Tape thirty four.

Michael McCarthy

Contents.

The green mossy banks of the Lee

Bonny Bunch of Roses

Biddy Early's blue bottle (story)

Widow-women and orphans curses

Curse on the Travelling woman- child born with a pigs head

Deformed people

Five deaf and dumb children dead within 2 years

The spring well, fenced in, re-appears in the neighbours kitchen

Hares as magical creatures- milking the cow

The Sea Captain- stops after 2 v/s and restarts

Hiring Fairs, Tralee

List of his agricultural occupations

“You’d have to give them your reputation”

"They'd go according to the boots”.

“The only privacy they had was the bedsheet”.

“All Travelling people came over for the hiring”, (in Scotland)

“There was only one road back, and that was work or out”

“They'd promise a horse oats and throw him chaff”

"It was the foreman made the money"

Traditions on a death- exorcising the memory

No mourning beyond midnight

Penalties for mourning too much-

Ghostly reprimands

M. Mc.

I came first to this country a stranger,

Curiosity caused me to roam

And through England and Ireland and Scotland

Since I left Philadelphy, my home.

Oh I quickly sailed over to England,

Where grand beauties and mellows do shine,

And 'tis there I beheld a fine damsel,

And I pray up to God she'll be mine.

Oh I quickly stepped up to this fair maid,

Her pale cheeks the blushed like a rose,

And your beautiful mellows and charms,

Your old gardener I'll be if you choose.

Oh kind sir, I don't want no gardener,

Young man, you’re a stranger to me,

And 'tis yonder my daddy is coming

O'er the green mossy banks o'er the Lea.

Oh, I quickly stepped up to her father,

My spirit I summoned once more,

Saying, kind sir, if this be your daughter1

She's the young one I do adore.

Oh two thousand a year is my fortune,

And a lady your daughter will be,

She can roll in her daubs and her carriages,

O'er the green mossy banks o'er the Lee.

Er, I forget the last verse, I forget the last verse

M. Mc.

Oh 'twas early, early in the month of June,

When feathered birds they. commenced their tune,

Conversing young Napoleon,

And considering the Bonny Bunch of Roses 0.

Oh I overspied a fair maid,

Who seemed to be in great grief and woe,

Thinking on her father,

And considering the Bonny Bunch of Roses 0.

Oh then son, think on your father,

In Saint Helena where his body lies low,

And you will follow after him,

So beware of the Bonny Bunch of Roses 0.

Oh he raised a powerful army,

And through great dangers he did go,

He lost all the universe,

And he gained the Bonny Bunch of Roses 0.

That's it Jim, I can't think of any more, there are bits here and there but I'm out of it.

J. C.     I think you might have mentioned it earlier.

M. Mc.  Well, the blue bottle like, that was the cure she had, d'you know.    When somebody wanted a cure they'd come in and if she relied on them she'd get them to put their hands around the blue bottle that'd be standing on the table.   She'd always take the blue bottle out of one drawer that was inside in this old cupboard.        

So when she died like, the blue bottle was thrown into the lake, there wee an old lake in front of the house, 'twas full of old weeds and stones, everything.   

So now lately she came kind of famous they got divers to go down the lake, well, 'twouldn't be that deep, but they dragged it and they must have pulled a hundred bottles out of it, but they got blue ones and black ones and white ones and all.  But so they have three but they don't know which one of the three it is.   But as far as I could hear that's her son that's here in Great Britain and he wasn't heard tell of for years, that he has the blue bottle.   So I wouldn't think that it'd be any good to anybody else save herself, except she handed down the, what do I call it, the cures, whatever, down to him.   Maybe he might know the secret like, and he might never use it.

J. C.    Did you ever hear of any Travellers curses?

M. Mc.  Not that I know of much like, no, I never heard tell of it because Travellers is very careful people like that, they always watch for people to, we'll say, hurt, widow women, we'll say, orphans, children, anything like that, they'd never harm those people, never, d'you know.    Such as a widow woman now, we could often, we'll say, have a good deal of a donkey now, we'll say, or deal of a pony.  If I was having a deal with you now Jim, I'd have as good as I could, but the widow woman now maybe wouldn't deal at all in case that something might go wrong and that she'd curse us, something like that, d'you know.    They wouldn't be in the habit of cursing like.    We always worried about that because we heard tell about Travelling people getting hurt that way. Widow women would curse you and an orphan (te), a thing like that, d'you know.  

‘Twas a Travelling woman one time she'd a crowd of young kids, five or six young kids and they were all toddlers, walking after her.  So they'd be mooching like, from house to house, d'you know, for their living, few potatoes, we'll say or she might be selling stuff, she might be asking a bit of bacon in the house, thing like that.  

So she came on to a farm yard anyway, and begor this farmer, we can hear from the old people that she chased her away from the door, she said,  “get out of here”, she said, “you old sow with your litter of bonhams”, she said.   

So whatever remarks the Travelling woman get back to her she said, “We all won't live for a hundred years”, he said, “and”, she said, “you'll get the same height of grave as I'll get when I'll die”, she said to her, “the same to you when you die”.  

But begod, she was a motherless child anyway, and she was married to a farmer for years, and begor, she gets pregnant as we say, and begod, her child was born the following year and it had a bonham's head, that's a young pig, like d'you know.   

But she followed the Travelling woman all over Ireland, wherever she went to and the man the same and they found that... cross her curse.

She said, “I never cursed you”, she said, “I don't have to curse you”, she said, “you should never have made that remark”,   she said, “in the first place”.    “I'm sure”, she said, “I'm a woman on the road”, she said, “and I wouldn't have' done it”. She said, “'tisn't me that cursed you”, she said, “you cursed yourself”, she said.   

That's what we hear, like, you’ll hear a yarn like that Jim, whether they're lies or truth I don’t know.    Yerra, the old people would tell you 'tis the truth. 

You'd hear people saying long ago now, this... what they call disformed people like.     Well the old people would tell you they wouldn't pass no remarks, d'you know, even they wouldn't look at them if they saw them because they were very superstitious people theirselves, 'twas a very, very rare thing among Travelling people, very rare.    In fact it was a very few.  

Ye had deaf and dumb people, we had children born deaf and dumb we'll say, children born blind, but that's all God1s will, but 'twas a very, very rare thing altogether to see a disformed child among us.    'Tisn't we weren't...... Travellers weren't that great Catholics or anything like that but they had their belief and if they did see a disformed person the old people if they saw the like of us looking at them now like, not, I mean, laugh or anything, just look at ‘em, Jay, we wouldn't look again and they made that clear like.   

So even to this present day if I see a disformed person, well,  I'd be more cheekier now than I would when I young, I'd bid them the time of day and I'd say, good luck on your road, whatever 'twould be like, good evening or good morning and everything like that like. I'd be a bit forward to them, but I'm sure I wouldn't like to make no laugh nor joke with them or anything like that.  

But there was.... we knew the world of them one time, but 'tis gone rare now in Ireland too.    But I remember an awful lot of disformed people in Ireland one time, what was the cause of it I do not know.   But I've seen fellers twenty years of age, twenty five year of age inside in cots, but maybe again, people sends them away today, like, they have places to send them today.   I've seen fellers forty, fifty years of age living the same way.   

But my mother had an aunt and she had five daughters, one son, she'd seven daughters and one son, that was it.    And the boy was perfect and there was two girls perfect and the five sisters, and they were the loveliest looking girls of all, but they were all deaf and dumb like and they weren’t able to walk, which was worse again.    And they grew up to be a good age, up as far as fifteen years of age.  

I often heard my mother talk about them, she often combed their hair, washed them and all that, helping out their mother like.    And one of them died and they died rapid after one another, within two years the lot was gone, the whole five died.   My mother often said that they were lonesome after one another; they were broken hearted after one another.   When one died the second one to her died, went on like that, they all went over in two years.

M. Mc.  Two houses in Ireland now in particular, and there was a spring well in the yard of one of them, they were only just next to one another,   And the farmer this side wouldn't allow the other farmer get the water from the spring well, he fenced it in, built a wall round it and put a door on and wouldn't let the woman next door get the water from his spring well,   So she used have to go two or three miles for the spring water.  

And bejay, the day he fenced it in he went to his well the following morning to get a bucket of water, there wasn't a drop in it, 'twas gone dry, and where did it break out, on the next door neighbours floor of the house.   And they had mighty big farms that time, big farm houses, so they built a well around it, and what they call a pulley well (te), deep down and chain and bucket.

And when they had their well finished inside in their own farm yard house, they went down to the next farm and they told him, come on in and come for your water here any time you want it because if we refuse you for it, it might go back to the floor of your house again.

M. Mc.  And the hares like is supposed to be fairies in Ireland, supposed to be enchanted.   The hares can't see straight you know, from the sides they see.   

And there was a hare anyway, this farmer, he used get up, and this particular cow, every morning he used get up she used to be dry, and she was the best milking cow he had.   But 'twas a poor cottage that was below him about a mile down the road and the cow used break in to this man' s farm, small little Kerry cow, 'twas the only keeping that they had like, they used to have a little calf out of the little cow every year,  

So the little cow kept breaking in, breaking in, breaking in anyway, so he asked them to sell the cow two or three times but they wouldn't sell it so the little cow used break in with all his cattle and he must have two hundred acres of land, and he confiscated the cow anyway, and wouldn't give him out and won the cow by law.   Take it to court and won it by law anyway, kept the cow instead of the money that they owed him for grazing of her.   

So there was four or five kids in the house anyway, in the cottage where they took the cow from.   And he asked them up if they ever wanted milk, but they'd never go up for milk, they wouldn't take it.

They said, “we won't take any milk off you, we'll buy our milk off the next farmer down the road”.  

And he said, “I needed that little cow badly”, he said for his children, and he must have a hundred more cows.   Well he'd that cow for all summer and he never once got one spoon of milk out of her.  

And bejay, he said,  “I must find out”, he said, he understood it was the people out of the cottage that was milking her every night, and he tried to bring them to law again, but he couldn't prove nothing, neither he didn't.  

And bejay, he went out one night to watch them anyway and he sees a hare going down along through the bog and up across his after grass field where the cattle was grazing and there he saw the little cow, and she lying down and the hare sucking all the milk out of her.    So this little cow got up anyway.  

And he went down to the wife, he said, “it's the most unusual thing I ever see”, he said, “I see a hare”,   he said, “and it's sucking the cow, the milk from the cow”.   

And the old farm worker, he was sitting down in the corner, he said, “that's not a hare you saw”, he said, “that's a fairy you saw”, said he, “and I advise you now”, he said, “while you've any bit of luck on your land, is to go down and give him back the little cow, or”, he said, “some curse will come on top of you”, says he.

He didn't wait at all till morning to give him back, he walked down that night and put the little cow back into the acre and apologised to him and he said, leave her in, she can have all the grass she want now, for the rest of her life.

But, he said, “forgive me for what I'm after doing”.  

“Oh”, they said, “we don't want her back, it's all right Mr So and So”, and all.  

He said, “Will you forgive me”. ?

So they forgave him, and they went up the following morning for their little cow and she was bursting with milk, and she was bursting every morning for as long as they had her anyway, she was never touched no more.

M. Mc.  

I went up to this asylum1

I knocked all at the door,

And out came the matron

With tears in galore.

Oh your true love is not here sir,

She left here last night,

She's gone to this annollery,

Oh the matron replied.

I went up to this annollery,

I knocked all at the door,

And out came this maiden

With tears in galore.

No, I should have said, I went up to the convent first, then to the asylum, then to this annollery,

D T      Alright, we’ll start it again.

M. Mc.

I went up to the convent,

I knocked all at the door,

And out came the reverend mother

With tears in galore.

Oh your true love she's not here sir,

She left here last night,

She’s gone to this asylum,

The reverend mother replied.

I went up to this asylum

I knocked all at the door

And out came the matron

With tears in galore

Oh your true love is not here sir,

She left here last night,

She’s gone to this annollery

The matron replied.

I went up to this annollery

I knocked all at the door,

And out come this old man

With tears in galore.

Oh your true love she is here sir,

She died here last night,

That's it; I don't know the rest Jim

M. Mc.   That's not very long ago, Jim, d'you know.

J. C.         No, how long ago was it?

M. Mc.    Thirty years ago, I'd say, would be the most.

J. C.         What would happen there?

M. Mc.    There was..... Any part of the road now, coming from any part of Kerry now, there was a special town there, Tralee Town.    Well, 'twas in Tralee, a place called North Kerry, that'd be ten, fifteen, twenty miles from Tralee Town. You'd see inside in a market yard in Tralee now.

Of a market day, a Saturday like, you'd see all the lads lined up, maybe thirty, forty of them.   They'd have their bundles, there was no suitcases, they'd have their bundles and their Sunday clothes inside in them, their working clothes rather.

And the farmer going with their clothes.

And he'd say, “show me your shoes, your boots, your working boots again”, he'd know by his working boots whether he'd be a good worker or not. They'd hire them out then.    Well then coming out of the town of Tralee you'd see them lined up along the roads there, sitting down at the sides of the road and they'd waiting then for the farmer.   The farmer'd tell you, “walk out along the road and I'll pick you up on such a road”.  

He'd pick them up outside of town then and give them a lift down to the house, feed him and keep him.  Whatever kind of wages they gave them then I don’t know, I'd say it'd be very little.  

But I'd cousins myself that did it.   There's a lot of it still going on, d'you know, but they don't sit around any more, or don't have to wait because all those cars picks them up;  the private cars they have today, motor cars like.   They were only pony and cars that time, ponies and traps and donkeys and cars and everything,   But they still kind of do it like, a few, there's still a few stragglers around.

J. C.       How long would they hire to a farmer, d'you know.

M. Mc.   Oh, for the, maybe.... I've cousins that got their jobs that way now, and they're still there and that'd be twenty years ago, still with them.   

But of course the law came on their side now like.   'Twas work at that time from five in the morning till pitch dark at night.   From one job on to another, one job on to another, keep going on that way. 'Twould be eleven o’clock maybe of a summer’s night before they finish, you never finish on a farm.   You finish when the boss1d be asleep and all that, you'd still have your work to do, and you'd still have your work to do when the boss'd be in bed in the morning.    But 'tis five day week now in Ireland, they've their proper wages, over the twenty or twenty five quid a week now, fed and found as well. And proper bedding, proper everything.    They used sleep in haysheds that time, d'you know, out in the cowshed as they say now, stables over the horses or over the cattle.   Warm shed for themselves, that'd be their castle.   There it is all changed now.  They've just as much claim now on the farmhouse, when they go in their working as the boss or the missus themselves.

J. C.       You've never done it yourself have you Michael?

M. Mc.  Oh, I did, I did farm labouring, but not that way, not that way.    I done it by the day or by the week.   I done thrashing machines, saving hay, thinning beet, digging potatoes, cutting turf, footing turf, drying turf, all this, you know. I worked all that.

Bord Na Mona, well you got paid off a firm there like.    I worked for six bob a day, six shillings a day and my wife worked with me.    We weren't long married. Money was scarce that time like, among us.

J. C.       You never heard a song about the hiring fair did you?

M. Mc.  No, I never did Jim.

D T      When the farmers came into the towns Michael, into say Tralee, or anywhere else where there would be a hiring fair, how would they know by looking at the blokes along the road or round the yard, who was a shepherd, who was, d'you know, who was what, was there any way of showing your occupation ?

M. Mc.   They'd go on to them and they'd ask them, “what can you do”, d'you know, they'd say, “can you milk cows”, or, “how many cows can you milk”.

You'd have to give them your reputation.   Like a skilled man today has the same thing.   Then you'd have to have, what will we call it, from another farm, what's that we call it, a guarantee, reference, you'd have to have that letter in your pocket then.  

And they'd ask him the simple reason why he left the other farm.   He'd say, the wages wasn't high enough.   

“What were you getting there”? 

'Twould be great wages, that like, to get a pound a week, fed and found, d1you know.    And they knew that they earned twenty five bob or thirty bob a week, then, one pound fifty now, we'd say. They'd make off, they'd follow the big money then that was the big money that time extra ten bob.  

They'd have to have their reference, a written letter from the farmer they'd be after leaving, that he was honest, that he was a good worker, all that going on, and the reason that he left him go, and all that, you know.   

Well then he'd make an agreement with the farmer, maybe.

“I’ll stop with you and if I like it I'll hang on, and if I don't I wont and you'll have to give me the same letter when I'm leaving you again”, d'you know.

“    Right you are”.  

There was often a farmer bad enough then, when he go to leave him he wouldn't write him the letter, “If you stop another month with me I'll write the letter then for you”, he'd hold him out, you know.  

But they were always cute, they always kept their reference in their pocket, d'you know (laughter).

D T    People didn't wear special clothes then, I mean you couldn't tell a dairyman by what he wore or a shepherd by what he wore?

M. Mc.   They'd go according to the boots, if he'd a pair of shoes he was a dead loss, inside in his bag, he was out.  He'd have to have his wellingtons, d'you know, that's the high ones up here now; he'd have to have a pair of them as well.    Well they'd go according to them like, they'd say if he was a man that worked, having a pair of working boots and a pair of wellingtons, he mustn't be much of a man.

This remind me of the same thing here when the Irish came over here to England to work for Murphys and all those big contractors, you know, those road men now and all that. The first thing they'd look at was his feet, if he wore a pair of shoes he was out.   He could be a man of twenty stone and if he'd a pair of shoes he was out.   I could go along if I had a pair of boots on me; you're on (laughter).

The only privacy they had, inside in a big long old cowshed, was a bedsheet or a blanket, and that was dividing the two rooms.

J. C.       Where was this?

M. Mc.   In Scotland, well Scots people as well as Irish people, I1m not saying that at all.    But they'd have their family, they'd have the two beds for the family, they'd have the bed for the family And a bed for the mother and father, whatever way it goes, and the next family to that;  'twould be one big shed now And there'd only be a sheet, an old bed sheet and a couple of old worn out blankets.   There'd be a bit of a rope going from one end of the shed to the other1 and that was the only division they had between the rooms, that was their rooms, they called them.   But er... no water, no toilets, no nothing.   I mean they would be doing this to the Irish people, their own Scotch people as well as Ireland. Do you know, that was the only lodgings that they had, accommodations, they had no other accommodation to give them.  More of them used make tents out in the fields then.   All Travelling people came over for the potato picking in Scotland, thousands of them.   They'd come back from Scotland and they'd come back to all parts of Ireland, those was the money making men, Irish men I'm talking about, and they'd hire up all the fellers that they knew back in Ireland.  Me, well I never went now, but I’d close relations all went, I was only aged one those times, and they'd hire them up and they'd promise them all the grandeurs they  were going to have when they get over. You've your own privacy, room, and you've all this, all the best accommodation, anything you want.   So any fellers went through the ropes before like, they didn't want to do it again. So this was all their accommodation that they had, all they'd have coming over was their fare, so there was only one road back and that was either work or get out.  

First salute they'd get then was six o’clock in the morning to the fields, maybe without a breakfast a lot of them, and they'd get a sub then that evening, but they wouldn't get it all, they'd only get half of what they earned that day because they might hit off. 

And their own Irishmen like, kept them that way, you'd call them a band of slaves if you like.   But the family'd be out working.   'Tisn't they earned good money but as they say, you promised a horse good oats and throw him chaff.   That was the turn out they got.   There was, as I said, there were big long old sheds now, they were accommodation, no money, they'd have to get up and work for their breakfasts maybe, the following morning, because they wouldn't have their fare back.    But they say they worked it out though, but they worked out their accommodation theirself,  'cause the next time they went they were ready for it and they'd rent out a room or something like that.   Lot of them brought over.... bought old caravans when they went over then, they equipped theirself all right, for a lot of my friends anyway.   I'm glad they sorted out anyway, those health authorities and all got at them1 and 'twas no harm.  

'Cause 'twas the foreman that was making the money.   They'd hire maybe thirty, forty men and their families and their daughters and bring them all over.   He was getting so much then for every bag of potatoes they'd pick and he was paying them so much, so he'd be clearing out thirty, maybe forty pounds a day, they mightn't be making two like, each one of them like.   Oh the foreman made the money.   The next foreman that came along was their brother again (laughter), and sons after that, they kept their jobs.

M. Mc.  They'd sing, they claim.

J. C.     When a person died?

M. Mc.    Yeah.   Well, we'd have an awful tradition among us all Irish Travelling people, not alone Travelling people, a lot through the settled down community as well.  

When a person'd die, you'd kiss them on the forehead and you'd put your hand on their forehead, and you'd forget all about them then.   People that didn't do that they'd keep thinking about them, you know, but you forget the dead then when you put your hand on their forehead or kiss them on the forehead. 'Twas an awful tradition of ours anyway.   But we were often queued up behind one another like.   Doesn't matter whether it was a relative or what, you’d never again... they'd claim you never again think of them.  Well I never thought about them after anyway.    They never worried me like, after.   People'd be worried about people when they seen a person die there now, we'll say.   Person die of a disease now, we'll say, all that,  you know, you'd never get it discussed then once you put your hand on their forehead, no, you'd never get it discussed then, nothing, which you would have it discussed before you do that.

You know, if a person, we'd say, that any person they'd die like, they don't look their best.

J. C.        Did you ever hear of anybody mourning too much for the dead, and they couldn't rest.

M. Mc.   Oh yeah, there was only a certain hour for that, there was only a certain hour for that, they'd always stop that at twelve o’clock at night.   There was no more ullagoning then because that's when all the dead goes to rest.   The very minute the clock would strike twelve there was no more ullagoning, no more after that, or crying now, things like that.   They didn't believe in crying at all after a person is dying, that's died like, they say you wake them out the dead, you know, why don't you leave them rest.   You'd often hear people like, helping out people to forget them.  They say you’re disturbing them now, and leave them rest and all that, you know.

They had their own beliefs like, yeah.

J. C.     Did you ever hear tell what would happen….. Of this ever happening, if they mourned too much, cried too much for the dead?

M. Mc.   Well they claim if you cry too much Jim or think too much, as far as I heard the old people talk about, you keep on talking about them in fact, too much, you'll either dream of them, or else they could appear to you, or you get some token that you're hurting them, because there was people heard and there was voices heard, and there'd be funny noises like, d'you know, that would remind you,   

Because as far as I know, the people that's already after dying, it be a kind of telling...  say telling me now, “you know you’re doing wrong and I'm leaving you some kind of a token and you know 'tis me”.   Because the person'd be after dying, they'd know theirself like, and they'd know that you know, and they'd say, “why is he doing it”, or  “why is she doing it”, whatever it is, you know.   But there was.... instead of ullagoners sort of crying after them they start praying for them like and all that, you know,    Arid as I say put your hand on their forehead or kiss them when they're dead like, takes a lot off of your mind like.