Precursor


In June my parents got married.  In September, war broke out, for it was 1939.
  
They went on honeymoon to the Glens of Antrim, where they had a wonderful time; but never went back.
  
A year later, mother suggested that they go away for another holiday, with money saved from the house-keeping, but father said that people in our circumstances could not afford such extravagance, and sent the saved money down the country to his brother, Rodie, to buy seeds for the farm.
  
Farming was still in crisis in Ireland, for the Economic War was just over, and the weather was poor. Had father not sent money down to buy seeds, the farming operation might have gone bankrupt and the farm lost.
  
After that, mother kept her meagre savings to herself. We were all encouraged to have post office savings accounts and put a shilling aside now and then for the rainy day.
  
When Frank and Sheila were walking out together, there were no marriage courses, but it was customary for couples to go together to confession before getting married.  It was not a joint confession; one party went in first and then the other.
  
As Sheila Hickey waited outside the confessional, she could hear the quiet, indiscernible mumble of my father’s voice, and then the louder, long, long mumble of the priest’s.  Then, she heard my father cut in, in a clear tone: “Father, I came here for confession, not to hear a sermon.”
  
In father’s view, the priest had a job to do: hear the sins and give the penance. The rest was between the penitent and God.
  
When she first met him, Sheila thought Frank Killeen was arrogant and conceited.  However, after the death of her little brother, Jerry, in tragic circumstances, she found comfort in Frank’s masculine strength.  When he embraced her, she melted in his arms.
  
Sheila’s mother died when she was two or three years old.  After that, her father put away his fiddle and never played it again. 
  
There was a large family, nine in all.  Her big brothers were out on the run, for Sheila was born during the First World War, and by the time she was three, her brothers were playing their part in the Patriot Game.  Later, when she went to school, it was in the new independent Free State.  She learned Irish and proceeded all the way to Intermediate Certificate, while the older members of the family had left after Primary School, and without Irish. 
  
The sisters got clerical or shop jobs until they married, except Josie, who, mother (aged 7) was told, ran off with the Circus. Actually, I learned much later in my adult life that Josie ran off with, and got married to, an activist on the other side in the civil war, Tom Hyde, and was ostracised by the rest of the family.
  
The Hickey farm went to one brother, Pat; another, Dan, joined the Gardai, and another, Billie, went into business buying and selling horses.  Lillie, Nancy and Peg got married.
  
When de Valera came to power, the economic war put an end to the horse trading, as horses became valueless. Billy took up work as an Insurance Salesman.
  
Young Jerry, the only family member younger than Sheila, was fascinated by the ships sailing up and down the Shannon estuary and ran away to London, where he experienced poverty and died of pneumonia, this after Sheila had gone to Dublin to join the Civil Service.
  
There were great celebrations in Cappamore when Sheila gained a job in the Civil Service by competitive examination, for she was the first from the Parish and School to join the Civil Service of the Irish Free State.
  
She was called to the General Post Office, and had some adventures, as a Mary Hick on her first visit to the Metropolis, finding the building. Standing on O’Connell Bridge, within sight of the GPO, she was still inquiring as to where it was.  As she went up the stairs, she was confronted by a woman who would not get out of her way.  If she went to the right, so would the woman.  If she went to the left, likewise!  Finally, she realised that the other woman was her own reflection in a giant mirror.
  
Frank Killeen, born on the first of January, 1900, became an apprentice joiner and coach-maker in Clara Mill, at around 14 years of age, and used to cycle there from his home in Corrclogh every day.  Coach-building and repairing had a significant footprint at that time, since the motor-car was still futuristic. Every Mill, distillery and brewery needed to have its fleet of horse-drawn coaches and its team of coach-builders.
  
Clara Mill was damaged by the IRA attack on Clara RIC Barracks, next to the Mill, in 1920. As far as I gather, it closed down after this and Frank was out of a job.
  
He applied to join the Gárda Síochána in 1925, and went on duty as a Gárda in 1927.
It is not clear what he did with himself between 1920 and 1925.

He was great at hurling, the native sport of the parish. When Rodie was asked if our father was any good at hurling, he said: 

"Oh yes, by dad, he was tremendous. I remember one match when Frank and Nallen from Banagher beat each other up and down the field with their hurleys, while the rest of us stood looking on and cheering."

Asking Pakie what Frank was like, he said, "If there's one word to describe what Frank was like as a young man, it's 'fastidious'."

Frank was unlikely to allow an opponent to get away with foul play.
  
Frank had shown his skill as joiner, also, in the local community.  The Gaelic League had come to Lusmagh when dad was a teenager, and, full of the patriotic fervour that was sweeping the country, Frank and Pakie Killeen were among those who joined.  John, the elder brother, thrown out of the family home by his father, was an officer in the Royal Irish Constabulary. Rodie, the second sibling, managed the small farm and kept out of political and cultural activities.
  
Pakie Killeen, when I was a boy visiting Lusmagh, always used “garsún” and "cailín" in place of “boy” and "girl."  Initially, I thought that this was a remnant of the Irish language spoken in the parish, but, actually, no Irish had been spoken there for many years, and I guess that this was one of the few words Pakie learned at the Gaelic League classes.
  
Neither Frank nor Pakie learned much Irish at the classes, but became involved in the cultural activities. It is the cultural activities - music and dancing and miscellaneous events - that held branches together, rather than the Irish classes themselves. No doubt they learned how to march around with hurleys on their shoulders, for the Gaelic League, from 1913, was governed by IRB (Irish Republican Brotherhood) members.
  
Lusmagh had a history of agitation. The Great Famine bankrupted the O’Moore landlords, who sold the parish to Dr Robert Graves, whose widow evicted about 100 tenants. Michael Larkin, one of the Manchester Martyrs, was a native of Lusmagh. Before that, the rivalry between the culchies of Lusmagh and the townies of garrison town, Banagher, was played out in the Battle of Banagher, a magnificent faction fight with a tragic outcome.
  
I guess it was the Gaelic League that introduced the Brideog to the parish, that is, a pageant to celebrate the feast of St Brigid, the first of February.  (I doubt it was in existence before that as a local tradition). The Brideog troop went from house to house collecting funds for St Brigid, in the form of a doll, carried by a man dressed as a woman, the whole thing having some vague connection to the ancient fertility rite of that time of year.  The funds were later spent on a party held in someone’s barn. 
  
Father made wooden swords for the Brideog and his friend, Michael Gibbons, made decorative, mitre-shaped hats.  (Saint Brigid, as a young girl, gave her father’s good sword to a passing beggar). Uncle Pakie was in charge of costumerie, which involved white shirts, green sashes, and white long johns on the legs.  Around 1980, the Lusmagh Brideog was revived and the group travelled around as far and wide as Banagher, Birr, Meelick and Kilcormack, raising funds for charity.  My dad’s wooden swords and Mick Gibbons’ hats were taken out of storage and put back into usage.
  
My dad and Pakie were the only siblings born in the 20th century. The rest were creatures of the 19th century.
  
John, the eldest brother, was expelled from home due to his disobedience, subordination and pursuit of a good time. Mary Anne became pregnant and was expelled to be taken care of by nuns in Clara. My father was too young to be told about things like pregnancy. He apparently walked Mary Anne to the bus (what? do I mean trap or side-car?), and was told she was expelled for stealing, which he did not understand.
  
Any mention of Mary Anne was henceforth forbidden, and she was never spoken of again in that household. To the best of my knowledge, her memory actually removed itself from my father’s brain as well as his tongue, except for some ghostly repressed image. Father never mentioned her to his wife or children, until Jimmy Bermingham came up to the house at Norfolk Road in the late 1960s to tell him that Mary Anne was dying and asking for him.
  
However, all the years when we went on holidays to Lusmagh, all the neighbours knew of our aunt in Clara, but mother and we did not.
  
When leaving Lusmagh to find his way in the world, Frank received a reference from his old teacher.  The reference said, “Frank Killeen is a man of principle and character.”  This phrase was a guiding beacon for my father throughout his life.  He never succumbed to dishonesty or corruption and stood up for fairness and equity in all his dealings, with superiors as much as with colleagues and juniors.  I gather that he was often at odds with his superiors, particularly when the 1930s brought in upstarts with Free State educational certificates and a negative attitude towards the old DMP and O’Duffy’s men.
  
He never discussed his business at home, but his attitude came dramatically to my attention in later years when he was in charge of gun licences.  One fine day, he demolished a man, who came to our door looking for a gun licence while we were having our tea.  “Where did you get my address?” he demanded, for all police business was done at the station, and not at an officer’s home.  The address had been given by our cousin, Jimmy Bermingham, who owned a public house in Ballybough, (and later got a tongue-lash from my father for his trouble). Jimmy was a great hurler, and played on the County team, until minding his pub business kept him from training sessions. He was initially inspired by stories of his older heroic cousin with the Lusmagh hurlers.
  
When father came back to the table, he was still steaming, and railed about the gougers from Ballybough who wanted gun licences, allegedly for hunting, but, in his opinion, for IRA or criminal activities.  These often came with references from Charlie Haughey, but this cut no ice with my father.  (Whether there was one, some, or many such cases, I do not know).  Charlie Haughey was a junior minister at this time and soon afterwards became Minister for Justice.
  
But let’s get back to the past.
  
When de Valera came to power, in 1932, O’Duffy, the Garda Commissioner, was dismissed, and many of the former irregulars were recruited into the force, some at senior positions.  Most of the original gardaí had primary education only, and that in the schools of the British Empire. The Fianna Fáil government launched a campaign to recruit young men with secondary education, including Leaving Certificate Irish, into the force, and these ("An Taca," "The Support") were promised promotion within seven years.
  
Of course, a promise of promotion to the Taca cut down on the availability of promotion outlets for existing gardai, and placed the Taca, unfairly, in the view of existing officers, above their more experienced colleagues.  There were two avenues of promotion possible for the old guard: pursue further education and pass an exam, or wait in line for muggin’s turn (promotion based on seniority).  Father commenced study, but dropped out because he was now in line for promotion under the muggin’s principle.  However, when his turn came round, he was passed over, and remained an ordinary garda for his entire career.
  
Despite having been deemed unsuitable for promotion, he received an award for heroic action, and his service was described as exemplary in his retirement document.

The new bosses brought with them a facile idea of increasing the productivity of the force by promising to accelerate the promotion of members who made plenty of arrests.
  
My dad and his contemporaries regarded the name of the force (“garda síochána”) as a job description, i.e., “guardian of the peace.” Their job was not necessarily to put people in prison, but to help and encourage youngsters to follow a crime-free path. They continued the tradition of the DMP (Dublin Metropolitan Police), cultivating close relationships with the community they served. Dad was aware that less sensitive members gained promotion by booking youngsters, (and thus building up a big tally of arrests), who could have been let off with a warning and some encouragement. These ambitious members, he felt, were not men of “principle and character,” but unscrupulous self-servers. Yet these advanced through the ranks, while father stayed at the bottom rank.

I gathered all this from the conversations that occurred around the fireside when I was growing up. My parents never went out, except to visit friends, but we had streams of visitors all year round. These were relations and friends of both parents from their original counties living in Dublin, friends from their work situations and young social lives, and fairly frequent visitors from down the country.

I once asked my father what were the most common offences for which he had arrested people during his career. These were "drunk and disorderly," and "behaviour likely to lead to a breach of the peace." Those arrested for these offences were usually released without charge. Unlike the ambitious, self-promoting officers who filled their books with charges of "loitering with intent," my father's generation merely interrupted loiterers and sent them packing.

The switch, in police culture, to charging with "loitering with intent" brought its own nemesis. The charge was subsequently challenged in the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh threw the charges out on the basis that the intent must be proved, and not merely be the opinion of a Chief Superintendent. (You might say that if there are youngsters hanging round waiting to snatch handbags, their intent is obvious to a gárda, but the Supreme Court would not agree). The older procedure of warning loiterers off the street was actually more effective policing than filling your book with charges, even though it meant you were not earning your brownies.
  
Back in the 1930s when Sheila Hickey started walking out with Frank Killeen, he was a strong and dynamic character, with definite opinions as to politics, right and wrong, and the way of doing things.  He delighted in organising social events, such as garda charity dances, and was tremendous at shifting tickets.  When he walked into a ceili one night in Connerky’s, the band played the presidential salute in his honour.  There were those who thought he was marvellous, and others who thought he was an opinionated gob-shite.

He put a big effort into selling Irish Hospital Sweepstake tickets, to support the hospitals, and was outraged when it came out that the directors of the sweepstake pocketed a large share of the takings. 
  
The economic war had the country on its knees.  Wages were poor, but better than the dole, and farming was worse still.
  
Good times might have come when the economic war was over, but then we were straight into the Emergency – World War II.
  
When they married in 1939, father was 39 years old and mother was 25.
  
Mother had to leave the Civil Service, of course, on marriage, was immediately pregnant and moved suddenly from the role of free and easy, if frugal, life as a young person enjoying the social life in the lively city of Dublin, to that of the mother of a family, confined to the kitchen sink in a small house in suburbia.
  
Under the economies brought in by Earnán de Blaghd (Ernest Blythe), Minister for Finance, in the 1920s, father moved from the Single Scale to the Married Scale, which made it possible to raise a family in modest comfort.  There was no spare cash for socialising.
  
They bought a house at 64 Norfolk Road at the edge of Dublin City, with the aid of a significant mortgage.  To help with the repayments, they took in a lodger, Eileen Comerford.  Eileen belonged to a wealthy English family in the tweed industry, who no doubt came to Dublin to get away from the war.  (Maybe her name was Helen until she came to Dublin). The factories in which she had shares were bombed and she lost her fortune.  I remember some English person visiting her when I was very young, and leaving her in tears.  He was a solicitor, on a mission to tell her that she was now penniless. Other than that, I don’t remember her having any visitors.  

After that solicitor's visit, she had to find work, and for the rest of her life lived off meagre earnings as a casual clerical employee in sub-post offices.
  
Mother had the notion that marriage would bring romantic evenings by the fireside, but father was filled with enthusiasm for nest-building, and she found herself more often alone with a book, while father busied himself with painting, decorating and furniture-making. Pakie came up from the country to help dad put walls and doors on the outside sheds: the outside toilet and coal-shed/ tool-shed. Father also put great work and energy into the gardens, front and back.
  
The front garden was a long, curved, wedge-shaped piece of ground, going from the width of the house at the top to the width of a pedestrian gate at the bottom, with a path running, in a curve, along the side of the garden, from the front door to the garden gate (pretty good feng-shui).
  
Father knew how to reclaim a site from dandelions and dock leaves.  He dug a trench, three spades deep at the top of the garden, (or as near to that as was possible), carried the displaced soil, if you could call it soil, in a wheelbarrow to the bottom of the garden, then, removing weeds and their roots as he went, filled the trench from the adjoining area, creating a new trench in the process, and repeating this process until the entire garden was dug to three spades’ depth.  There were an immense quantity of stones in the garden, and these were re-located to the bottom layer, while the topsoil, if it could be called such, restored to the top.  In those days builders did not bother to furnish a house site with top soil when the building was done, and our house was built on a rubble heap accumulated from the excavation of the adjoining railway line, which runs from Liffey Junction (Broombridge) to Broadstone.
  
Father’s strange activity in the garden was a magnet for the children of the area.  Dad devised a plan for relieving himself of the audience.  This plan was in the tradition of the practical joke, for which the Parish of Lusmagh was famous.
  
Dad told the kids that he was just an employee, not the owner, and that the wages were excellent.  He said that if they helped him, they would also be paid, and gave an opinion as to how much they might get.  In those days, kids had zilch in their pockets, and the lure of money, as well as the novelty of the activity, soon had them embroiled in the garden. 
  
At the end of the day, he tied his spade to the crossbar of his bike and told the now very grubby children he was heading for home.  He advised them to go up and knock on the door and ask the woman for their wages.  Then off he went.
  
My poor pregnant mother was confronted by a gang of very dirty children demanding money, and gave them the run.
  

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