Mattie Lennon: Among the Wicklow Hills
Among the Wicklow
Hills
By Mattie Lennon
Long before DeValera expressed his dream of "comely maidens and
athlethic youths at crossroads" young people danced at the Green Gate
in Kylebeg. This venue was the entrance to Kylebeg Lodge and was then the
equivalent of Computadate or Dateline.
The twenties (not "roaring", we presume, in Kylebeg) also saw
a tradition of house dances. There was the occasional "American
Wake" 'though not described as such in that part of the country.
There were also a number of regular dancing houses; usually dwellings with
flagged floors and one or more eligible daughters. The small two-roomed
home of John Osborne was one such house. Situated at the hill ditch, which
divided the common grazing area of "The Rock" from the
relatively arable land. It was accessible only through the aptly named
Rock Park; the nocturnal negotiation of which was a feat even for the most
sure-footed.
The man of the house was an accomplished flautist. Did he, I wonder,
favour saturating his instrument, like the flute-player from Ballyknockan,
who on arrival at a session would request the facility to "....dip me
flute in a bucket o' water".
Whether for flute-immersion or not a galvanized bucket of water was a
permanent feature on the stone bench outside Osborne's door. A well known
story tells of a June night when the boys and girls (a term used to
describe those unmarried, and under 70) having made it relatively
unscathed through the Rock Park were knocking sparks from the floor. They
were glad of the opportunity, amid the jigs and the reels (and God only
knows what other energy-sapping activities) to exit occasionally for a
refreshing draught from the Parnassian bucket.
At day-break, while preparing to depart, the exhausted assembly was
informed by a youth (looked on locally as "s sort of a cod") of
how he had suffered during the night with a stone-bruise on his big toe.
The pain, se said, would have been unbearable but for the fact that;
" I used to go out now an' agin an' dip it in the bucket o'
water".
That's the sort of people we had in the Wicklow Mountains.
And here's a true story told to me by a cousin, in Ballinastockan, who
wouldn't know how to tell a lie. He was drawing out turf with an ass and
cleeves....the cousin was. Do you know the creels (baskets) that you se on
the backs of donkeys in Bord Failte postcards and such like? Well up this
way they're called "cleeves" and they're held in position by a
"cleeving-straddle"; which is a saddle-like harness with a
spike, or hook, on either side to hold the cleeves.
Anyway the cousin was using said mode of haulage when, due to
inadequate upholstering, didn't he cleeving-straddle irritate and cut the
ass, leaving a nasty lesion on either side of his (the ass's)
backbone.
The weather being warm of course the flies attacked the open wounds,
which festered (savin' your presence) developing into two raw
nasty-looking holes in the ass's back.
The ass, tired after a hard day's work, went out and lay down at the
back of the house under a hawthorn tree. And what do you think but didn't
a couple of haws fall into the holes in his back. The holes eventually
healed but the next Spring didn't two little whitethorn trees sprout out
of his back.
Do you know what the cousin did? He waited for them to grow fairly
strong and then he sawed them off about four inches from the base. And
thereafter he had the only ass in Ireland with a permanent
cleeving-straddle.
That's the cousin. And wait 'til I tell you about his brother-in-law,
Johnny N.
He was in the habit of making statements that didn't quite add up;
"You shouldn't ever get into a car with a stranger, unless you know
him". It's not the fathers an' mothers I blame at all, it's the
parents". I bought a half pound o' cooked ham in Jim Burkes an' ate
it raw goin' home". But he didn't have all that much confidence in
his own judgement, and consequently he tended to take a lot of advice. An
example is a number of "smart boys" gave him" various and
conflicting pieces of information on the best way to sharpen his
cut-throat razor. He took one fellow's advice and when he came down to the
end of the lane (the usual meeting place) his face was a haematologist's
paradise. As he gingerly fingered his sensitive cheeks he declared; "
I don't give a *(# ?'*&\ what you say lads, the scythe-stone is not
the thing for the razor".
Spent most of his life working with farmers and had no knowledge of any
other type of employment. The when he was in his fifties, during the
building boom of the sixties (that sounds almost poetic) he headed down to
Clondalkin (or as he called it "Clondaltin") to seek a job on
one of the many building sites. When he approached the foreman looking for
"a start" he must have come across as material for a
"nipper" and general factotum, for the following conversation
took place;
Foreman: Can you make tea?
Johnny N.: I can.
Foreman: Can you drive a fork-lift?
Johnny N.: Why, how big is the taypot?
And what about the time a local cattle dealer asked Johnnie to check if
the off-side indicator on his (the cattle-dealer's) truck was working.
Johnny walked to the rear of the vehicle, his Wellington-legs colliding
with each other in a most rhythmic manner. Then came the answer; "IT
is", "It's not", "It is", "It's
n........"
Mattie's articles,
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