Where is Yonda?

Photograph taken in 12 Wyckham Park, Dundrum, Co. Dublin circa 1953 or 1954.

 

I WAS AFRAID OF FALLING INTO THE SKY.

For many years my two lassies and their mother, my good lady wife Kathleen, have been encouraging me to write about my early life in Ireland. Procrastination being my middle name I am now at the age of 66 finally getting around to it perhaps spurred on by some health issues in recent years. My story will end as I sit for the Leaving Certificate at Naas Christian Brothers Secondary School in 1963 almost a half century ago  and shortly before my 18^th birthday. This sketch of a childhood growing up in a vanished Ireland is dedicated to my three beloved ladies: Kate, Siobhán and Máire Brìd or Bridie as the latter daughter is familiarly called by friends and family. In 2009 I finally became an American citizen but still retain a passport for the land of my birth. More than half my life has been spent here in Amerikay toiling to make a living. Kate more than did her part both inside and outside the home. Now that we are both retired it seems like as good a time as any to revisit fond memories of the past including the songs we learned growing up. A song written by Thomas Moore we used to belt out at Gonzaga College under the tutelage of Father Sean Hutchinson S.J. comes readily to mind:

“The minstrel boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death ye will find him;
His father's sword he hath girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him;
"Land of Song!" said the warrior bard,
"Tho' all the world betray thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!"

However I must go back to the beginning before recalling my years at a Jesuit preparatory school.

I first saw the light of day on August 2^nd 1945 at the Mater Private Nursing Home on Eccles Street on the north side of the River Liffey in dear old Dublin Town. The Mater Hospital as it is commonly known was to figure prominently in the Kent family story.

Not only did my father Gerald Daniel Kent first encounter my mother Marguerite Kehoe, a registered nurse, there while visiting an injured pal but many years later my sister Geraldine met her future husband John Kehoe(no relation to Marguerite) while she was a nurse and he  a medical student. Coincidentally my mother was a nursing student at the Mater while John Kehoe’s father Michael Kehoe was a doctor in training. This was the hospital where I as a 4 year old would later have a tonsillectomy. I can still remember getting the anesthetic which I believe was ether and smelled like moth balls to me  when the device for putting me to sleep was placed over my nose. Within a day or two of the surgery I was up out of bed and playing with a toy double decker bus in the ward. I remember being admonished by a nun-nurse to be quiet. I probably was a holy terror.  I also remember Marietta biscuits and milk being provided which I must have enjoyed since the memory remains.

My parents Gerald and Marguerite have both gone to their eternal reward. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamacha(May their souls sit at God's right hand). My father’s people lived in Castlelyons, near Fermoy, County Cork for centuries where they were farmers. My grandfather Pierce Kent settled in Dublin after graduating from University College, Dublin  Among his contempories at University were James Joyce, author of Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, and Tom Kettle, a man of varied talents, who both courted Mary Sheehy at one point. Tom Kettle would go on to marry Mary Sheehy. Tom Kettle was a first cousin of my grandfather’s wife Leontia Conolly which would make him a first cousin twice removed to my father and thus related to us too. My grandfather was a first cousin of the martyred patriot Thomas Kent. Thomas was shot by a British firing squad in 1916. Thomas’s brother Daithi Kent was a member of the 1919 Dail and refused to join Fianna Fail and enter the Free State Dail with De Valera in 1932.  Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dilis. May his faithful soul rest at God’s right hand.

  Bust of Thomas Ceannt(Kent) outside Kent Railway Station in Cork City, Ireland.

My mother Marguerite Kehoe was the daughter of John Kehoe from Tomsallagh, Ferns, County Wexford and Agnes Breen from Wexford Town. After graduating from St. Mary’s Convent School in Arklow, County Wicklow, she was accepted into the Mater Hospital School of Nursing where she later met my father for the first time.

Both my parents placed family first and foremost and provided a loving environment for us children and left us with many fond memories. Through ill health and occasional economic difficulties they loved each other dearly and loved the children God gave them. They both loved to laugh and the memory of that laughter will remain with me forever. During the course of the previous blog entries some of my memories of them have been recalled. This present piece of writing has to do with my memories of living on the Rathgar Road, Rathgar, in the city of Dublin from the late 1940s to the early 1950s before we moved to what could be then considered the “country” in Dundrum, County Dublin, in the foothills of the Wicklow Mountain chain.

My sister Anne and I were born while the family was leasing a home at “Rosaire” on the Rathgar Road near the Church of the Three Patrons which was our parish church and where I have the earliest memory of being at Sunday Mass. I have no memory of this abode although Anne does. Geraldine, John and Eddie, our other siblings arrived in the world when we had moved down the road to “Coolavin” at 161 Rathgar Road. We had a kitchen on the ground floor with the other rooms being on the second and third floor. There was another family, Conaty by name, on the ground floor. The garden was part of our leasing arrangement and my father being an avid gardener spent many hours coaxing vegetables out of the soil there. We had two black Scottish terriers for a time. I believe the story was that they ate poison and died although it may be that they were sold. After that it seemed the only pets around were cats although in later years Eddie got a budgie and called him "Tim". Although we were by no means wealthy we could afford to hire a girl to help out with child caring and light domestic duties. I remember the names Ina, Josie, Mona and Avril over a period of several years. I believe my grandmother in Wexford made the initial contact with these girls who all came up from the model county as Wexford is and was termed. Once one of them got married a replacement was needed and that is why we had a succession of these helpers in a relatively short time. I particularly remember Mona who would read the comics section of the Irish Independent to me and started me out on my lifelong fascination with the Wild West with tales of Hopalong Cassidy and Gabby Hayes read by her from the aforesaid publication. She also introduced me to Curly Wee and Gussie Goose who featured in the paper on a daily basis. I remember Josie or Mona taking us on afternoon strolls to nearby Orwell Park along the banks of the River Dodder with I and Anne walking and Geraldine in a pram. My mother would have been home looking after the baby at the time; my brother John. A little later John would be in the pram and Anne, I and Geraldine would be walking while Eddie was the baby left at home getting the full attention of our mother. In the autumn dusk would fall shortly after three o’clock in the afternoon while we were returning home from these outings. Ireland is at the same latitude as Labrador in Canada and just 750 miles south of Iceland. One could see the reflections of the sky and the street lamps in the River Dodder and I distinctly remember that I was afraid of falling into the sky. It seemed a long way down. Another fear at that time was the sound of thunder and lightning while we were in bed at night. We ascribed a personality to the dreaded sounds and called it by the name “Dorndeens”. I’m not sure where we got the name. Perhaps we figured thunder and lightning sounded like “Dorndeens” to our ears back then. The name sounded scary to us. I was also terrorized by some older kids who lived or visited next door and climbed trees dressed as cowboys and aimed their toy revolvers at me. I really thought they were outlaws from the Wild West. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the belief that these young thugs were grandsons of the long fellow himself Eamon De Valera. Was I told this by someone? This is what I have always believed. In later years it would be me blasting away at some scared kid with my trusty cap gun.

Anne, Geraldine and I all started school together at the ages of 5, 4 and 3 as I recall although Anne may have started a year early. We were guided across the street by my mother or the house helper at the time and made the short journey down the road to Saint Louis Convent School. Perhaps Geraldine and I were in “junior infants” or “low babies” as the beginning classes were incongruously called back then with Anne lording over us in “senior infants” or “high babies”. Mrs. Fagan was the teacher I remember instructing us in the rudiments of the Irish language. She would put a chart on the board with colorful farm animals and have us repeat after her: Sin é bo, sin é cearc, sin é capall, sin é laca, sin é asal (respectively: that is a cow, that is a hen, that is a horse, that is a duck, that is a donkey). One day Mrs. Fagan called to see my mother since  she thought I had a mental problem. Apparently when I got excited I would shake my hands wildly about. Perhaps some of the girls in the class were frightened by this. My mother laughed since she knew I was quite sane and put Mrs. Fagan’s mind to rest. I remember the St. Louis nuns ran an ice cream shop which was open during lunch hour and play periods. One could get a halfpenny worth of ice cream between two wafers from the good sisters. The three of us got to take part in the school play one year; The Wedding of Jack and Jill. Anne and Geraldine starred as a pair of dolls. I got the plum role of Wee Willie Winkie.

“Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown,
Tapping at the window and crying through the lock,
Are all the children in their beds, it's past eight o'clock?”

This was my first and last theatrical performance and I made a faux pas in my brief time on the stage. Attired in my pajamas and bearing a candlestick I and my fellow thespians were divided into two lines one line on the left and the other on the right. I was in the line on the left and we were supposed to head towards the front of the stage in two single files with those on the left under orders to exit the stage on the left and those on the right asked to exit on the right. Despite being on the left I apparently decided to exit on the right contrary to the directions given.  The audience got a laugh so no harm was done. Other memories I have of St Louis School include the excitement caused by a seagull landing on a girl’s head in the schoolyard and the sadness felt upon hearing that a fellow pupil had been hit by a bus. Back then most people did not own motor cars but there were enough vehicles on the road including motor cars, busses and Lorries to make life dangerous. In addition to motorized vehicles, horse drawn commercial wagons delivered milk, bread and groceries to household throughout the city of Dublin. One needed to avoid the piles of horse shite while crossing the street. Being shortly after World War II ration books were still in use in my early childhood days. Some foodstuffs remained in short supply in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Black shawls were commonly worn by woman even in Dublin at this time. All the women selling produce in Moore Street wore shawls and were known as "shawlies" if my memory serves me right. One other memory we have of our time in St. Louis Convent school is landing home frequently with our friend Jimmy Carroll in tow. This "Billy Bunter" lookalike lived on Rostrevor Terrace a few doors down from our Grandfather Pierce Kent . We invited him home for the tea which is what we called the evening meal.Jimmy came for tea on a regular basis. Jimmy was a portly kid with coke bottle spectacles as I recollect him. When a piece of bread and butter was put on his plate he would kick up an unholy racket screaming “Fingers! I want fingers!” Initially this led to some consternation.  My mother was quite perplexed at first but eventually ascertained that young Jimmy always had his bread cut by his mother in narrow “fingers” so since she always aimed to please cut Jimmy’s bread as he required in “fingers” and this made us all happy. In fact we began to want “fingers” for ourselves although this was to be just a passing fad.

Other memories of our time at 161 Rathgar Road would be packages of comic books arriving from Australia where my father’s youngest brother David Kent had emigrated. We could scarcely read but did enjoy the pictures. One time he sent some stuffed koala bears which appear in the photograph included herewith. Another of my father’s brothers Uncle Jim, an attorney, lived down the road from us on the Rathgar Road with his wife Eileen nee Brady and their children Jim, Mary, Margot, Leontia, and Joan. All of us cousins would often convene at my grandfather’s home at 12 Rostrevor Terrace off Orwell Road in Rathgar on a Sunday morning after Mass. Sometimes my other Uncles Pierce and Father Edmond S.J. would be there. Uncle David was in Australia somewhere. My Uncle Pierce lived in Kenya with his wife Alice nee Slattery and their children Leontia, Patricia, Nora and Pierce. The girls had all been born in India with Pierce, the youngest being born in East Africa where my Uncle Pierce, a physician, conducted research at the East Africa Tuberculosis clinic. When Uncle Pierce was home from Kenya he would be at my grandfather's house with his children also. As one can glean Pierce is a common family Christian name with four Pierces featuring in this post. Sounds like a good name for a rock group: the Four Pierces. Back in 1847 during the Great Hunger two Pierce Kents emigrated from the same village in Cork where my grandfather was born and ended up fighting on opposite sides in the American civil war.  More often than not it would be Uncle Jim, Uncle Eddie S.J., my father Gerry and my grandfather Pierce and the children of Uncle Jim along with me and those of our siblings who were able to walk at the time. Our mothers would be home taking care of the babies. Miss Ryan, my grandfather’s jovial housekeeper, would make soup for the men who would then retire to the drawing room and smoke a cigar and have a glass of Jamieson Whiskey. They would stand with their backs to the fire warming themselves and exchanging news and views. We kids would be given cool glasses of milk and Kimberly biscuits and my grandfather invariably produced a bag of caramels from Bewleys, a well-known restaurant and confectioner which sadly has ceased to exist other than the hotel business owned by the same company.  Alas this is another loss of a great Dublin institution. Ah well, c’est la vie.

In 1950 my brother Eddie was born. He was the youngest in our family. Requiescat in Pace. Sadly he passed away in 2010. I remember when Eddie landed up in our house after coming home from the Mater in a wicker basket accompanied by our mother. A bottle of carbonated red lemonade with syphon attached and a box of dates arrived along with Eddie. The excitement was great since we had a new brother and some fizzy lemonade to celebrate his arrival. In 1952 just before I turned 7 my parents purchased a brand new house at 12 Wyckham Park in Dundrum, County Dublin. One day, not long before we moved, I was sitting on the grass eating a banana when I must have picked up rheumatic fever. I complained of a sore toe and had a fever. My mother being a nurse felt that something was the matter and called our family physician appropriately named Doctor Kidney who diagnosed rheumatic fever. I was to be bedridden for a while both on the Rathgar Road and in the new abode. We were on our way to a new home and new adventures. Due to my illness I was not fully able to enjoy the excitement of the move to pastures new. A chapter in all of our lives had come to an end. I know Anne and Geraldine too would have cherished the time spent living in Rathgar as I did. Eddie was a baby there and John just a toddler.

The River Dodder, a tributary of the Liffey, at Rathgar. It was here that I "was afraid of falling into the sky"

Memories of my Irish grandmother: Mrs A.R. Kehoe

Memories of my Irish grandmother; Mrs A.R. Kehoe.

She was the only grandmother we knew ; our maternal grandmother from Wexford Town in Ireland's relatively sunny south-east. She was born and christened Agnes Regis Breen and subsequently married our grandfather John F. Kehoe. He grew up on a Wexford farm. As a young man he was employed as a  drapery assistant at the shoe & drapery business on 16 North Main Street in Wexford. Later by dint of hard work he was able to purchase that  business and it was above this shop that my mother and her other siblings came into the world.

The faded photographic images  above show Agnes as a young married women with her husband John and as a young lassie with her father and one of her sisters. I believe she is the elder of the two girls  shown to the right of the younger sibling in the photo on the right side of the page. The younger sister is probably our Great Aunt Madge(Margaret). Agnes was born in 1888, the second eldest of four daughters of Walter P. Breen and his wife Margaret, who lived at 44 William Street, Wexford Town according to the 1911 Irish Census. In the 1901 census he was shown as living in a lodging house in Rosslare Harbor so he was probably away from the family piloting ships. Our great grandfather is listed as a "Chambel" Pilot. He was a seaman so he may have been involved in guiding vessels into Rosslare Harbor. I cannot find a definition for the word "Chambel" in any dictionary and I won't speculate. Both Walter and Margaret were late vocations to the married state it would appear. The eldest child Mary Ellen, our great aunt "Allie", was born when Margaret would have been 36 years and she had 3 more children, all girls, with the youngest, Great Aunt Elizabeth (Beths),  being born when her mother was 43 years old. The two eldest daughters are listed as "commercial clerks" in the 1911 census while the two youngest worked as Drapery Assistants. Back then adult children remained in the parents home until they got married.

Shortly after I was born "Granny" Kehoe would have paid us a visit to our rented home on the Rathgar Road in Dublin to help her daughter. I have no memory of this visit of course but know about it since she told me later that I looked like "a little sausage". This probably referred to the fact that I weighed scarcely 4 lbs at birth.

I vividly recall a train trip taken around 1948 accompanied by my mother, my sister Anne and probably my younger sister Geraldine. My brothers John and Eddie had yet to bestride the world stage. We departed from the old Harcourt Street Railway Station in Dublin on a Wexford bound train. No doubt we were jumping out of our skins with the excitement of it all, this being I'm pretty sure our first time on a train. We were off to see "Granny" and the Great Aunts. On reflection this would be a good name for a rock group but I digress. We had breakfast on the train in the dining car full of tables replete with white linen table cloths, good chinaware and silverware. None of your paper plates, plastic cutlery or styrofoam beverage containers in the good old days. We had as I recall the full Irish breakfast of rashers, eggs, and pork sausages. The trip took a while since the train stopped at every station on the way but this did not dampen our enthusiasm because of the sheer novelty of it all. The excitement was palpable as we pulled into Wexford Station with a clear view of the Irish Sea.

At that time my grandmother lived above the shop at 16 North Main Street where my mother had been born. After my grandfather John F. Kehoe passed away , his youngest son, our Uncle Pádraig, took over the business and lived above the shop with his mother. He would later marry Lily Doran who I recall as an Audrey Hepburn look-alike in her younger days. My grandfather had built a successful drapery, retail shoe, and auctioneering business during his lifetime. Unfortunately after he departed this mortal coil the business went downhill due no doubt to the travails of the postwar Irish economy. Jobs were scarce and the only option for many was to take the boat to England, America or Australia. Indeed after the business on 16 North Main Street in Wexford went south,Uncle Pádraig and his family departed for Albion's shores like many an Irish family during these hard economic times. This would mean that "Granny" Kehoe would come to live with us for long periods of time and I can tell you this gladdened our hearts even if we had to share her with my mother's siblings and their families in England from time to time. Apart from Uncle Pádraig who lived in Wexford during our visit, my mother's only sister, my godmother Aunt Kay, and her husband Dan Guilfoyle  owned and operated a grocery store in Stafford, England. Another sibling my Uncle Wally and his family lived in Cheshire, England where he worked as a quantity surveyor. Only my mother and Uncle Gerald, a civil engineer with Kerry County Council, remained in Ireland out of the five living siblings. Sadly they are all gone now but remain in our memories.

However returning to our visit to Wexford,at which time I would have been a 3 or 4 year old, I find it curious that I have no recollection of the return train trip to Dublin. Us children were no doubt doted on by "Granny" and the grand aunts . It was exciting to be living above the store,albeit for a wee while, and I recall racing down the stairs to see the customers coming in and out to make purchases. My grandmother helped out in the business. Wexford was originally a Viking settlement like many Irish towns and cities with narrow streets and passageways from the Main Street leading down to the harbor. My grandmother's description of Wexford was "narrow streets and proud people". Nearby was a Franciscan Friary where my mother, who had a lovely voice, sang solo at times in the Church attached to the Friary. The Friars would ring the bells when they ran out of food, the Franciscans being one of the mendicant orders. People would leave their houses and bring them food . As a quid pro quo the good Friars administered to the people's spiritual needs. They had a great influence on my mother's family and Uncle Ger at one time felt he had a vocation to become a Franciscan and was enrolled as a boarder in the Franciscan preparatory college at Multyfarnham in County Westmeath. He subsequently discerned that life as a friar was not for him.

   The  Bullring ,  in Wexford Town, which my grandmother mentioned in some of her tales. The statue depicts a pikeman from the 1798 United Irishmen rebellion against the English oppressor.  

All the while I knew my grandmother she was plagued with severe rheumatoid arthritis and ambulated with the aid of two walking sticks, one in each crippled hand. She was a great example of patience in adversity and I don't recall her ever bewailing her lot. She set an example for her grandchildren when they were beset with various maladies as adults . My eldest sister Anne inherited, unfortunately, the same rheumatoid arthritic condition from "Granny" but she too acquired the same patience and acceptance in adversity. When "Granny" came to us on one of her extended visits she had to ascend the stairs  to get to her bedroom. She was able, as I recall, to make it down the stairs under her own steam albeit it on a festina lente basis but she needed help to get up the stairs. As I was the eldest it was often my task to help her. She would assume a sitting position near the bottom of the stairs and I would place my arms under her arms near the shoulder and scootch her up stair by stair until we reached the top. All the time she would be extolling my strength with words like "You are so strong, Pierce" and I would be bursting my shirt buttons with pride. I would have been maybe 12 years old at the time. She spent a lot of the time praying her Rosary and would also join us in frequently said family Rosaries. A priest would often visit to bring her the Holy Eucharist and to chat with her. No doubt, like the rest of us, she had her human failings but I am certain she is in Heaven with her deceased loved ones having spent 99 years in this vale of tears , much of the time in physical pain, and being a big and  a joyous part of our lives. She would have lived through the 1916 Easter Rising, the subsequent War of Independence, and the Civil War of 1922-1923. She did speak about seeing the notorious "Black and Tans" in Wexford, a British "terrorist" outfit who perpetrated many atrocities in Ireland including burning the town of Balbriggan, County Dublin, to the ground and killing civilians. She would have sided with the Anti-treaty side during the Civil War judging by her fondness for De Valera or "Dev" as she referred to him. "Up Dev" she would opine which probably got my father's goat as he was a devotee of Fine Gael, the political successors of the Pro-Treaty side during the Irish Civil War. Later on I found out that David Kent, a surviving brother of the patriot Thomas Kent was strongly Anti-Treaty and I disagreed with my father's position. Not that I was a fan of De Valera who broke with Sinn Fein and entered the Dáil (Parliament) as the leader of a "slightly constitutional party" called Fianna Fail(Soldiers of Destiny). David Kent did the right thing and refused to surrender his principles. I have nothing but admiration for this man. At that time neither politics nor politicians would have been important to us children.  The priorities for the boys would have been Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy or Davy Crockett and other heroes of the Wild West. Anne and Geraldine would have had their interests too. Common to us all was an enthusiasm for our grandmother's ghost stories. We all went to bed at the same time and kept the bedroom doors open so we could shout out "Granny, tell us a ghost story!". The stories would raise the hairs on our heads but we enjoyed the thrill of a good ghostly tale. Some of them had a surprise ending. One tale involved her husband John F. Kehoe as a young lad walking home to the family farm from Wexford at night. Darkness was falling as he set out on the trek home. After a while he heard the clanking of chains behind him. Even though he was scared to look around he did so and saw two red eyes glowing in the dark. He started to run but the bearer of the chains behind him kept pace with him. When he would stop the sound of chains  would stop and when he commenced his journey the clanking of chains would start up again. Exhausted he eventually reached the farm kitchen door and ran in. Behind him was a billy goat with a chain around it's neck. Apparently the old goat had broken his tether and had followed my grandfather for miles. After the scary part of the story we children had a good laugh. Another story involved a dying man, a Protestant rack renter of a landlord, and one of my grandmother's relatives who was looking after him as he awaited the grim reaper . I remember being told of clanking chains and "Old Nick" coming for a soul. Scary stuff indeed. Yes my Grandmother Kehoe presented us with many good memories. One is reminded of one of Thomas Moore's melodies taught to me in school by the inimitable Father Seán Hutchinson S.J., who conducted the choir at my preparatory school in Dublin:


"Oft in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken,
The eyes that shone
Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus in the stilly night,
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me"

To this day the only tune I know by heart on the piano in my one fingered style is a little bit of Dave Brubeck's Take Five and I have my grandmother to thank for that. She loved her County Wexford and it's heroes of 1798: Father Murphy of Vinegar Hill and Kelly the Boy from Killane. When she lived with us the great Wexford hurling team which won the McCarthy Cup in 1955 and 1956 were in their halcyon days. Some of our and "Granny's" heroes were hurlers like the Rackard brothers, Padge Kehoe, Ned Wheeler, Nick O'Donnell and Art Foley who starred in that mighty Wexford team.The record attendance for an All Ireland Hurling final involved Cork and Wexford in 1954 when a crowd of just under 85,000 came to Croke Park for the game which saw the legendary Christy Ring win an 8th All Ireland medal as he lead Cork to a narrow win. I am sure my paternal grandfather Pierce Kent, a native of Fermoy, Co. Cork, was happy with the outcome even if my Wexford grandmother was not. "Granny" had a playful nature and when we egged her on she would half remove her false teeth with her tongue and make an eerie sound. We got a thrill out of this.

When we were living in Dundrum, in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains(really an extension of the Wicklow chain) our grandmother was on one of her extended visits. One day a colorful character we had dubbed the "Blah Blah man" was on his rounds as a door to door peddler of knick knacks such as combs, hair clips and the like. The "Blah Blah man" had a penchant for muttering loudly to himself and hence his nickname. My mother could see him from the front window approaching the house and being short of change hid under the stairs hoping the peddler would move on. Getting no answer the "Blah Blah man" went around to the back door and peered in the window. "Granny" Kehoe was ensconced in the kitchen reading the newspaper and the kettle was steaming on the stove. The peddler knocked on the window but "Granny" ignored him and continued with her reading probably because she was petrified. The "Blah Blah man " departed and went into to see our neighbor Haddie Enright remarking in his thick brogue that "the young wan was out and the ould geezer was sitting in a chair with the kittle staymin and staymin away" . Later my mother and Haddie had a great laugh about it.

Agnes R. Kehoe, our "granny", had a long life and retained her sharpness to the end. As a new arrival on the shores of Amerikay I was pleased to receive a letter from her full of news and good wishes. Unfortunately the letter is not in my possession and I reget that fact. I have nothing but fond memories of a woman who had lived through turbulent times in Ireland, suffered from painful rheumatoid arthritis for much of her life, helped raise a good family and through all the vicissitudes of her earthly life retained a strong faith in God and a good sense of humor.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam dilis.(May her faithful soul rest on God's right hand)

Sunset at Wexford, my Grandmother's birthplace and also the home town of Commodore John Barry known as "the founder of the American Navy".

Eddie goes to school

Eddie is shown in the above photograph at the age he would have been when attending Muckross Park Dominican Primary School.

My father, myself, Geraldine and Anne from left to right on holidays in Rush, Co Dublin in the early 1950s or late 1940s.
 

Is  cuimhin liom go maith nuair a bhíos óg. I remember well when I was young. My youngest brother Edmond Martin Kent would have celebrated his 62nd birthday two days ago on April 3rd. It is hard to believe it has been almost two years since Eddie as he was known to all and sundry passed on. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis. He was a generous and kindly soul with a touch of the poet in him. Which gets me back to what I wanted to write about in this particular piece: Muckross Park Dominican Convent School in Donnybrook, Dublin,  where both of my younger brothers John and Eddie started their academic pursuits in the 1950s. Today it is an all girls non fee paying secondary school with high academic requirements. Girls have to be 11 years  of age to start now. Both of my sisters Anne and Geraldine attended the school back in the 1950s aged 8 and 6 respectively before completing their secondary education elsewhere. My father's job was such that we moved around Ireland for several years. I also had the dubious pleasure of attending this school for a year circa 1952. It was here that I made my First Confession and First Communion. Back then the Muckross Dominicans accepted primary school age children including Junior Infants, Senior Infants and First Grade for boys. Senior Infants sounds  like an oxymoron upon reflection.No doubt the Senior Infants lorded it over the Junior Infants. From memory the girls in the primary school wore blue uniforms and the secondary school girls wore green. The ethos of the school was Catholic/Dominican then as it is now. A denizen of the convent where the young Kents learned their three "Rs" was a first cousin three times removed Mother Alphonses OP,  a daughter of Parnell's right hand man Andrew Kettle , a North County Dublin progressive farmer, father of 12 and  a founder of the Irish Land League  and his wife Margaret McCourt. Margaret's sister Catherine was our great great grandmother. Mother Alphonses was a sister of Tom Kettle, a man of many accomplishments, who was killed fighting in the Battle of the Somme  in 1916. Here is a poem he wrote to his infant daughter Elizabeth, a daughter he was never destined to meet:


"THE GIFT OF LOVE
In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown
To beauty proud as was your mother's prime -
In that desired, delayed incredible time
You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own,
And the dear breast that was your baby's throne
To dice with death, and, oh! They'll give you rhyme
And reason; one will call the thing sublime,
And one decry it in a knowing tone.
So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,
And tired men sigh, with mud for couch and floor,
Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
Died not for Flag, nor King, nor Emperor,
But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed,
And for the Secret Scripture of the poor.
Tom Kettle wrote this poem for his infant daughter Betty whom he had never seen. Two days later he was struck by a German bullet and died."

Mother Alphonses would summon her young cousins to her room from time to time for a chat. I don't remember much about the chats but recall getting some candy or "sweets" as we call them in Ireland on these visits. She seemed pretty ancient to young ones like us but nice. I recall she wore black knitted gloves with the fingers cut off. With the title of  Mother I imagine she had held an important position within the Dominican community before old age came upon her. Come to think of it she was probably the reason all of us gained admission to the school .Anne, Geraldine and I  had transferred from the St. Louis nuns in Rathmines and I was going in to the First Grade having completed what was called Senior Infants. Back then if you were below the age for First Grade you were an infant. It is laughable looking back that this terminology was used.

I remember Catechism sessions supervised by a stern Sister Bernadette in preparation for receiving the first sacraments after Baptism. I remember making Christmas cribs out of shoe boxes, cotton wool, and cut out nativity figures from books glued to cardboard  with the Baby Jesus taking pride of place.I remember being a fan of a Miss Kennedy, one of the teachers. I would walk with her to the bus stop at times chatting all the way. I remember having to tell our sins to a nun during a practice "confession" which I can recall being a mite daunting and less preferable than the real thing. When the day came to making our Confession to a priest I remember entering the darkened confessional. There was nothing happening as I knelt down but I noticed a crucifix in the corner and since it had been stressed that we would be confessing our transgressions to God I stood up on the kneeler in the confessional and started telling my sins to the crucifix. Shortly thereafter the priest opened the sliding screen and addressed me whereupon I made my First Confession in the manner which had been drilled into us.. A week later I received my First Eucharist wearing a new grey suit . The school provided my parents and I with a nice breakfast after the Mass: sausage, rashers of bacon, and an egg. The rest of the day was spent parading around to the neighbors and getting three penny or six penny coins or bits as we called them. Some neighbors gave out holy pictures of the saints in lieu of cash. I was happy with whatever was given. Holy pictures were like baseball cards to us back then. A Protestant neighbor, Mrs Cord, gave me a holy picture. She must have been expecting my visit. At the end of that school year I "graduated" from Muckross Park School and bid a fond adieu to the Dominican nuns. Later my young brother Eddie would attend there. As has been told to me since,  he was taken there on his first day as a Junior Infant by my father who had a day off work. My father dropped him off in the Junior Infants classroom with his teacher and departed to catch a bus into the Dublin City Center. As he approached the bus stop he heard little footsteps behind him. Lo and behold it was Eddie who decided he was already tired of school after a minute or so and made his escape. My father laughed and rather than bundle him back to "academia" took him into Dublin on the bus where no doubt Eddie got to drink Club Orange and eat Tayto Crisps while my father "skulled" a few pints of stout and perhaps put a few shillings on the nags in a bookie shop as he was wont to do like many Irishmen of his day. The next day Eddie did go to school.

                                 
                     Aungier Street in Dublin in the 1950s. Bicycles and Double Deckers.

 I am initiating my new blog spot on this Holy Thursday 2012 as an exercise in my Computer Basics 2 class. 'Tis hard to teach an old dog new tricks but this old dog has learned a new trick or two thanks to good instruction. Now you can expect me to expound on anything and everything under the Sun in due course. For to-day I am content to be brief. Watch out tomorrow.