’t you know, because, as I say, with his occupation.  Then I took up feathers, the year then I stuck into feathers and tarpaulin then, what we call tarpaulin waxy.  Well we used get selling mats; and I kind of got into a bigger way, d’you know.  But in his time like, you couldn’t afford to do that, you know.  But I reckon he earned more money maybe, than I ever earned.  But I got in a kind of softer living and a quicker pound.

J C       It was easier for you, yeah?

M Mc  Yeah. I’d go to a fair now, in the morning now that time and I’d buy maybe twenty or thirty halters and I’d buy them for a half-a-crown each, and I might bring twenty; sure I might sell eight or ten and I’d get a quid apiece for them.  Sure, my father ‘d be working away for two or three days and he wouldn’t make that, d’you see.  And that wouldn’t be all.  Every horse I’d put a halter on like, I’d get a pound, that was seventeen and six profit.  And then I’d get ten bob then to take the horse from that to the railway, you see.  And there might be a fair coming off then, maybe twenty miles of that the following morning, maybe ten miles, and I’d get a pound a horse; I might bring ten horses that night and I’d have them in the fair the following morning, I’d have a tenner earned agin out of that fair, and I’d have the same agin the following day.  So that’s what he often said,

“That I often made more money in a week than he’d make that time in maybe two months.

J C       But overall, he made….. he would make more than you, say, over a matter of years.

M Mc  Oh, I wouldn’t be able to…. The way my father used work; he’d have a days work done before we’d be up in the morning, because he started work at four o’clock in the morning.  And during the time we’d be getting our breakfast, that might be half seven or seven o’clock; and the man ‘d have a load of work made like, all his work cut out and all; he’d finish up at ten o’clock that night when it coming dark.  I mean he’d do two days work instead of one.  Would you say that was a general thing Mikey, with Travellers, that’s the way it happened about then?

M Mc  Well, they had to Jimmy, because if we lived now; if they lived like we’re living, in them times, they’d be starved with the hunger like, because ‘twas such little money for tinware, they’d have to make two times the amount in the day, you see, so they’d….. four o’clock in the morning until four in the evening, you’d be twelve hours, and from that till six….. from that till ten at night ‘d be another six, that was eighteen hours a day they were working, and that was every day nearly.  Because he might bring ten boxes of tin back to Dingle now like, and for me today, if you got me ten boxes of tin today I wouldn’t work it in three months; and he’d work it that time maybe in two weeks.  And such an ordinary man, I don’t think ‘d be able to do it in three times the time like, for times the time.

J C       How about the islands Mikey; did he ever do it out there?

M Mc  Oh, I used to do the islands with him.  We’d go into Valencia Island, me and him and he’d only bring his tools, that’s all, on his back, and I might bring what they call a stake or a hatchet stale (te) and he’d only bring a little amount of tin with him, he’d cut all his sheets up in the right length, what he’d want for bottoming buckets, and he’d have bodies of work made like, and he’d have them in a separate bag.  And then; well, he’d go into the one farm house in the middle of the island, you know, and while he’d be there then every night he used be working on the floor of the house.

And the people ‘d know what he want like, you know, if they wanted buckets made they’d bring their own galvanised with them and he’d make the buckets then inside on the floor of the house, and I’d be there with him.  We might be in the island then maybe, could be there three weeks without coming out, that was on Valencia Island now.

So we’d come back out of that now, suppose we were in Dingle.  We’d often….. he’d leave the wagon in what the call the Spally Road in Dingle (te); ‘twas above the creamery.  Well, he’d have all of us going to school that time; and I’d hit off back with him walking; he’d never bring a horse and car with him, and he’d go to Ballyferriter or Ventry first and we’d stop there; he might be there for….. I disremember now, maybe three or four days in the one farm. Well then he’d tell them where he’d be going, the next farm house, maybe in Ballyferriter; well, they’d know it anyway, because he’d be talking to fellers going along the road and I’d be with him.  And might pull into Ballyferriter, and he’d go into the Blaskets, might go in there for two or three days; come back out and on down to The Black Fields; ah, he’d be nice and steady home we’ll say, in two or three weeks, d’you know.

J C       But just the two of you would go?

M Mc  Yeah, or some of the girls might go with him sometimes instead of me, you now.

J C       Where would you stop while you were on the island?

M Mc  Oh, farmhouses,

J C       You’d stop at the farmhouses?

M Mc  Well in them days like, they always had either the feather bed, or a mattress, or maybe straw, they always had them upstairs waiting for a visitor like, in them days.  They believed in visitors coming like; well they always had one of them, always there, tick of feathers or something.

J C       You’d be welcome would you?

M Mc  Oh jay, what welcome.  But then he’d sit inside them when his days work ‘d be done and the neighbours ‘d start coming from far and near then and after the tea then, everyone have a mug of tea or something, around.  The storytelling ‘d start then and the songs and the step-dancing.  It’d be getting later then; I remember my father used start telling ghost stories and they’d be half afraid to go home then.  (Laughter)  Oh ‘tis many….. we go back around there yet; it’s as long back as I remember like; they’d be still asking me about my father back there, you know.

J C       Do you remember any of the names of the people that you stayed with?

M Mc  Oh, we used stop in Hanafin’s behind Ventry and we used stop in Brick’s was their name as you go down from Ballyferriter, yeah, Brick’s.  And we went into Ballygun then, we used to stop at…… a big tall man that was there, I forget his name now, he was six-foot-six I think, or six-foot-eight, I forget now.  The man is dead since.  We used stop in his house.  We’d come up then by Castlegregory and we used stop up there in….. I think ‘twas Moriarty’s, up in the top of the cross, we used stop there; ah sure, he could stop anywhere like, you know.  But where he’d go for central like, where the people ‘d be coming from around, you know.

J C       Would he always stop in the same house?

M Mc  Mostly; well they’d know the time that he’d be finishing like, you know, in this area now, and they’d say, “Will you come on to my house now Mick, and stop there for a few days”, you know, and he’d go on there maybe, might stop there for another few days, you know.  And they’d invite him on to another house.  But since that like, they got all fitted carpets and all that, you know, I mean (Laughter)

J C       What; they’d all be stone floors then?  Did you say you stayed on the Blaskets Mikey?

M Mc  Yeah, but I barely remember it Jimmy; but the sisters used go in there, my sisters, my brother, god have mercy, he’d dead; he used go in with him.  Ah, all the islands right around, you know; back in Castletown Bere Haven, now, we used go back into Achill Sound and all that; same thing.

J C       Achill Sound; I thought that was up in Mayo?

M Mc  No, there’s an Achill Sound in the west of Cork.  The Ahillies Mines; The Ahillie Sound, sorry.  And Bere Island.

J C       They’d all be Irish speakers then, where you went then Mikey?

M Mc  Oh, back along the west of Dingle that time.  I remember them times….. Me and a brother-in-law of mine, we went to dealing donkeys; that was when I got a bit older; I never grew up……. We used be dealing donkeys, and I knew a little bit of Gaelic all right, but not the way you could talk to them people like  ‘cause they couldn’t even speak English; I met men back there forty and fifty and sixty and seventy years of age and they couldn’t speak a word.  So whoever wanted a donkey, we’d have to wait till the postman come around and ‘twas he’d make the deal for us, ‘cause he was able to talk English and Gaelic.

J C       Would you pay him for making the deal for you?

M Mc  Well if we wanted, give to give him half a crown out of every deal like, if we wanted, you know.  But the man wouldn’t for anything, he’d be delighted to do it for you.  So we’d travel on with the postman all day.  But whatever bit I knew, like, the brother-in-law was a Kilkenny man, he know nothing at all about Gaelic.  (Laughter)

J C       Who was the brother….. who is it?

M Mc  Mickey Delaney.

J C       Mickey Delaney?

M Mc  Mickey Delaney.  (Laughter)  He’d say, “What are they saying now”, he’d say.  (Laughter)

J C       Right, could we….. how about the picking Mikey; the fruit picking and the crop picking; did he ever help with that, or did you, or did you ever work…..?

M Mc  Well I often cut turf myself, but my father wouldn’t, n, he wouldn’t do anything like that, he wouldn’t have the time.  But I cut turf myself and picked potatoes and turned hay; well, my father ‘d put me on it like and he’d put the brother on it; ‘twas a kind of neighbourly help, to help his neighbours, ‘cause there was no class distinction between my father and the settled down people that time like., what we called the Gorgies (te).  My father and them was all the one, so they’d come down; “Mick have you one there”.

“Yes, of course, go on there and give that man a hand”, you know.  We’d go up all day and we might spend a week working with the men.  But they’d pay us like; my father wouldn’t want to accept any money, you know.  But they’d be giving him potatoes and milk and all that, you know; they’d pay us as well.  And then we’d be going to the dances with their sons and their daughters and all that, you know, and they’d call for us, bicycles that time, maybe walking. 

J C       When you were settled in house Mikey….. No, could you tell us how long did the travelling season last; you say the seventeenth of March you’d start?

M Mc  Well, if he got the fine weather he’d always go in around the fall of the winter, you know, ‘cause he’d always kind of have us at school, so he’d get a house then the fall of the winter and as I say he’d be making his work all winter and doing odd jobs as well.  Then you’d hear the March coming at all he’d start saying to my mother, the first bulls that he’d hear whistling, “The wild is calling Jane, we’ll have to move on now.  So he’d start getting ready his things.  So he’d have everything ready then, he’d be watching through the window of the house; he’d be like a bird trying to get out of a cage, waiting for the first fine day.  And I often heard him say….. we’d all be waiting as well, and if we got bad weather, “Will this weather ever end, will this weather ever end”, you know, the bad weather, you know.

J C       How did you decide to stop then, in the winter, was it the weather or was it the work or what?

M Mc  Well, where he used to travel that time like Jimmy, ‘twas very bleak, Dingle and Cahersiveen, that was his place of getting his living, and was both very bleak country in the winter moreover.  Well he looked forward to his children like, having a bit of comfort for the winter.  He’d have plenty of firewood in and all that, you know.  And the caravans that time weren’t as good as the caravans we’ve now, d’you know, only home built caravans, and he’d have us all going to school and all that, as I say, and you couldn’t do them things in a caravan..

J C       So you’d stop when the weather got too bad or would you…..?

M Mc  Well he’d always move into a house either in Dingle or in Caher….. (siveeen), just coming on he’d just hit for Cahersiveen maybe, or Dingle, one of the two.

J C       When the weather got bad or……?

M Mc  Yeah, he’d hang on till he see the first bad weather, he always had a house waiting and he’d just walk into town and get a house because everybody knew him.  And next thing I saw, I remember, you’d see him packing his gear and pulling into the house then.  He was getting a new house built in Dingle and he wouldn’t accept it; the fishermen there was building a new house for him, and “no”, he said, “because I won’t stop in it”, you know.  Oh, that was years ago.

J C       He’d rent a house would he?

M Mc  Yeah, he’d rent it, yeah.  Oh, that time ‘twas easy rent a house, a half a crown a week.

J C       Can you talk about the winter Mikey?  What would you do in the winter?

M Mc  That’s what he used do now Jimmy; he’d be doing his tinware job the whole time, d’you know.  Then a month before Christmas, or maybe six weeks, he’d start sweeping chimneys then; ‘twas a very good racket in the winter like.  And he’d have his tool box with him as well, so he was hitting two birds with the one stone like.  So he’d be sweeping chimneys and making his tinware; odd jobbing they call it, in the winter.

J C       Nothing else, just sweeping….?

M Mc  If he met a few ticks of feathers on the way, he’d buy them as well, like, a couple of donkeys, you know, he was Jack-of-all Trades.

J C       But you managed to make enough in the summer to keep you through the winter?

M Mc  Yeah, and he’d still be working in the winter, like, still be working away.  Well, he was a man like, I don’t think he lived very cheap, you know, ‘cause he’d go on the beer now for three months, maybe two months, you wouldn’t know, you know, maybe stop.  He’d always have enough of his supply of tin and his tools and everything and once you’d see him packing them he was gone on the beer.  And he was a funny man; he’d go on the beer now till his money ran out, whatever way the money ‘d last, but he’d see to us, that we were all right like.  Then the day his money ran out then, that was it, stop the beer then again for six months maybe.  But he wasn’t like me, he’d be waiting or walking around the street waiting for the first pub to open, maybe six or seven o’clock in the morning, and you wouldn’t see him then till everybody ‘d be asleep that night.

J C       He was known as a singer was he?

M Mc  Yeah.  That’s what I think made him so popular in town like, because…… I well remember like you couldn’t get near the door of a pub where he’d be ‘cause he’d always be singing or telling stories, you know, and his coat ‘d be across his arm and you’d never see him alone, there’d be always a group of men around him.  All Gorgies like, more or less, except Travellers that he knew, his own friends with years like that, people he knew; he’d have a good drink with them like.  But he was a kind of a man like, he never wanted a Travelling man for company, he always had Gorgies, always, never without them.  And ah, he had some great friends of Travelling People, Larry Connors and John Delaney and all them, they were his friends with years, they were all tinsmiths.  If he got a big contract Jimmy, like, we’ll say too much for a man, if there was friends of his come up from Kilkenny or Waterford now, such as old Larry Connors now, or John Delaney, or all them tinsmiths, well, he’d say, “There’s enough work for us all and if we get it done quick we can move on together, the three of us”, and maybe four of them.  And the four might get in a line and they’d finish all his order and then they’d split up the money, so where it would take him a month like, well the four of them ‘d do it in a week.  So they’d split up all the profits there then and they’d move on then, he’d move on then with them; he might be with them all summer and they might work together, the four of them for the summer; he’d be supplying the orders in one place and they’d be supplying them in another place like, you know.  ‘Twas like us with contracts now, with tarmac or scrap iron or thing like that; they’d contracts the same way.

J C       That would happen very often would it Mikey?

M Mc  Oh yeah, could happen once in the two or three years you know; could happen for a month, might happen for a week, and goes on like that.  Then the four of them might go on the beer together; that’s where they split up then, when the money ‘d be all gone.  (Laughter)

J C       What were the names of the….. he’d always do that with the same people, or different people?

M Mc  Oh yeah, they all had their own mates; there was what they call Long Johnny Delaney, he’s dead now, the man old Larry Connors, then there was a man by the name of Wall, he used come up.  I forget their names now; there was Jim Connors; he used know all them; and there was a feller by the name of Tom Brien, he was a great storyteller, and he used go….. they’d always go on cuird (?), there might be three, there might be five now, maybe might work together and the other three ‘d work together like and they’d be on the one road as well, partnerships, you know.  They used to agree very well like, all the time, they were mates for forty or fifty years I reckon, and they never had a falling out or anything.

J C       But they’d just pack in when the money went?

M Mc  When their money was gone.  They might keep working away like, they might do maybe all, as I say now, back around Dingle and all them places now together; might end after a month and the next thing maybe the three or four of them ‘d get together and then take maybe Killarney some day; could happen in Kilorglin, and bang goes the lot again.  (Laughter)  But they’d have all their supplies in like, they wouldn’t drink theirself out, you know.

JC        Before we sort of stop talking about, you know, this, can you remember the names of the Travelling families in Kerry, in your immediate area, that you would see; who are the people, you know; your family is a Kerry family, isn’t it?

M Mc  Well in my time like, we were the only McCarthys, my father was the only man of McCarthy in Kerry.  In fact that’s what we were called behind…… My mother’s people was Coffeys and Briens and that’s all, the only two names that was there, and that’s where we came round.  What we meant by Over The Hill was, that was Tralee, that was North Kerry then, and then we were Over The Hill crowd, we were Over The Hill people as far as us.  We were Killarney, Kilorglin, Cahersiveen and all that, you know.  And part of the County Cork; ‘twas a kind of the mountain dividing the two lots of Travellers was in Kerry, Briens and Coffeys.   ‘Twas later in the years then that other different names started spreading, well, in my time my father was the only McCarthy, he was.  And I didn’t know of any more Travellers except the strangers that’d come up like, we’ll say Connors or Delaneys, or things like that, come up for the summer, you know.

J C       But they’d come in, they wouldn’t be from the area?

M Mc  No, no, there was only Briens and Coffeys.

J C       Briens and Coffeys and your family?

M Mc  My father was the only McCarthy and he was never classed as a Kerryman.  (Laughter)  The Foreigner, they used call him because he came from because he came from Tipperary.  (Laughter)

J C       One of the things you mentioned to us when we were recording some time ago Mikey; do you remember you were talking about the rambler horses?

M Mc  Yeah.

J C       Could you tell us what that is again please?

M Mc  Well, you’d have your own horses like, well the old horses we used keep, they were like the dogs; when they’d have their belly full they’d come back and they’d lie at the fire or around the caravan, d’you know.  But then you’d get a strange horse; well, you’d always have to watch him, you’d have to keep him tied up because he’d take away the rest of them.  And you’d always know the rambling horse’; you’d be watching him like, you know; you wouldn’t be watching your own horses at all.  ‘Tis like the herd of sheep; you’d always be looking for the lost one.  But once you’d see that horse standing in the middle of the road having his head up high and he looking, you know the direction he’s hitting for home once he’d have his belly full, and the rest of the horses ‘d follow him then.   But you’d always watch for the rambler.  Well, if I’d a rambler among my horses now, I’d tell all the rest of the Travelling People because he might take on my horses and theirs all together and there’d be blue war, you know.  Or you’d have a kicking horse that’ d kick another horse and you’d have to tell the other Travelling Man about that; you’d say, “I’ve a dangerous horse up there and he might kick one of yours”, he’d know my own ones.  But horses, they’ve a terrible sense of smell like, d’you know.  Moreover a Dingle horse or a Cahersiveen horse or an island horse, and the amazing thing about them was in the winter time they’d have nothing to eat back there like, you’d get more grass there off of the carpet on the floor than you would, as my father used to say, coming on the month of March, “You wouldn’t get a bit of grass back now”, he’d say, “with the pliers”; so that’d be fairly scarce like.  (Laughter)  And you’d go back North Kerry, and you’d buy a horse out of North Kerry where there’d be a foot of grass there winter and summer and you’d get the horse out of there and he’d stop with you; but you’d get the horse out of the islands or back around Cahersiveen or there in Dingle and you couldn’t hold them, they want to get back home.  But there was a man by the name of John Delaney, Long Johnny we used call him, and he bought one horse out of Dingle and he bought the other one out of Cahersiveen and he brought them on away down to the County Kilkenny, further down.  But as I say, he watched them, but by jay, he didn’t watch them enough because they left them in Kilkenny and they travelled the whole road right up to Tralee and the two of them split up in Tralee like, one fork is going for Dingle and the other one’s going for Cahersiveen, and they split up in Tralee and one went home to Dingle and the other to Cahersiveen.  And as far as I hear there was another horse swam into the island of Valencia Island after doing the long road again.  Two more left another man by the name of Dublin Jim, he bought them in Puck Fair, and they were after coming from Cahersiveen, and he brought them to Dublin, and they hightailed it from Dublin, made their way home.  Yeah, we had an Alsatian dog, left Dublin, landed back to Cork City.

J C       How far was that journey Mikey…..?

M Mc  From Dublin to Cork? 

J C       No, from what you were saying originally, the man….. Long John?

M Mc  Long Johnny Delaney?  Oh jay, it would be near enough two hundred miles.  But a feller stole an Alsatian dog on us; he didn’t steal him actually, the owners of the dog went to England, Martin Carthy and the missus; and they left the dog with us; an Alsatian.  Well he was a great friend of Martin McCarthy like.  So when he saw Martin going to England he kept his dog like, you know and took the dog from Cork and brought him to Dublin.   And he wrote us back a letter and he said, “I lost the dog”, he said, “Rose; I don’t know where he went astray in Dublin”.

And we wrote him back another one, we said, “He’s here with the last two days”.  (Laughter)

J C       Mikey, was there any more rules, you know….. sorry, what would happen if you went into an encampment with, say, a rambler horse or a kicking horse, and you didn’t tell anybody?

M Mc  Well if your horse then kicked the other mans horse, you’re liable to pay, you’d have to pay for his horse, if the man said, “You should have told me that”.  Well he’d take away his horses then like, from mine; well then, that’d be my responsibility if I didn’t tell him.  If my horse took away his horses and if I didn’t tell him, well, ‘twas my job to go and get them then. 

J C       And there’s no way you could avoid that?

M Mc  Well you’d do it in a matter of principle like, you know, you wouldn’t have to do it but you’d do it in a matter of principle, ‘cause you’d have a bad friend if you wouldn’t, you know, and ‘twould travel.  Well, ‘twas a disease in horses again, strangles, and your horses could get it and ‘twould last for the whole summer, because ‘twould go….. as one ‘d be getting better the other one ‘d be picking it up, so that’s how you’d have it all summer.  Well if you’d a strangley horse you’d have to tell everybody about it like, d’you know.  And well then, the Travellers wouldn’t pull in near you over your horse till it be cured.  Well if they were cured then you were back in the line again.  I was a whole summer alone one time, I nearly went mad; I couldn’t get no one to stop with.  (Laughter).

J C       Ok Mikey; that’s a nice tape.