5th June 2003
My late mothers' family came from North Cork and as a child I spent many happy summer holidays with cousins there. Recently we were in West Cork and when there was a choice as to whether we should drive back through Macroom or Millstreet and Kanturk, the latter route had my vote and off we went. "A recherché du temps perdu".
I particularly wanted to go along the road from Kanturk to Buttevant where some very dear relations lived and also to see "the pillars" once again. While the relations had a goodly sized farm one particular ancestor decided a public statement of what he (or could it have been she) considered to be their local position was needed. The ancestor decided to build a fine entrance to begin the family's upward mobility. So he started with two fine stone cut pillars which were to be at the farthest outposts of the new entrance.
We found the pillars just as I remembered them, about twenty feet high beautifully cut limestone with large stone orbs atop. The local inhabitants obviously realising follies are worth preserving have put neat little fences around them. I was overjoyed looking at them and at the farmhouse away in the distance dreaming of the past and happy sunny days there.
"Why," said my husband "did he build the pillars so far apart?" Now this is exactly the sort of remark a Dublin person makes to a Cork person when they want to cause annoyance. "He built the pillars so far apart because in this part of the country the people have some imagination!" was my retort. I heart some muttering about "Notions" and decided to ignore it - I was still a long way from Dublin. The cousins' house is situated mid way far in the distance in a straight line from between the pillars. There is something marvellous I think if someone decided to work on improvements from the outside in rather than vice versa as is more generally the case.
On we went through Doneraile to Kildorney where another family lived. Bowenscourt is long demolished but it was there I attended my first wake. My cousins' farm abutted onto Bowenscourt and as a child I frequently met Elizabeth Bowen. Unfortunately I cannot say I ever discussed the existent novel because I knew her as Mrs. Cameron. It was decades later I discovered she was one and the same as the novelist.
Now regarding the wake Mrs. Cameron/Elizabeth Bowen did not ask me to it. Nor am I sure who we were waking. I was about eight years old at the time and any outing in the evening seemed a good idea. The wake was held in a room off the kitchen and I presume the deceased had worked in the house or on the farm.
But I do remember candles, cake, and Tanora lemonade. My cousins and I were probably brought by someone who worked in my cousins' house and we enjoyed the event enormously. How many eight year olds get the chance to go to a wake nowadays?
The deceased at the wake was not the first dead body I had seen. We lived on the Mahon Peninsula near Blackrock Castle. There was a large seminary in Rochestown where many young boys who were destined to be priests were educated. It seemed that every summer some of them would be drowned in the River Lee. I suppose this only happened occasionally but as a child the sight of their white still bodies was a dreadful reminder of how dangerous the river was.
Children now seem to be allowed to see the most appalling violence on television and seem to be unaffected by it. But if even a minor incident happens to them in real life apparently they will never be the same again. Jeremy Altmont who owns Westport House was explaining on the wireless recently why he would be able to open his house and gardens to the public for only three months of the year. As with all things nowadays the insurance costs had got too high for it to be profitable to open for longer even though as a tourist attraction it is really important to Mayo.
The reason for the increased insurance premiums he explained was that some time ago while a child was petting a rabbit in the "Pets Corner" they have as an attraction, the animal bit the little girl's finger. The injury was minor but in the subsequent court case it was alleged the child's whole idea of rabbits, the fantasy and real world of rabbits, had been undermined by the incident. She was awarded seven or eight thousand Euro as I recall.
No one took much notice of me when I was chased what seems like miles across country by a gander. One of the worst of the species I have ever met and well known to be vicious. I'd better go back to North Cork and do a bit of moaning about the incident there.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
