Tape twenty eight.

Mikeen McCarthy

Contents.

Betsy of Ballentown Brae

Daniel O’Connell and the Fourpenny Boots  (story)

“Tygone, Tygone”  (story)

Mr Bennet’s Dog  (story)

Superstitions

Fires blacking out on a death

Horses alone

Magpies (with verse)

Horses walking round caravan

Banshee follow people with an 0 to their name

Mrs Kelly’s house;  turf thrown back by banshee  (story)

North Kerry  (2 v)

Patrick Sheehan  (5 v/s)

Traveller occupations   “I think they were the highest skilled people”.'

Casting metal in clay moulds.

Gladderer  (false money trickster)

Father making copper worms for poteen

Father using scrap cars to make buckets

Making saucepans

Mother carrying a box of tin

Mother ullagoaner (keener) at funerals

M Mc

Oh fair men and maidens I pray you draw near,

Some more short feeling verses you're now going to hear,

Considering lovely Bessie from Ballentown Brae,

It's the lord of the Moonland has led her astray.

Oh, one night as this young man has lay down to sleep

Charming Bessie came o'er him and o'er him did weep,

Is that the voice of my Bessie, this young man did say,

Leave me down by her side in sweet Ballentown Brae.

Oh he ordered his horsemen to saddle his steed,

Over hills and high mountains he rode in great speed,

Until he arrived at the clear break of day

At Bessie's own cottage in Ballentown Brae.

Oh then Bessie's own father stood at his own gate

Like a man quite indaunted with ill on his face.

Saying, you are my defaulter, you caused me to roam

Far away from my friends and away from my home.

He put his hand to his staff belt and a sharp sword he drew,

Oh then, right through his left side he pierced his heart through,

And then when he was dying those last words he said,

Leave me down by her side in sweet Ballentown Brae.

M Mc  Well, Daniel O'Connell he came from where I came from myself, Cahersiveen Town.    So he was supposed to be a great man to the poor.   He was a solicitor as well as anything else at that time like.   

So there was a Travelling woman anyway and her son.    So bejay, her son was up for stealing something, a pair of shoes, I forget now what he was up for, but he was up in court twenty five miles from that in Kilorglin Town.   

So bejay, she was on anyway, she was three quarters of the road anyway, walking with her son.

She started off in the middle of the night to get to the court the following morning, and who catches up with them on the road only Daniel O'Connell.    So he'd a pony and trap and he driving away for himself because he'd a case in front of him that morning in Kilorglin.   

So he asked them would they have a lift.    So the two of them gets into the trap anyway.   

So he asked her, what's the trouble.

So she told him that her son is up in court in Kilorglin Town anyway for stealing,    And what did he steal anyway, because he seemed to know them very well at the time.

So she told him whatever he stole, some horses hair, something like that, or maybe clothing.   

And he said, “do you think be stole them”?   

She said,  “I don't think he did, he tells me he didn't anyway”.   

So he'd no shoes on him anyway, the young lad.   

So there was a second hand shop anyway, as you go in to the start of the town that time and bejay, he said, “I'd better buy him a pair of shoes anyway”, he said, “he looks terrible in his bare feet”.   

So he brings him into the second hand shop anyway and bejay, be bought a pair of boots for him anyway, for fourpence,  

“So there you are now”, he said, “and I wish you luck”, he said, “and I'll talk for you in court anyway”.   

So bejay, the young feller was up in court anyway, and the mother was there, and the judge asked him had he anything to say.   

So Daniel O'Connell took up for him anyway, and he said, “I don't think this young feller stole anything”, he said, “because I know this boy”, he said, “since his boots cost fourpence”, he said, “and he never done anything out of the way since that”, says he, “and I can guarantee you that”, he says to the judge.  

So bejay, the judge anyway, took Daniel O'Connell's word for it and he dismissed the case, And Daniel O'Connell landed them back home in the pony and trap again.

M Mc  Back in Cahersiveen 'twas a very lonesome place you know, and I wouldn't he surprised if you seen the ghost there at any hour of the night or maybe any hour of the day, never mind the night, because 'tis very remote, 'tis miles away from every place.    So bejay, they used be playing cards that time maybe up till two o-clock in the morning, maybe one o-clock at night, d'you know.   

So there was this feller anyway, and it was very late when he was finished the card playing and he was walking home, and ‘twas a lovely moonlight night.   

So bejay, out comes an old cat in front of him anyway.    And you often hear those old tom cats the way they do be growling like, there in the night, you'd imagine they'd be Christians talking sometimes like, more times you'd imagine they'd be like babies crying, you know1 they could change their voice into anything.   

So the cat jumped in front of him anyway1 the shine out of his eyes.... Anyway, the man stood up in the road and the cat, he said;

“Tygone, Tygone, when you go home,

Will you tell Molrone that Tygone is dead”.

So your man, he started laughing anyway, and he went off  home anyway and bejay, he goes into the house anyway. So he was drinking a cup of tea anyway at the fire and there was an old cat at the fire and he was about fifteen years of age.    And bejay, he said to the brother, “the funniest thing he said, you ever see”, he said, “was when I coming home”, he said.  

“What happened”, he said?

“Yerra, them old cats”, he said, “that they come out with such funny noises sometimes”.   And he said, bejay, “didn't the old cat come in front of me in the road”, he said, “and stood up on his hind legs, and he said”;

“Tygone, Tygone, when you go home,

Will you tell Molrone”, he said, “that Tygone is dead”.

And the very minute he said it away jumps the old cat from the fire and out through the window, and off to go.    Bejay, 'twas the way the cat told your man the story, the way he tell the other old cat that was inside in the fire, sitting at the fire.

M Mc   I knew a true story like.          

There was a man in Cahersiveen Town and he was a Mr Bennet, he's only dead about thirty years I'd say, when I was going to school.  So he had one of those gun dogs, d'you know those Labradors, he had one of them.   The dog was terribly attached to the man anyway.   So where this man came from was Valencia Island, anyway he was bred, born and reared in Valencia Island, but he came out to Cahersiveen Town anyway, to live there, because whatever kind of a business he had the weather used be upsetting anyway, you know, backing on.

So he decided to live in Cahersiveen anyway.   

And bejay, eventually Mr Bennet dies anyway, and his burial ground was back in Valencia Island and they took him in and they buried him in Valencia Island.    And bejay, they came back out so.    

When they came out everybody around the town missed the dog, he wasn't seen no more, whatever happened. So they went looking for him to know what became of him, and bejay, they found him on top of the grave inside, he swam in a mile of sea to get into the graveyard,   

But he's buried inside in Valencia Island now and there's a cross over the dog's side and all.  Fido was his name, yes.

M Mc ..... happened myself, something happened like.

There was your people believing in magpies, scalacrows, twas the same thing as when the fire started going black out that we'd be round like, d'you know.  The old people'd know it.    There must have been something there like  because it always happened. The fire would go black for a minute like and light up again, d'you know.    They could kind of read the fire, d'you know.   

Well the kids'd be may be around having their dinner or their breakfast or their supper or everything and something would happen like, the kids would all get up cross or get upset.    They had their ways like, of knowing there was something wrong someplace.

And you'd hear the old people saying then, there's a death some place or somebody's sick.    And when they said them things, ‘twas it, dead on, d'you know.    Such as going out hawking now in the country like, they wouldn't go out that day; they'd know there was some news coming.   Well as far as I know I believe in it anyway.

J C       They wouldn't go out at all?

M Mc  No, they wouldn't go out, they'd know there would be something wrong some place and as true as they'd say, that night, they'd get some news the following day.   Well actually, I believes them myself, d'you know.   

Horse would come around now, we'd say.    We had old horses now for twenty or thirty years, d 'you know, then out horses come around the night and keep the people woke, annoying the people lying in the caravans, he'd go from one caravan to the other, he'd be on his own.     That was a very bad omen, d'you know, there'd be something wrong because he'd leave the rest of the horses to come back, d'you know.    And they'd say then, he’s he on his own, once he was on his own they'd believe there was something wrong there again.   

Well, did you ever hear the one about the magpies?

One for a wedding, two for a wake,

Three for silver, four for gold,

Five for a story that was never told.

It goes on like that, you know.    Well all them things, they used to happen like, they'd meet two magpies now.

JC        This is the number of magpies?

M Mc  Yeah, yeah,

One for bad luck, two for good luck,

Three for a wedding, four for a wake,

Five for silver, six for gold,

Seven for a story that was never told.

But they could..... Jackdaws was the same now.  

If they met a rat on the road where he shouldn't be, if there was a bird along side of the rat, yeah, that was alright.   If they met a rat on his own now going along they found that unlucky.  

They we're superstitious like, but it always kind of happened.

D T      Do you have any examples Michael, of this happening?

M Mc  Oh yeah, oh several.

D T     Can you tell us about it?

M Mc    Oh, several times, several, several times, if I can think of one off of hand now.   

Well it happened several times, you know, such as now you couldn't sleep in the night, you know, long ago, because people would be tired, they'd want to sleep, they'd be mad to sleep and couldn't sleep like.  Starting smoking a cigarette inside in bed or something.

Well the old people then, they wouldn't sleep at all, they'd get up in the morning and walk around listening for some news, where is such a feller stopped, all that kind of going on, d'you know.    Bejay, that'd be their only bother.

Well, 'twas a first cousin of my mother's now. We were away back in a place called the West of Dingle and bejay, my mother didn't see her for months.    And Killarney Hospital must be fifty four, fifty five miles from that and there was no motor cars that time like, and no way of carrying on the news or anything.  

So bejay, she got up the following morning, she said to my father, she said, “I'm very upset all night”, she said, “‘cause I heard walks around the caravan all night”.    And my father, of course, tried to make the best of it, he said,  “it might be Mr So-and-So up the road or something like that, that'd be looking after the cattle or something like that”, you know.   

But 'twas no good, 'twas nothing would occupy her mind, anyway.   

So bejay, she went into Dingle anyway and there was another first cousin of hers in Dingle and she asked her was there anything wrong.   She said nothing, but she claimed she heard the same walk round the yard again.    So bejay, they put their heads together anyway, and they started to bring in somebody that they knew, write a letter or something.    The night she heard the kind of a walk around the caravan like, if they could get the news that day they'd have met her before she died.   

But bejay, when they found out all about it she was dead.  But they made the funeral.    But it happened several times like that.

The Banshee, she used follow anybody with an 0 to their name, O’Brien now, O’Connor,  Sullivans, d’you know.   But 'twould he a very rare thing now to have a person that wouldn't be having an 0 to their name, to hear her.    If they heard her then there'd be definitely something wrong with that family because,...

If I said I heard her now last night, they'd say, “what's your name”?  

Well, McCarthy, well there wouldn't be an 0 then,   Well they'd be kind of worried.   If it was an 0 they wouldn't think nothing of it, d'you know, because she always followed the name of 0, O'Driscoll, O’Connell, O’Sullivan, anything like that.    But where we lived anyway there was a house there, we lived in the same house although I never heard her but everybody in the street used to hear her regularly. Down there was a kind of a bohereen, what we call a bohereen, a little side road coming down off of the side of the mountain. And she'd be…

There was a Mrs Kelly lived there, she was a painter.   There was several tenants in the same house and they left because she was always at the gable end of this house, used never leave it.   

But there was a Mrs Kelly anyway, she was a Mount Rath woman, and they lived there.    Jay, I often went down because I kept hanging around with her son and I'd meet Mrs Kelly in the morning.

Jay, she'd be grumbling and grousing all around her,  “that bloody Banshee had me up again all night”,  d’you know.

‘Course she was in trouble, she was in the corner house where she used to be like.    But as far as I hear the old people talking about anyway, that they were in the house where we lived at the time now and that was only a bit in above the bohereen, you know, and she came right out over the window about twelve 0-clock, it seems she didn't like anybody playing cards after twelve o’clock in the night, maybe they might be annoying her for all they knew.   

So they used to have a big fire on anyway in the hearth and what we called ceirons (te) now, they're all bits of turf, they'll be turf that be break away when they be fresh and they make a great fire and they'd always have them like, inside in the bucket.    When the fire'd be going low they'd fill it up with ceirons again.   

So there was a hard man anyway, he’s dead since, God have mercy on him, Connie Clifford, and he was there and he was dealing the cards anyway and the Banshee was roaring outside and he wasn't a bit happy anyway, but he was reared with her  d'you know.  

He was warm anyway because he was losing every game that was coming up.   

Anyway he lifted a ceiron; “ah you bloody old bitch”, he said, out through the window, and he put the ceiron flying out through the window like.   

And bejay, he was just turning a card when the ceiron came back and landed on the table inside and they all playing,  (laughter).

J C     She threw it back.

-

M Mc              

Oh the war is all over and my Connor, is not returning,

Oh together how oft o'er the mountain we strayed,

Oh some cruel god above will him not returning,

I am waiting here all the day long for my dear, dear Irish boy.

Take me home, take me home, take me home to North Kerry,

Take me home to the land of my dear Irish boy,

Oh then smiling, beguiling, arid in cheering and dearing,

I am waiting here all the day long for my dear, dear Irish boy.

M Mc  That's it Jim, that's all I know.

M Mc                  

Oh my name is Patrick Sheehan, my age is thirty four,

Tipperary is my native place, oh not far from Galtymore,

And then many’s the pleasant days we spent on the Glens of Aherlow

Oh my parients were respectable, but now they are lying low,

My father died and closed his eyes outside the cabin door,

The sheriff and the landlord they were here the day before,

And that caused me to go with a broken heart from the Glens of

Aherlow.

Oh I went up to the workhouse to see my mother there,

The news I got it broke my heart and it caused me for to go,

And then now I joined the English Army far away from Aherlow.

Oh get up o'er that you Irish dog, don't you hear the bugle sound,

Alas sir, I was dreaming of those dear days gone long ago,

I awoke before Sebastapol, how dark I thought the night,

Oh but heavenly father, god above, it was the clear daylight.

Oh when I found out that I was blind my tears began to fall,

And now they call me Blind Sheehan in the Glens of Aherlow.

M Mc  I've a lot of them myself a tinsmith is one, making tins, one they used to sweep chimneys, they used to make tables,  furniture like, that time, little three legged tables, chairs, all that,   

They was feather buying, horses hair buying, rabbit skins, there was hunters, there used be pegs, make flowers out of elder sticks, hazel sticks.   They used make mats, baskets, you name it, they used do it.    I think they were the highest skilled people, I'd say they were the highest skilled people with their hands that I ever seen in my life,

J C         Were you a tinner yourself?

M Mc    Yeah, I could do anything, make flowers, tables, pegs, anything at all.   

You see, that time maybe you'd get the interest.  You'd see other fellers doing it like, you’d do it yourself.   

Whether it was some bit of power that was behind him or anything, anything they'd take their hand to they could do it,   

They used make wheels for caravans, nothing; they cut the trees off, the branches, cut the timber out the branches, no bother to them.    Leave them season and make their own wheels.

J C        Did you have a main trade, did you have one thing that if anybody asked you, “what's your job”?

M Mc     No, I never stopped at the one thing Jim.  We always kind of followed the extra couple of bob.

J C      Did your father?

M Mc   My father, he was a proper tinsmith, he was a chimney sweep as well, before that he was a tinsmith and a bit of horse trading, donkey trading, all that, feather trading,    That was a very good occupation one time, feathers. But all them trades is finished now, they're all gone. You wouldn't see a man now doing any tinware.   Well, a few of them that's back there, the old timers now like.   They turned the tin into copper and they made antiques and they displayed it then through airports and all that, d'you know.

Proper skilled old men you know, made lanterns and lamps, now.

Er, those spray cans now, we'll say, made out of copper, and kettles, copper kettles, copper teapots, all that, all on display, things with funny designs out on them.    They used block out tin and they blocked out the copper, it came much to them,    But they're working now behind in factories at the job theirself, they teach young people, young Gorgie fellers now, not travellers, all teach them and they're after carrying on the business theirself,    You'd be surprised at the work they used to do, you'd nearly want to watch them to believe it like, with their hands.   

I could do it myself if I had equipment.   

But they used do metal running then, my father, all his people, we were what they call metal runners then.   D'you know the way they does the casting is here now in the foundries?  They used do the same thing. They get the yellow clay out of the ditches, make their own moulds out of that, they'd melt the metal on the side of the road with a bellows, they'd break up all the casting like, old pots and kettles, all that now, cast and they'd break it up very small.  They'd melt that with a bellows at the side of a road.  Well, they'd only have tents and they could mould out anything they wanted there, socks of ploughs, boles of ploughs, pots, kettles, bastables, anything like that and they'd have all of them on display then in the weekend in along through fair day, market day anything like that.   

With their own bare hands they were doing it.  I thought they were the highest skilled men I ever saw in my life anyway. 

There was what they call then the gladderer.

J C     Gladderer?

M Mc    Gladderer, he was for making false money,   He'd make this long thing the shape of a two shilling piece now, you know, a half a crown, you know,    And he'd have a new half a crown and whatever way he'd have fixed it inside in this thing. He'd come along to you now like, we'll say.

He'd say,  “this is a machine for making money”.   

You'll start making the laugh of him of course.  He'd melt so much silver then, 'twould Actually be solder like, solder is very shiny and very clear,    And the heat out of the melted solder 'twould shine the half a crown as new as the first day it was made.  And he'd a way that he could click this thing and leave the half a crown fall into the dish of water, and the melted solder'd stop inside, he'd just show you how it was done.    You were a dead client of course, for ten pounds straight away (laughter) or maybe a fiver.  

Well, they were that clever like, they used do…. gladderers they were called. I'm sure there are a few of them round yet if they were found.

J C     Where there many other tricks like that, that type of tricks?

M Mc  Well, that poteen maker now that you hear there about the mountain dew, the Irish whiskey.   Well I saw my father making the worms for them.

J C      The copper worms?

M Mc  Making the lot complete at that time, years gone by.  'Tis quite easy now, anybody could do it with plastic tubing now and all that d'you know, they’ve no problems now.   

But he'd get the copper piping, in fact there was a lot of it he made himself.   

And he'd get that and he'd fill it up with sand at both ends.   I mean, 'tis nothing today because we learned off of the old people.   And he could twist that the same as a spring now like, twist it all around as neat that there wouldn't be a plumber now in London that'd do a better job.    And he'd bring that as neat and as sound and when he'd have it all twisted and the way he wanted it then he'd leave out all the sand then.    There his worm was made with the two ends like, one'd be going into the instrument that they do be boiling the  (?????) whatever they used to make it out of, and the barley and all that.    Heat it away then drop off of that into the other thing and they'd have the fire underneath one, he'd rig it up, 'twas like a factory when he'd be finished with it.   

But he did that for the old people back in the mountains.  They did it then.  

He give up making it, he would do it no more, 'twas getting a bit risky for him like.   Well, what he was doing it for, ‘twasn't for money he was doing it, because there was people back in that country  would get flues and colds, he'd expect the help off of them too like because..... ‘Tisn’t alone to make you happy, for singing, dancing or anything like that, but 'twas very good for colds and flues and all that.    But I remember him well making them things, very well.

D T      How big were these things Michael?

M Mc  Well it depended on the size you wanted them, d'you know, if you wanted one now, well say to hold two or three gallons, or four gallons or six gallons, it depend on the height.    But the worm was only always the one width,  'twere only about quarter inch piping, half inch,  well, 'twouln't be half inch, it'd be tighter than that.     Something like the pipes that's going for the petrol tanks, we'll say, in the car.   The copper, it'd be that substance now like. but now, it took some skill that time to make them like,  there's no problems now, get a bit of plastic piping now you'd have it done in a couple of minutes sure.

J C         Do you think that a lot of the travellers have lost their skills now?

M Mc Oh, oh yeah,  oh yeah, they’re all gone.    The young fellers today, what, they'd make.... I bottomed an old bucket for the wife, for the crack, d'you know, just for to pass away the time, put a bottom on it, and here my young feller go, “'tis going to fall off now”, they thought 'twere going to fall off.    When they started putting water into it they thought twas going to fall off, fall out.    

There we, some grand tradesmen you know.    During the war there now when there was no vessels going round, no buckets, no nothing, we often got a car there, when I a young lad with my father, and he'd cut the bonnet off a car, he'd cut out the stuff out of that.  You can imagine now, there was no material to be got to make buckets like, or anything, you know, couldn’t get no tin, you couldn't get galvanised, couldn’t be bought.  And the galvanised you would get anyway, when you'd bend on it to make a bucket out of it, 'twould have to be bent that tight that tight, 'twould crack away, 'twould be no good, d'you know, except you get the capping stuff, and that'd be the stuff for the roof above on the top.   

Well I seen him getting bodies of cars, the doors of the car and getting the old roof of the old cars long ago; he'd burn them in the fire, he'd bring out the material brand new and he'd turn them into buckets and cans and anything they want, they lasted a lifetime, I'm sure they must be around yet if you could look for them, because they could never go like, they could never wear out.

Their hands were that strong they were like the Kerry Sandstones, couldn't put a blister on them (laughter).

D T    What other jobs have you done Michael, what kind of jobs have you done yourself?

M Mc  I’m a professional blacksmith for shoeing horses, I'm a carpenter by trade, you name it, I can do it, anything at all.    You had to do it like, or else you had to die of the hunger in some of the towns, you would die.

J C     What was the first job you did?

M Mc  Oh, tinsmithing, that. was with my father, yeah. Well, he was a high skilled tinsmith, he used work for the shops now like we’ll say.   'Tis much the same as working for a foundry now, he used work for shops in all different towns in Kerry and I was always there.     Even to the girls, my sister Peggy, you were talking to last night, that one could make a few instruments for you if she wanted to. The older sister I have here in London now.   My father had four daughters. and one son, so they used all help him out, the four of them, making the tinware, finishing.    He'd cut out all the work and they'd do all the turning up and the finishing and the bottoming and making the handles and the rivets and all that, you know.  

Well, he'd get a hundredweight of tin that time, that'd be eleven dozen and four sheets of tin, twenty four inches by twelve and he'd work that lot of tin from four o-clock in the morning in the summer time, we'll say, till ten o-clock at night and he'd exactly make eleven dozen and four saucepans out of it.   That'd be half gallons like, d’you know, he'd have a half gallon out of every sheet, doing the bottoms and the handles and all. And the weight of it would be a hundred and four pounds (laughter).

D T     What made you leave off tinsmithing Michael?

M Mc  It was when plastic ran us out.

D T     So what did you do for a living then?

M Mc    Turned to carpentry then, horse trading, horse trading would go down in the winter like, horse trading at that time was only a summer job because you couldn't mind them in the winter, you'd have no feeding for them    

We used keep to western counties then where the grass'd be very scarce, so you just couldn't keep them like, you'd have to sell out coming on the winter always, yeah.   

I remember my mother going; she walked from Castlemaine, 'twas eleven miles to Kilorglin.   

So she went in doing some shopping anyway and she said she'd bring out a box of tin.   So they say a box of tin weighed a hundred and four pound.    So she used have a shawl, did you ever see a shawl, the old women wearing shawls, arid she would wear a brown shawl always anyway.

So there was a farmer anyway, that came from where we had the caravan parked like,   

So she met him in the town so he said, “if you're going home Jane, I'll give you a lift after like”, d'you know; because we were very well known with the farmers.    So he'd a horse and car, so she got her box of tin anyway and she put it up on her back and she walked it down to the end of the town.    So the farmer never arrived, I suppose he forgot all about it and went into the pub, had a few pints.   

And bejay, she got it up on her back and she said, I'll walk on to the next house, because she'll walk on to the next house and whatever people that she knew like, would help her up on the road anyway.

And bejay, she said, “I'll leave it up there and he'll catch up to me now when I get to this house.  

And bejay, she waited inside in the house, she was chatting to that woman anyway, and she go on to the next house with the box of tin. And it kept going, and it went on for seven or eight or ten houses anyway.   

But she was inside in one house anyway, and he passed on and he flying with the horse and car, he was mad drunk of course.   

And she walked it the whole way with the box sitting up on her back  (laughter).

J C     Denis was saying that you told him that your mother used to keen, is that right, at funerals?

M Mc  Oh yeah, oh yeah, she was what they call an ullagoner.

J C       A which?

M Mc  An ulagoner, did you ever hear tell of them Jim?

J C       An ullagoner?

M Mc  Yeah, ullagoner.   D'you know a person die, we'll say, in a house, well there might be one in every parish, you know.   

Well a parish could go on for seven, eight, maybe ten miles like.   

Well then, when a person'd die in one parish like, there might be six or there could be three, four like.   

But they'd keep ullagoning then any from whatever time the wake'd start, maybe the wake would start maybe eight o-clock in the day maybe, maybe seven, and 'twould

Go on to maybe twelve that night because all the people around from the parish like, they'd come in, sit inside, say their prayer and have a chat about the day.    Well what they would be doing is keeping the crowd woke all the time, you know.    Then, when the house'd get full then and that lot'd leave like and a new lot would come in. And two would come in and two would leave all this, the nearest the door.    But the ullagoners would keep on until twelve.

Well there would be six of them there, we’ll say, two would go on now, they'd go on for maybe half an hour, two more would take over then like, two more’d take over.   They’d have their shawls around their head, and they'd be….. some of them would be kneeling down, more of them would be sitting down like.    But they'd be together just in front of the corpse and they'd be.... God, I remember them well, they'd be going on like,  “Ohoooooo Ohooo”, you know, they'd go on like that like and they'd keep on at it till twelve o-clock in the night.    And the funeral.... the wake'd be all over then like and they'd all go off home when it would be over, d'you know.    Well my mother was one of them.   I remember them long ago, thirty years ago I suppose, went on as far as thirty years ago.

D T     Did they have particular tunes they used Michael?

M Mc  No, just the one, the one thing the whole time, but they'd come out in a lot better sound than I came out there  (laughter)  

They'd a special kind of an air to it, d'you know, and they could time one another.    You'd imagine it'd be the one person like that'd be ullagoning the one time, d'you know.   

Well, they were so well used to it, they'd be at maybe three or four funerals a week. They'd accept no payment then like,

J C      They wouldn't be paid for it?

M Mc  No, they wouldn't accept it or they wouldn't be paid, no.

J C       Were they Travelling women or did they or did they have Gorgies?

M Mc   Oh, there was a few Travelling women, oh yeah, very well known, very well known.

J C       Are there any alive now... oh, your mother

M Mc   I don't know, I didn't see her do it for at least thirty years, no.   

But the Travelling people now in Ireland like, they were away, an awful lot better got than we was you know, the younger race.   'Cause they trusted the old people, they don't trust us young people, I wouldn’t blame them either (laughter).  

The old people there like if ‘twas one o-clock in the night they'd bring them in for the lodgings. People come down, oh, delighted to see them of course.  

“Well we're going off to bed now, help yourself out there, make the tea” like.   

They might be gone in the morning before the people would be up of the house, like, because they never liked to incumbering people too much. But everything would be like they came into it that night; the same thing in the morning, everything washed and put away clean.   I often see my mother there now; she'd be out there with the farmers helping out the woman with the dinner, whatever it would be like.

Thrashing machines now, they’d come up to my mother and my mother'd do all the cooking with thee farmers wife and all the help out, everything like that.   And we'd be working with the thrashing machine ourself maybe, my father'd be doing it.

We were just like theirself.   

As time go on, as I told you before, with those flashy carpets and those visitors coming back from America and England and all this  (laughter).

J C    Do you know the song about the thrashing machine Michael?

M Mc  Now I don't now, I heard it several times like, “I'll tell you the works of my thrashing machine”, that's all I know.    Jay, I didn't hear it for years.   

Oh jay, we had some great days at the thrashings.

J C      Did you work the land yourself?

M Mc  Oh yeah.

J C      Just one thing, that word, ulagone, could you spell it?

M Mc Ullagoning.

J C      Is it a Gaelic word

M Mc  I'd say it was Gaelic, ullagoning

J C        I've never heard it.

M Mc   I'm sure any Irish person that would be around my age would be able to te1l you about that like, fifty or sixty year, you know.    Oh I remember them, I remember them well like.