The Wrenboys

On St. Stephen's Day 2007 I happened to hear that there were Wrenboys gathered down at the river.
Wrenboys, (Lucht an dreolin) are people who dress in straw masks and colourful clothing on the 26th. December and "hunt" the wren. The wren celebration is part of ancient Irish culture and dates back beyond pre Christian times, to life in Celtic Ireland. The druids are said to have studied the flight of the wren in order to make predictions of the future. The Irish word for wren is dreolin which translated means, Bird of the Druids.
In the intervening years, the wren has mainly been associated with treachery, betraying Irish soldiers who fought the Viking invaders, in the late first and early second millennia. The wren is also said to have betrayed the Christian martyr, Stephen after who the day is named. Traditionally, the wren was hunted, captured, killed and tied to the Wrenboy leader's staff but this aspect of the hunt is no longer practiced. Sometimes a fake bird is used instead, and the Wrenboys, accompanied by traditional ceili music bands parade the streets. They stop in all the pubs and generally enter by one door and leave by a different one.
I hurried down, and walked with them as they began their march through the Main Street, continuining this ancient tradition, that still resonates deeply to this day.




The Wran, the Wran the king of all birds,
St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze,
Although he is little, his honour is great,
Put your hand in your pocket and give us a trate.
Dreoilin, dreoilin where is your nest?
Its in the bush that I love best,
Behind the holly and ivy tree,
Where all the birds shall follow me.
As I was goin' down to Youghal,
I saw a wran upon a wall,
I up with my stick and I knocked him down,
Then brought him back to Mitchelstown.
Mister Brown is a very fine man,
It was to him we brought the Wran,
You'll have luck throughout the year
If ya give us the price of a gallon o' beer.
Raise up your glasses, your bottles and cans
We toast your subscription to bury the Wran,
Up with the kettle and down with the pot,

Give us your money and let us be off!

If you subscribed to the Wrenboys they might give you a feather from the wren and you would have good luck for the coming year. If you refused to make a contribution they might bury the wren in your garden and you and your family would be cursed with bad luck for the following twelve months.

The First Christmas

In 1978 we moved in to our first home as a family, with our new baby boy, Jeremy. It was a Church of Ireland house and I had been appointed sexton of St. John's Cathedral, a post I remember warmly to this day. I remember meeting a lovely priest at the time in John Street, Fr. Christopher Jones who is now Bishop of Elphin, and he jokingly remarked, "I hope you are still practicing." We were Roman Catholics. I replied, "Of course we are Father." We laughed all the way to the house when Mary told me that she thought he was enquiring if were still practicing at being a married couple.
That first Christmas was a special time. We decorated the house, put up our tree and placed all the early presents from America beneath it. We were as cosy as church mice and my memories of that first Christmas are those, that only nostalgia can conjure up, many years afterwards. When you are newly married, with a child to share the holiday season, Christmas becomes new again. A child's first Christmas rekindles the wonder and delight of this special time of the year.
One of the gifts we opened that Christmas morning was a crystal-type tree ornament. It came packaged in a blue felt bag and depicted a small boy standing before a Christmas tree. On the outer box was written:
"The Christmas tree is an enchanted vision to a child; an almost awesome revelation, to be approached with breathless wonder.....eyes wide and aglow. And below the tree, spangled-paper wrappings hide mysterious marvels to be explored individually, with bubbling delight.
Later Christmas's are joyous too, of course; filled with laughter, gifts and greetings that build a bright collage of memories from one year to the next. But a child's first Christmas is a separate, precious thing....a kind of miracle, which lucky ones among us sometimes share."

Translations

Last night there was a retirement party for Joe Kirke, a colleague of mine. He had taught for thirty two years in St. Macartan's College. It was a very pleasant occasion, tinged with some sadness of course.
It brought back memories to me of a play performed in 1985 by Accompany Theatre in the college theatre. Accompany Theatre was a group founded by Tony Hennessy and myself the year before. We had ambitious plans for staging impressive theatrical productions in the Monaghan area. Tony was the Director and I was the Stage Designer. Between us we did everything else too, including lighting, financing, sound, publicity, make-up and performing. They were very exciting times. Our first play was Alan Ayckbourne's, Bedroom Farce, followed by the musical, Annie. Our third production was Brian Friel's , Translations and Joe had the main part of Captain Lancey.
At the retirement party last night, Joe was accompanied by his two children and his wife Mary. Mary was in Translations too. She played the part of Maire Cathach and and the romance that blossomed on stage between the two main characters continued off stage and Joe and Mary soon married.
I played the part of Doalty Dan Doalty and it so happened that the Dj last night was Martin Markey, who had played Lieutenant Yolland.



I loved the set we made for the show but I felt there was something missing. I told Tony it needed hens, real ones, to wander around the stage in the opening scene. Lovely white hens materialised at the dress rehearsal. A technical problem arose when the house lights went down. The hens got confused and fell off the front of the stage and strolled among the small group of invited friends. Amidst chuckles of laughter they were lifted back up but promptly fell back down again.
Our current parish priest: Fr. Hubert Martin was a teacher in the school with us at the time. Fr. Hubert came from a farming background and I explained the predicament I had with the hens. Without blinking an eye he conjured the solution instantly. "Put the hens downstairs in the dressing room on the day of the performance and don't give them anything to eat. When they are due to go on stage sprinkle plenty of feed for them at the back of the stage" We followed the instructions and on the opening night the hens pecked away happily downstage until it was time for them to make their exit. For the remainder of the performances, they continued to perform impeccably and never once fell into the audience.
The photograph above includes Joe (Captain Lancey), his wife Mary (Maire Cathach) and their two children. Martin Markey (Lieutenant Yolland) is the Dj in the background. I (Doalty Dan Doalty) am not in the picture because I took the photograph.
The photograph below is the set for Accompany Theatre's production of Translations.

No. 6

I attended Summerhill College from 1970 to 1975 in Sligo. It was a great school and I loved my time there for the most part. I had a many great friends. Eddie Armstrong and Jarlath Mulligan, who was always called "Chuck" were my two best pals. Eddie was brilliant on the accordian and Jarlath was mad about Man. United. I was never a rebel but at some stage, over in the bicycle sheds we decided to join a group of other students and try smoking. It took off from there. Sometimes, we cycled down the docks or some other quiet place to have a smoke, in peace. The danger of being caught was always a resident fear that stalked us. If our fingers were inclined to brown a little we would rub the affected area up and down on a roughish wall, white if possible, to remove any evidence of our illicit activity. We chewed mints to freshen our breath. I must point out that Eddie was never a smoker but several others accompanied us as time went on. If we were short of cash there was a small shop nearby sold cigarettes individually. I remember one lad going in, got a bit flustered and ordered "Ten Carroll's and ten matches please." We tried several brands, discussing the merits and failings of each and eventually each of us found our own favourites. My own favourites for a while were Player's No. 6.
I seldom meet any of my friends from that time. If I did, I am sure the subject of smoking would crop up eventually, and we would laugh at the innocence of it all.
When we were in our house in Emyvale for a few years we decided to lift some floor covering that had become worn. Underneath was a flattened No. 6 , 20 pack, a poignant reminder of fondly remembered school days.

Winter Flowers

Today is the 14th. November and there is not too much happening in my garden.I still have a few of the last roses in flower outside the library window but it will be Spring before the garden comes alive again with the daffodils and narcissus that I planted.This morning was bright with blue skies so I spent the morning pottering about outside, raking leaves, removing dead plants from the rockery and doing a general tidy up. The lawn was rain sodden and I left wellington boot marks when I walked to the bottom of the garden to the compost heap. But it was lovely to be outside in the fresh air and I prepared for my last task on the gardening calendar.I put out my Winter flowers in the large pots I have on the patio. Even though it is dark outside they are bright and cheerful and put a smile on my face whenever I see them. They are low maintenance, need no watering and only require a few bulbs replaced from time to time. As someone one said it is better to light a candle than forever curse the darkness.

Beezie

This is a painting I did of the Garavogue River. It is the place I played around when I was a child. We used to catch little eels and tiny fish in our hands and put them in jam jars with some stones and weed. In the summer we waded across to the crannog with the three tall trees, and sat there in the sun. In front of this little manmade island is the Finola, a boat which was owned by a local man called Jumbo Mc Carrick. Jumbo had a great knowledge of the river, and Lough Gill from which the Garavogue flows. He, and other boatmen brought provisions to the last inhabitant that lived on one of the islands: Beezie Gallagher. He recalled Beezie's great hospitality to all visitors, her affinity with nature, and that even the wild swans ate from her hands, in front of the hearth in her cottage. Local people feared the last resident of the lake was destined to drown while out boating. Instead, the eighty year old Beezie died as a result of small accidental fire in her island cottage. On Christmas eve 1949 Beezie made her final visit to Sligo and returned to Church Island safely, after crossing from the Dooney Rock shoreline. Her body was discovered a few days later by local friends who had arrived for a visit, and to cut some firewood for her.
The island is now, more often called Beezie's Island, after Sligo's own Lady of the Lake. The last remains of her island home can still be seen there.
Our own house is on the right edge of the painting.

It's All In The Name

My father had a great interest in education. He grew up in Tralee, Co. Kerry. His family had biblical names. He was Jeremiah but was always called Jerry. His father was Cornelius, and known as Con. Con married Hannah Stack. My father had one brother, Bartholomew referred to only as Bertie. I was named after Con but am known as Nelius !!
When my Grandmother, Hannah died, a lot of her furniture was transported from Tralee to our house in Sligo. One of the items was a lovely firm bed, that I slept in. It had four oak posts and a nice carved headboard. One night, I woke to find a priest kneeling alongside my bed. His prayer book, with black, tooled leather cover, and black braiding was open and rested on the ledge of an oak wooden kneeler. He was reading from it and his lips moved. The only colours to be seen were the vivid red, yellow, green and violet, ribbon bookmarks. Every so often he would turn a page and dart a piercing look in my direction. I closed my eyes tightly, pretending to be fast asleep, fearing that if he found me awake it would be the end of me. Slowly, I would half open my eyes again to see if he was still there, and he was. I dared not move anything, except my eyelids.
Some weeks later a conversation arose about the bed, and indeed, it transpired it was owned by a priest before it came in to the possession of my father's mother.
Another item that came to be in our house from my father's home in Oakpark, was an old book. It was my father's, beginner's text book, to study English. His initials are on the top of the first page, written in blue ink, with an old fashioned nib. On one of the following pages his brother Bertie's name is written, with the same pen, and the capital letter B now pokes through the tattered pages.

Millennium

There are many men and women who defined the end of the last Millennium and who added to its magnificence and shame. There were visionaries, cult figures, revolutionaries, tyrants, trend-setters and opinion-makers. I loved Elvis Presley and my mother bought a lot of his records. Blue Hawaii,was played over and over again in our house until eventually I knew the album by heart. Walt Disney was another hero. The Disney cartoons, especially the longer feature length ones often brought a magical glow to our sitting room on a wet Sunday. When the theme music came on the television, "When you wish upon a star, makes no difference where you are...", you knew you were in for a very special treat. The Dalai Lama has became iconic to me more recently. Alfred Hitchcock was always frightening and Steven Spielberg inspiring. Bill Gates has enhanced and diminished our lives almost in almost equal measure. Adolph Hitler perpetrated some of the most heinous crimes in the history of humanity and Charlie Chaplin never failed to make me smile.
I have included two leaves, taken from my garden at the end of the millennium, here. I pressed them in an old telephone directory for a few years. One is dark and the other is covered in twenty three carat gold leaf. One represents exclusion, ill, and the maniacal tyrants who caused so much pain. The other leaf, marks the kind people who spread happiness in many quiet ways across the globe. I will let you decide yourself which represents which.

Medico Della Peste

During the Easter break from school we travelled to the beautiful city of Venice: City of Bridges and City of Light. It was a unique experience due to the beauty of the city and its long maritime history. I was intrigued by the many small side streets that are noticably quiet because Venice is the only car free city in Europe. Travelling is done by gondola or vaporetta (waterbus) or on foot.The many small islands that make up the city are linked by about 400 bridges, each with its own individual character.
The main streets are lined with colourful gift shops, coffee shops and restaurants. I loved the displays of masks, a centuries old Venetian tradition, now typically worn during Carnevale. They were originally used for a variety of purposes, some of them illicit or criminal, others just personal, such as romantic encounters.
The Medico Della Peste (The Plague Doctor's Mask) with its long beak is one of the most bizarre and recognisable of the Venetian masks. The striking design has a macabre history originating from Charles de Lorme, a 16th century French physician, who adopted the mask together with other peculiar sanitary precautions while treating victims of plague.
The doctors who followed de Lorme's example wore a black hat and long black cloak as well as the mask, white gloves and a stick (to move patients without having to come into physical contact). They hoped these precautions would prevent them contracting the disease.
My wardrobe does not include any of the macarbe clothing but I do use the small brass mask daily, as a key ring.

Ice Cream

I love good ice cream.....it is one of my favourite foods !
I also love the names of the flavours on the Ben & Jerry's tubs.....Cherry Garcia, Phish Food, Berried Treasure, Jamaican Me Crazy, Karamel Sutra, Mission to Marzipan and my favourite.....Imagine Whirled Peace ! Unfortunately not all available here yet.
Last Easter, we visited the Ben & Gerry's Ice Cream factory in Waterbury, Vermont, U.S.A. Nestled in the heart of the Green Mountains the ice cream factory sits on a rolling pasture overlooking the Worcester Range heading North from the town of Waterbury. The guided factory tour was very enjoyable.
The tour began in the Cow Over the Moon theatre with a company history moo-vie. The founders, two childhood friends, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, turned a $5.00 correspondence course on ice cream making into a very successful business. The factory, which was smaller than I imagined it would be, churns out 250,000 pints of ice cream every day !
From the theatre we were taken to a glassed-in mezzanine, where we got a bird’s eye view of the production room and an explanation of the ice cream manufacturing process. Then it was off to the Flavouroom to indulge in a sample flavour of the day, which I must say was a little disappointing because the portions were small!
Afterwards, we spent some time browsing the Gift Shop where all things Ben & Jerry’s were bright, colourful and very tempting. Finally, we sampled our favourite flavours from the variety of options offered in the Scoop Shop.
We brought home eight lovely ice cream bowls, some glass churn samplers of Vermont maple syrup and a little B & G's lapel pin.

When I was very young, the Coyne family shared our house in Doorly Park for a while. Kevin, the father was a sales representative for Perri Crisps and Palm Grove Ice Cream. On Sundays after dinner he would sometimes, take in a block of raspbery ripple or vanilla and it would be divided out between us. The children all scrutinised the cutting, as each precious slice was measured out equally. It was a great treat.
I would love to own a Palm Grove Ice Cream pin. I don't think one ever existed.... but a Ben & Gerry's one makes a very good alternative.

Rudy

Today I voted yes in The Lisbon Treaty. I am still not totally sure if it was the correct decision....but on the basis of all that I heard and read about it seemed the best option. My principal reservation was the common defence policy. Of course if any of my neighbours in Emyvale was being attacked I would intervene to help. I am sure the people of Ireland would not stand idly by either, if other European countries were experiencing hostilities from foreign invaders. Indeed, we would expect support from our European Union partners, if we too were under threat. My fear is, that with a powerful army, the E.U. would interfere in matters beyond our borders, for political and economic reasons. Ireland has a long and respected tradition of peacekeeping as members of the United Nations which I hope the E.U. seeks to emulate.
As my old Latin teacher once said: "The only thing we learn from war is that mankind never learns from war"
In 1974 a group of young people from Sligo did a group exchange with a group from Coesfeld in Germany. It went on for a few years and we became great friends when we visited each others homes. One of the boys, I think his name is Rudy, gave me an anti war trinket. It is what I hope the European common defence policy is going to be all about.

Lucky Bags

In Doorly Park, where I grew up in Sligo, we had two shops where the local residents bought their daily groceries. One, was Paddy Gilmartin's and the other was Tony Molloy's. We tended to go to Molloy's and I was often sent by my mother for a batch loaf for the evening tea. It was wrapped in a large sheet of golden brown tissue paper. On many occasions it would arrive at the house with a hole in the side of the loaf, where I had picked away at the freshly baked bread. My father only ever sent me for two specific items: twenty Sweet Afton and a Silver Gillette (blue) blade. Waiting to be served you would hear all the news of the day from the many assembled customers, ninty five per cent housewives, who were gathered to get something for the dinner.
On Saturday I would get my pocket money: 6d, which was six pence in old money. The coin had a greyhound in profile on one side and a harp on the other. I was amused in later years when someone told me that "The harp was the symbol of Ireland because the country was run by pulling strings". For some reason I nearly always spent my sixpence in Gilmartin's. Molloy's, in my mind was for business but Gilmartin's was for pleasure ! What to buy was always a time consuming decision but in the end I usually emerged through the shop door with the same two items: a trigger bar and a thrupenny lucky bag and a penny change to buy a penny toffee at some later stage. The trigger bar had a blue foil wrapper with a small silhouette of Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger to the side of the Wild West style lettering. The bar was creamy toffee covered in ridged milk chocolate. The chewy bar was lovely but there was always an air of expectation in opening a lucky bag and that was it's magical allure. Its contents were always the same: a small toy and a few sweets. I would return home happily chewing my trigger bar and examining the contents of my lucky bag.

This small plastic toy reminds me of those sunny Saturday mornings in Doorly Park.


This colourful little trinket rolls along freely and because it is weighted at the bottom the horses head bobs forward and back but eventually returns to the position in the photograph. I would love to build a huge, two metres high, version of it that could be wheeled about on a village green or town park....health and safety issues permitting of course !

Life

In May 1917 a group of wounded British soldiers were photographed on the Western Front. They had been taken prisoner after an unsuccessful attack on Oppy Wood in Flanders. They were later moved to a dressing station behind German lines.

On October 20 2003 my wife Mary recieved a letter and a picture of a magazine cover from her Uncle Joe Mc Cabe R.I.P. who then lived in Brookfield , Connecticut, U.S.A. It read:

Dear Mary Teresa
Enclosed is a picture of your Great Grandfather, John Maines. He is the second from the left. Last year we visited Aunt Emily Maines Romano a few months before she died and she told us the story of the origin of the enclosed picture. She and her son Eddie were in a doctor's office. Looking through the old magazines she saw a copy of "Life "magazine....March 13, 1964. She recognised her father as one of the British soldiers............etc.
Love
Uncle Joe & Aunt Jean Mc Cabe

My curiousity enticed me to check if a copy was still available.....somewhere. I eventually tracked down a pristine edition in Canada for $11.

It is one of my bigger trinkets.

Exposed

I studied art in Sligo Regional Technical College between 1976-1980. I specialised in sculpture but loved photography too. We had a photography lecturer from Belgium called Jacques Piraprez who was a bit eccentric and on occasions wore orange dungerees, and a red crocheted tea cosy-type cap over his long curly black hair. Before long I had an expanding portfolio of black and white photographs that I had assembled from many hours working in the darkroom. I think we used a Pentax K 1000 most of the time, and a larger format camera, a Mamiya, Mamiyaflex C2 120 (I think) , occasionally. The picture below is of a roll of 120mm film I shot in my final year. I never got round to developing it. I have no idea what pictures are on it but it reminds me of very happy days spent learning to be an artist.

Broken Glass

When my elderly neighbours, Peg and Tom Murray passed away a number of years ago I came to be a Rainfall Observer for Met Eireann. I used take the rainfall measurements for them when they were away for a few days and Peg would thank me with a loaf of brown bread, which she would bake herself and deliver personally to our front door. I now measure the rain that has fallen in my own garden, each morning at 0900 hrs G.M.T. It is necessary to adhere to this standard hour of observation in order that readings made at hundreds of places throughout the country may be compared with each other and, indeed, with stations all over the world.
I started taking the daily readings here in Emyvale, Co. Monaghan 0n 8th. August 1996. The highest rainfall I have measured for one day was 47.4 mm. That was on 19th. August 2009.
One morning I dropped the Rain Measuring Glass and it broke into several pieces. The trinket below is a small section of the glass tube.

The Rusty Nut

In the Summer of 1981,Bill Kelly(my father in law), his sons Billy and Danny and myself began a climb from the Gleniff Horseshoe, Co. Sligo to an area near the top of Truskmore Mountain where we had heard an American airplane crashed during the Second World War. It was a beautiful Summer's day. We had been told the plane crashed above an area that was described as the "black face of the mountain". It was a longer, steeper climb than we expected and we stopped at intervals to rest and take in the spectacular views of the surrounding countryside. When we reached the summit I remember being surprised at the vast flat area of very thick heather and thinking we will never find the crash site. We set off looking and to my amazement we came across some of the remains of the ill fated Boeing plane. This rusty nut is a small remnant of the plane and a reminder of one of the many happy days I spent with Bill Kelly.

The following is a short extract taken from a report of the crash compiled by Dennis P. Burke in 2009:

On the afternoon of 9th December, 1943, the slopes above Ballintrillick in County Sligo were shattered by the crash of an American bomber.
The aircraft, a Boeing B-17G-15-BO Flying Fortress was being flown on a ferry flight, from Goose Bay to Prestwick in Scotland. On board the aircraft that afternoon were ten young airmen of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF).

2/Lt Richard C WALCH O-745025 - Pilot
2/Lt William M GRIM O-751123 - Co-Pilot
2/Lt Richard E FOX O-685794 - Bombardier
2/Lt William F WALLACE O-1573651 - Navigator
S/Sgt Moss L MENDOZA 11114403 - Engineer
S/Sgt Robert A SMITH 18192259 - Radio Operator
Sgt Adam J LATECKI 16144885 - Gunner
Sgt Wilfred N G VINCENT 34150978 - Gunner
Sgt Emil C DRAKE 15325547 - Gunner
Sgt Carl W WILLIAMSON 18162726 - Gunner

Following the crash, the pilots 2/Lt.’s Walch and Grim walked down the mountain to seek help. 2/Lt’s Fox and Wallace were to die in the crash of the aircraft while Sgt. Latecki would succumb to his injuries four days later in hospital. The surviving crew men suffered serious injuries. Local people from the homes below the mountain hurried to the crash to provide assistance to the

aircraft crew, being joined later by members of the local military. After many hours of struggling the six injured men were removed down the mountain and brought to Sligo County Hospital. All survivors were later taken across to Northern Ireland.