Beyond the Breakwater Read online

  As I walk the grey cobbled streets, passing the Catholic Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity – built on Barronstrand Street between 1793 and 1796 with money made in Newfoundland – I feel a strong connection with the past. Grey stones tell no lies. Designed by architect John Roberts, it’s easy to feel the centuries slip away. Inside, Waterford Crystal chandeliers light its ancient baroque interior. A plaque on the wall commemorates Bishop James Louis O’Donel OSF, who was born in 1737 in Knocklofty, Co. Tipperary. He was appointed the first Apostolic Vicar and Bishop of Newfoundland in 1796.

  Talamh an Éisc is the Irish for Newfoundland, which literally translates as ‘the land of the fish’. That phrase has the ring of truth about it. Talamh an Éisc meant money, prosperity, adventure and camaraderie to the men who sailed out of Waterford harbour.

  The quays of Waterford today are soaked in sunshine. A millennium sculpture in William Vincent Wallace Plaza on the riverfront, inspired by the Viking ships, is where young men now skateboard. Its white lines shimmer in the light. If you listen carefully you can almost hear the rigging of hundreds of ships jiggling in the breeze.

  Ring

  18

  Moving

  The road to Ring was long and winding. It was August 1970 and the sun shone all through the day we left Waterford city and went to live in the Gaeltacht far away. It was only forty miles or so along the coast, but to us, sitting in the back of the Mini – now a newer red version – we may as well have been going to live in Tasmania.

  We sat with our arms around Jingle, our black and white mongrel Jack Russell terrier. Like any good dog he sat panting beside us, waiting for the next episode of his life to begin. In some ways he seemed to embody our curiosity and watchfulness.

  Leaving the neighbours, the house, the garden and the road was a wrench for my mother, who cried all the way to the Holy Cross pub in Butlerstown. My father was more stoical but underneath his bluster we could see that he was equally tense and upset, so he pulled in to the Holy Cross for us to have a drink and compose ourselves. There were minerals for us, while half measures of spirits helped revive our parents.

  We were on the road again in no time, going through the Sweep and Kilmeaden, on towards Kilmacthomas and Lemybrien, Tarr’s Bridge and then Dungarvan, where my father pulled into Grattan Square and we surveyed our new local town. Miriam noted the shops and their signs. Having just learned about punctuation at school she read out exactly what she saw. ‘J Dot Mountain,’ she declared, reading the grocery shop’s front sign with all the authority and perspicacity of her nine years. She proceeded to read the other shop fronts too: Lawn’s Bookmakers, Hill’s Chemist. There were shops owned by Currans, Fields and Greenes. We laughed at the strange surnames and scrutinised the square for more examples. Mama and Dada laughed with us. ‘J Dot Mountain,’ my father said, grinning, and we were all giggling in no time.

  Soon we were on the way again, turning off the main Cork to Waterford road to drive out along the length of the Ring peninsula. It was a narrow, winding road. It wove its way under a tunnel of trees that formed a canopy of leaves overhead. We followed its meandering way, curving around bends, my father nearly slowing the car to a halt as he went carefully around two sharp hairpin bends. The hanging ivy that fell like a fringe over the second hairpin bend, Droichead an Uisce, seemed like a gateway. The ivy was dark and damp, glistening and dripping. We went on, shivering as we passed through the cool shadows. We three girls in the back seat followed each twist and turn with growing interest. It felt as if we were entering a magical place deep under the trees.

  When we arrived at the top of Robert’s Cross, a wide expanse of road opened out under a great dome of sky that stretched above us. We pulled in so that we could take a look at the view – the bay beneath us and the great sky overhead. Wisps of cloud floated in the blue air. The bay rippled under the hot August sun. Across the water, the Comeragh Mountains with the Knockmealdowns off to the west formed a great backdrop to the town of Dungarvan and to the east we saw the coastline of Waterford disappearing into the distance like a pencil line towards Stradbally, Ballyvoyle, Bonmahon and a spot at the furthest point that was the Hook lighthouse. The road in front led along the spine of the peninsula of Ring itself, which spread out before us like a great green blanket, lying on a high bumpy bed with the blue sea tucked in snugly all along its sides. The furthest promontory, Helvick Head, could be seen way off in the distance. Close to the land we could also see a couple of boats just beyond Helvick Pier.

  We drove on down the hill towards the lower fields and boreens of An Rinn. When we pulled in to Baile na nGall, it seemed as if the neighbours at the top of the village had been waiting for our arrival. The sun shone and those at their gates along a line of cottages below us waved shyly. Others stood on the opposite side of the road to watch the arrival. One or two called a greeting to my father in Irish. ‘Tá fáilte rómhaibh, Joe.’ He walked over to say hello to these friends from his childhood. Among those who lived close by were contemporaries of his such as Larry Kenneally, Tomás Breathnach, John Paul, Micil Tóibín and Willy Hally. They would now be our neighbours.

  The house was a source of great mystery. It was set well back from the road, a tall, upright, two-storey building. Inside, we raced up the steep staircase to explore. On the landing there was a door going left and another one going to the right. We chose the right door and found ourselves in one large bedroom. A door from this led directly into another room. From this we saw another door and this we discovered led into a third bedroom and from that room, there was another door leading to a final bedroom. We flew through these four linked rooms, exclaiming as if we had discovered a box of tricks. Jingle followed us, adding his tuppence-worth to the noise. The rooms had skylights, so we climbed up on whatever we could to open these interesting outlets to the roof, hoisting up the old iron bars that slotted into secure pegs, and from our vantage point we looked out onto the road, the fuchsia hedge, the sky and the fields beyond.

  One of my first expeditions in Baile na nGall was up to Harty’s farm, which was only a stone’s throw away from us, to get the milk. Up the hill I went with the empty canteen, going over tarred stones where great plops of cow dung were drying in the sun. As I neared the opening into Harty’s yard, I picked my way carefully through the still steaming, dark-green pools of pungent dung. Flies clung to this gloopy stuff that was still running and settling between the stones.

  Cows were mooing in the field behind me and I saw Seán Harty walking there in amongst his herd. I went up to the door of the thatched house and knocked, and his mother, Mrs Nóiní Harty, was inside.

  ‘Tar isteach,’ she called. A great white enamel bucket of milk stood on the table covered with a tea towel. She stood up slowly and with effort to take my can and scoop milk out of the bucket with a ladle into my small gallon.

  ‘Cathain a tháinig sibh?’ she asked me. When did ye arrive?

  ‘Inniu,’ I told her in my smattering of Irish. Today.

  ‘Conas atá d’athair is do mháthair?’ she asked. How are your father and your mother keeping?

  ‘Tá siad go maith, go raibh maith agat.’ They are good, thank you.

  Time passed in the quiet there as I stood in my dream world watching her pour the milk in one long white rush of liquid into my gallon.

  ‘Tá sé go deas inniu,’ I said. It is nice today.

  ‘Tá, tá sé an-bhrothallach,’ she said, referring to the great heat in the day. Yes, it is very hot.

  Over the coming weeks, we met lots of new people. I was soon using phrases that Mrs Harty had used to me. ‘Tá sé an-bhrothallach,’ I said to a passing neighbour. ‘Ta sé an-mheirbh ar fad,’ he answered. ‘An-mheirbh,’ I’d say to myself, storing that one away too. Very muggy.

  We were soon going down to the strand to pick periwinkles with all the others and selling them to the dealer on the fish lorry at the end of the week. There was great competition to find the best beds of seaweed where you’d find the greatest amou
nts of hidden winkles. It was cold, wet work but we had great sport and we could earn a few pounds.

  Sometimes, we walked to Helvick to stand on the pier and watch the fishermen throwing their boxes of fish up onto the quay right at our feet. ‘Seachain do chosa, a chailín,’ they’d shout – watch your feet, girl – warning me to stand back.

  Then it was September and we readied ourselves for school. We were to attend the local national school, Scoil Náisiúnta na Rinne. At the convent school we’d attended in Waterford we’d worn slippers and uniforms, comprising brown, pleated gymslips with a sash, and white-buttoned yellow shirts. We’d been instructed in how to sit and stand properly at our desks without making a racket. We never raced in the corridors, even though the floors were perfect sliding places.

  The school in the Ring Gaeltacht was a different place entirely for us in the early 1970s. There were boys to begin with, who were foreign beings to me. But it was the girls who won my immediate admiration. There was a blonde-haired girl who stood out for me especially. When the máistir (master) stepped out for a few minutes one day, he left her in charge. She was unassailable, standing like a general at the top of the class. She knew how to control all the bold boys. She stood and shouted down the class in clear, authoritative Irish, stilling the hullaballoo with the brilliance and ferocity of her lungs.

  ‘Suigh síos tusa, a amadáin,’ she roared at one cheeky imp when he slipped out of his chair. Sit down, you fool. Withering him instantly with her contemptuous reprimand, he slumped back into his chair, quietened and defeated.

  At lunchtime, there were occasional nettle chases in the yard, when boys went like speed-ships under full throttle, weaving their way in and out through us, waving and brandishing bunches of nettles, trying to whip the legs of unlikely suspects. It was a wild environment for us three shrinking violets, but we loved it. There was the odd rat that scuttled like an old woman across the yard at lunchtime and caused havoc amongst us groups of gossiping young ones. The terror of those mucky, weed-choked corners outside, mixed with the terrible pongs that wafted over us from the leithreas (toilet) kept our hearts racing and our eyes alert.

  There were exuberant art classes with an máistir, Seán de Paor, who was an artist himself and loved to see us painting, and singing classes with the much loved Úna Bean Breathnach, where we played and sang with our hearts thrilling to be reaching such heights of passion. My pulse raced as it had never done before. I ran down like a butterfly across the fields, with my new friend Siobhán gripping my hand to swing me out around her. I bit her finger, biting down on the bone when she tried to smear my face with paint one Friday afternoon, wrapping her fingers around my head from the back. I was ready to kick a boy with venom and ferocity if he fell over on top of his fist of nettles. The place pulsated with energy and vitality and I threw off the yoke of demureness that the nuns had put on me.

  Of course, the magic was that everything was through Irish, and in no time I had picked up the most heartfelt terms of abuse and endearment for every occasion: ‘Imigh leat, a shíofra’ – go away, you fairy woman; ‘Dún suas, a phleidhce’ – shut up, you messer; or ‘A chailín, a stóirín, a ghrá, cad tá ort?’ – girl, pet, love, what’s wrong? The words wrapped themselves around our days, warming the air like bellows blowing through the slippery boreens.

  After a while Ring became home to us. And the longer we stayed, the more familiar everything felt. It’s the same today. On Helvick Pier, the forklift whizzes by and cars brake to a halt on the quay. It can sometimes seem busier, but it’s the same really. It’s the very same as the day we stopped at Robert’s Cross to get a look at our new world.

  19

  Mouse

  We hadn’t been living long in the country when, one night, just as we settled down to sleep, we heard something scratching away in the corner of our room. Of course we all jumped up on the nearest bed and clung to each other with fright. I stretched across to turn on the light and we scanned the room nervously, straining our ears to make sure we hadn’t imagined the noise. No, there it was again. There was a definite scratching going on in the corner. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time.

  We zeroed in on the cardboard box we had in the corner as our waste-paper basket. The noise was definitely coming from there. And then we saw it, a tiny little grey creature up on its back legs balancing on top of the cardboard and papers that were in the box, with its pointed face nibbling at something it held steady with its two front legs. The three of us clung to each other and shouted for help as we froze on the bed in terror. Like the great classical statues of Rome, we stood tableau-like, crouched together as one aboard the old-fashioned, spring-based bed. There was the danger we’d topple off the bed and this added to our terror as we swayed horribly with each terrified reaction.

  We were in the grip of an irrational, visceral fear to have a mouse so close to us and in our bedroom of all places. It seemed to take hold of us but we could not look away from the mouse’s little face as it peeked up and disappeared again.

  We saw the crumpled old wrapper from a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate move and rustle; the mouse snuffling and rummaging away to its heart’s content. It didn’t take a blind bit of notice of us.

  At this stage, we were screaming in hysterics, shouting instructions at one another to do something. The noise brought our mother. But not being a great lover of mice herself, she stepped back out of the room and called my father. What was all the fuss about, he wanted to know. The three of us pointed to the box in the corner. ‘It’s a mouse,’ we all said. ‘Look.’

  The poor little mouse was there all right; clear to be seen and oblivious to the mayhem it was causing in our bedroom.

  ‘Put the tennis racket over the box,’ said Miriam, pointing to her racket, which was lying on a chair at the door.

  ‘What are you going to do with him, Daddy?’ we wanted to know as my father put the racket over the box and took it away with him. As he took control, we were suddenly gripped with concern for the little animal. We trooped after him like the Swiss Family Robinson. Down the stairs we went in single file and huddled in behind him into the bathroom. He put the box in the bath and we all stood back to watch. We wondered what he or the mouse was going to do next. My mother, hoping to regain her standing with us as a courageous heroine, quickly put her hand into the bath, put the stopper in and turned on the tap. As the water filled, the cardboard box began to soften and float. Soon it was all submerged apart from one last pyramid onto which the little mouse clambered to size up his options. He was like Napoleon stranded on his little island of Elba. He seemed to be pleading with us not to let him drown.

  ‘Daddy, he’s going to drown,’ we shouted as the water rose. ‘Daddy, look at him.’ We all stood around the bath and looked sorrowfully at the mouse. We could see the mouse’s little plump body clearly as it balanced itself on the top point of the box and we shivered in sympathy. We began to cry. It was excruciating to watch. We’d been through so much together that by this stage we felt protective towards the creature.

  Suddenly the mouse was in the water, swimming away from his little cardboard island. We were sure it was now in imminent danger of drowning. ‘Daddy, don’t let him drown,’ we begged. ‘He’s only a little mouse.’

  In the end, my father caught the mouse by the tail, carried him out to the front door and took him outside to deposit him in a flower bed at the far end of the garden.

  ‘Is he all right?’ we asked him when he came back in. ‘Will he live?’ we wanted to know.

  He assured us the mouse would survive and be happy in the garden. We all breathed a sigh of relief as we were whooshed up to bed. As we settled down, we tried not to think about the mouse’s family. Would there be little mice babies watching out for him? Would the mouse make it home? How would we ever know his fate?

  20

  A Dog Named Jingle

  Us three little girls didn’t quite understand his nature at the start. We tried to groom his wiry hair a
nd tie ribbons around his neck but he wanted no truck with such nonsense. When he was a pup we tried to put him in the pram beside our dolls, only he escaped, leaping out of our arms. We called him Jingle. He was not a Jingle kind of dog. He was a bit like the boy in the Johnny Cash song ‘A Boy Named Sue’, who had to be manly and virile enough to carry off the name.

  Of the three dogs we ever had, the one my father loved best of all was this black and white mongrel, a squat dog, who was part Jack Russell and had eyes of bog-like opaqueness and a little docked tail that stood upright at the end of his body in a most unattractive manner. Jingle was no oil painting but he was an integral part of our family for almost fifteen years. He had his own spot on the mat each evening in front of the fire.

  He was a loyal family pet. He came with us from our home in the city to the very different seaside environment of the Ring peninsula. It was a great odyssey and he took possession of his new terrain with a swagger and a great deal of self-assurance. There were strange smells from pats of steaming cow dung, boxes of rotting fish, crabs to worry and horses of which to be wary. Like any male dog, he was largely focused on food, bitches in heat and his master’s call. For him the priorities never wavered – territory, survival and fornication.

  During the day, he took up sentry duty on the garden wall at the front of the house in Baile na nGall. He vetted all passers-by, viewing any movement or change on the horizon carefully with a shrewd eye, only lifting his head from the wall for some, while for others he’d jump down and go over for a sniff of inspection. Then he’d swagger back, jump back up onto the wall and resume his position.