The Question and The Answer
3
THE THIRTIES
My memories of childhood in the Thirties in the Town are vague. One I
remember clearly, and not just because of the photograph. The Congress.
I was five years old. My parents went to Dublin. We were left in the charge
of Bridie. For some unknown reason I developed hysterics. Maybe I thought
they were gone forever. Bridie was demented. The rest of the family looked
on in horror She sent for Dr Counihan, a man with little patience for hysterical
little boys. He was of the old school. A good stinging blow across the cheek.
End of hysterics. So much for your child psychology.
I have two memories of the following year. The first is that was the
year I decided that when I grew up I was going to get married. Not to that
awful Kitty Miller, but to Maura. She was the same age as Kitty, but prettier.
Being pretty was O.K., but this was for a more practical reason. Miss Callanan
had made me a tweed coat. It had to do with the second memory. Maura and
I sat on the Maid of Erin wall outside Miss Callinans’. Maura had her
comic “Bubbles” and was going to read it to me. It was a cold
day. She buttoned up the top button of my coat. “We can’t have
you getting a cold, Sean,” she said. Then she proudly read “Bubbles”
to me. There and then I decided I was going to marry her some day. She would
look after me and read to me. I was always practical.
The second memory of that year is of my holiday with my mother at Grannies
in the faraway place. I can remember Gran bringing me to the Spring Show.
At it I drank a big glass of Jersey milk for the first time in my life.
Like the Congress photograph of the Terrace, bedecked, along with the picture
of the Sacred Heart in my parents’ bedroom, I also have one of my visit
to Dublin. It shows Granny, my Mother and myself, in Miss Callinans coat,
on O’Connell Bridge. Also on the bridge were one Tram and one Model
T. Ford. There are other memories, but they are locked away in the mists
of time.
That was the early thirties. The middle Thirties were a little bit different.
For one thing our household came in contact with the outside world. Yes,
I know we had the Cinema and the papers, but this was different. My father,
a bit eccentric and stubborn in many ways, was a progressive man. Our house
was one of the first to be wired for the new-fangled Electricity after Ard
Na Crusha was built. He decided to buy a wireless (radio). It was to be
a surprise for us. It certainly was. What was a wireless anyway? In order
to keep us quiet, Delia brought us for a walk. I pestered her; what was
a wireless? She answered me evasively. Poor Delia didn’t know either.
When we came home there was the Surprise sitting on a table in the corner
of the dining room. A great big brown shiny timber box. The tiny little
window with its light shining. My Father adjusting black ebony dials. The
strange burps and whines. Then a voice announced “Good Evening; this
2 R. N. , With the six o’clock news”. It’s a wonder I didn’t
get hysterics again.
The mid Thirties again. I remember the Spanish Civil War. There was this
holy man called Franco. He was trying to save Spain from the Infidels. They
were called Communists. Lots of good Catholic Irishmen went over to help
him wage war on them. Sad to say, but some lost souls of Irishmen went over
to help the Infidels. They joined something called the International Brigade.
Lots of British joined them too. Sure what could you expect of Britain,
everyone knew it was a pagan place. So we were told. Anyway, a picture called
The Spanish Civil War came to the Gaiety Cinema. It showed good German pilots,
who were helping Franco too. In their planes called Stuccas bombing the
Infidels. It was great. Almost as good as Cowboys killing the rotten old
Indians. But all this was true. The papers said so, and they were never
wrong.
In the late Thirties I became a bit more blasé about Murphy the
wireless. I had a crystal set of my own, a present from Gran in the faraway
place. I was reading the Wireless Magazine. I haunted Harry Waldron’s
Wireless Shop. My Father remained as eccentric and stubborn as ever. He
refused to exchange cumbersome Murphy for a slim new Bakelite Radio. Yes,
Radio had arrived. Murphy was Irish made, so it had to be good. In the summer,
the B.B.C. would die to a whisper. I would try, with my newfound knowledge,
to explain that the aerial was incorrect for tuning. It was a single strand
attached to the top window of the old Masonic Hall next door. I tried to
explain the effects of sunspots. To no avail. He remained adamant. He knew
what was wrong. It was the earth. The earth was a two foot copper rod buried
in the clay outside the French doors and connected to Murphy. “Get
a bucket of water Sean, and put it on the earth”. Being a dutiful son,
I got the water and drenched the bloody earth. “There I knew it, that’s
better”. The whisper became a sibilant hiss. I gave up. Two years after
I went to that magical faraway place, I was home on holidays. Murphy was
replaced. He had expired. I said nothing. The ghost of Murphy will always
remain in my memory.
The rest of the Thirties are hazy. Towards the end, decisions had to
be made. Big decisions. I had attended the Christian Brothers for six years.
They were hard but fair. Where was I going for the next five years for secondary
education? The Christian Brothers? The Diocesan College? I was for staying
with the “Divil I knew”. Family tradition said the College. Esau
sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. After much debate at home, I
sold something for a bicycle. 1939 my brother Vincent and I went to the
Diocesan College. The Second World War broke out.
ADDENDUM
Reading an article the other day jogged my mind. I have another memory
of the early Thirties. It is political. Politics played a large part in
No. 1 St. Anthony’s’ Terrace. Political discussion. At least that’s
what it started out as. Towards the end clenched fists would thump the arms
of armchairs. Voices would be raised; faces would flush in suffused anger.
There was one uncle in particular. A reverend C. C. He would storm out of
the house, slam the hall door. Declare in a thunderous voice that he would
never darken the door of No. 1again. Two days later he’d be back as
if nothing had ever happened. Nobody said anything. It must have been very
puzzling to my Mother. A Derry woman. You know Northerners. Never loose
the cool. Always look at things objectively. The Clare psyche. It must have
been an enigma.
The memory is of the Blue Shirts. I heard my Father and uncles talking
about them. They held a rally outside the Town one Sunday. A lorry load
of them passed the Terrace on their way to the rally. They were roaring
drunk and giving the Fascist salute. We gave it back to them. They roared
approval. The lorry lurched by. Up the hill. Just as it passed the Infirmary
one of them fell off the back. His head was streaming with blood. They carried
him into the Infirmary. “Another martyr for old Ireland;” One
of my uncles, a virulent opposer of the Blue Shirts, said; “Bad cess
to them. The Divil looks after his own. Why couldn’t it have happened
in Howards?” The place where the rally was supposed to take place.
Opposite to the Mental Hospital.
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