Kent Homecoming courtesy of "The Gathering 2013"

Kate with Killiney Bay and the Sugarloaf in the background. In 1975 while we were courting we climbed the Sugarloaf.

Standing at the threshold of Donore Hills graveyard in the Boyne Valley, County Meath. Kate's 6 times great grandfather Luke Connolly is interred here as can be verified by the records of Slane Historical Society. Kate's first cousin several times removed was born in Slane. He was Bishop John Connolly OP, first de facto Roman Catholic Bishop of New York.

Myself, my only surviving brother John and his wife Bernadette outside Schull, Co Cork en route to Bantry.

                         THE GATHERING TRIP APRIL 2013.

        

I must confess I did not become aware of “The Gathering” until the early Fall of 2012 when I was watching TV as my favorite college gridiron team Notre Dame duked it out with Navy at the Aviva Stadium in my hometown  Dublin. During the telecast commercials referring to “The Gathering” were being shown during breaks in the action. A day or two later when surfing the web I came across an invitation on “The Gathering” site to enter a competition with the prize being a trip for four to Ireland for the 2013 "Gathering". To enter the competition one was asked merely to pen in 300 words or so why one should be invited over for the "Gathering". I gave a brief synopsis of how and where I met the lovely lass who was to became my wife and anam cara(soulmate) and told about my interest in tracing my wife's Irish ancestors. To further elaborate,  the story begins in the late winter of 1975 outside the Bank of Ireland on College Green after an afternoon of carousing.  I was supposed to take a law exam that morning but had mistakenly thought the exam was in the afternoon and had arrived at an empty examination hall where I was informed that the test had been given that morning. Obviously I was chagrined to put it mildly and decidedly unhappy with myself for getting the exam time wrong. I had really been cramming for the test. After I left the examination venue I bumped into a family friend and his new wife. We retired to a quayside hotel bar, the name of which the march of time has eliminated from memory, and had some frothy libations which helped me forget my woes after a while. When I bid adieu to my friend and his wife I headed towards the "corner" at Leeson Street via the Bank of Ireland whereupon I first set eyes on the attractive green eyed American  girl with whom fate had ordained I was to fall in love  and to wed later that year. Our eyes met moments after I had staggered out of an alley next to the venerable Bank of Ireland edifice on College Green and I said hello. She was very friendly and we engaged in conversation. I invited her for a cup of coffee and when she accepted the invitation I  hailed a taxi with alacrity and directed the driver to drop us at a pub then known as "Brannigan's" on Parnell Street where the cup of coffee was soon forgotten and some stronger beverages were enjoyed. Kate proved to be a wonderful drinking companion and delightful company. I mentioned my first encounter with her  in my competition entry along with the fact that as a keen genealogist and amateur historian I had traced her father’s family roots back to County Roscommon. Her maiden name was Kate Conley, with Conley being one of the many Anglicized variations of the Irish name O Conghaile. At the  moment I first set eyes on her, I was as previously related, en route to O’Dwyers Pub on the renowned "corner" of Leeson Street to meet up with some of my student comrades.  The Goddess of Fate had intervened and I thank my lucky stars for that. Kate has stood by me through the rough and the smooth times for 38 years. Thankfully I had made a good recovery from severe health setbacks and two major surgeries in recent years and we felt ready for a trip back to my native land . We have been blessed with two lovely daughters Siobhán and Mary Brigid. Mary Brigid or Bridie as we call her is married to Bill Bereza, a recent law school graduate, and they live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Through them  we have a grandson Oisín who has given us great delight and we are looking forward to meeting his little sister and our  new granddaughter when she arrives on the world's stage later this merry month of May. Bridie and Bill have decided on the name Maeve for her, after the legendary Queen of Connacht  .

When I submitted my entry I truthfully gave it no further thought. A good friend of mine from Derry, had been hospitalized for a second time in a short span of time and passed away shortly after his admission on October 8th 2012. We had been good friends since his arrival in the United States almost 35 years ago.Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam. Shortly after this very sad loss for his family and many friends I found out that I was the lucky winner of "The Gathering" competition.  I was naturally ecstatic, never having won anything of this significance in a lifetime. It was an easy decision to ask my late friend’s widow Pat to come to Ireland along with  her designated fellow traveler, her sister Eileen Malone. Pat had first met her future Irish born spouse James in Durty Nelly’s Pub in Bunratty, County Clare when she was over as a tourist in 1977. She is a native Michigander with Irish roots . Another sister of Pat’s Edna and her husband Jim, friends of ours also, booked flights on the same Aer Lingus flight from Chicago to Dublin  so we had great company for our homecoming journey. Having been pre-booked into hotels of our choosing in Dublin, Athlone, Castlebar and Inniscrone, County Sligo for the seven days generously paid for by “The Gathering” we were ready to enjoy Ireland. We had arranged to stay almost 3 weeks since Kate and I along with Pat and Eileen had relatives and in-laws to visit after the seven days taken care of by the Gathering prize. After Inniscrone Kate and I said our good byes to Pat, Eileen, Edna and Jim. During our seven days together we did pack in a lot of sightseeing highlighted by visits to Kilmainham Gaol, Joyce’s Tower in Sandycove, Clonmacnoise, Athlone Castle, the Deserted Famine Village on Achill, the Neolithic field system and soon to be UNESCO world heritage site at Ceide Fields on the coast of North Mayo as well as some delightful pubs and eating places. For our good friend Pat a sentimental side trip to Durty Nelly’s in Bunratty had to be on the agenda albeit bittersweet. Luckily the day we visited there were three dolphins cavorting in the tidal river outside Durty Nelly’s. This had drawn hundreds of onlookers to the village and I’m sure the local businesses benefited particularly Durty Nelly’s.

When Kate and I first became acquainted my father was living in Balbriggan, County Dublin and I had taken Kate down several times. The first time stands out. My father made her a boiled egg for breakfast and placed it in an egg cup as is usual in Ireland. This practice unbeknownst to myself and my father was not prevalent in Kate's home state of Michigan. She removed the egg from the cup and proceeded to crack it open with a spoon which bemused my father and amused me. My father in later years  sold the residence in Balbriggan to the Irish rugby international Johnny Fortune and moved to Naas. While we were back recently for the Gathering trip we spent a night at the Bracken Hotel in Balbriggan since we had been visiting the nearby Donore Hills graveyard looking for the gravestone of Kate's 6 times great grandfather Luke Conoly. After an evening meal in the hotel we decided to dander up to my father's old house. Kate took a photograph and since darkness had descended the camera flash drew the attention of Johnny Fortune's son-in-law who emerged from the house. I told him that I had lived in the house some years ago. He was a friendly sort and invited us both in to meet the owner Johnny Fortune, his wife, and his daughter. We had a nice time visiting with  the Fortunes, their daughter and son-in-law. We were served cups of tea and apple tart a la mode.The Fortunes were a great advertisement for Irish hospitality and if you will excuse the pun it was our good fortune to be a recipient of this hospitality. Johnny scored a famous try, as touchdowns are called in Rugby Football ,against the New Zealand All Blacks in 1963 when Ireland led 5-3 until the referee awarded the visitors a disputed penalty which unfortunately was goaled by the great Don Clarke and gave the men from the land of the long white cloud the victory 6-5. A photograph of Johnny's touchdown hangs on the wall in his home.

We worked with Amanda Kavanagh and Anne-Marie Taylor in making our "homecoming" arrangements and both have been a joy to work with and very kind. "The Gathering" are well served by these two lovely ladies. We are grateful to "The Gathering" for the prize and making all the flight and hotel arrangements. It meant the world to Kate and myself and also to our friends Pat and Eileen to visit Ireland at this particular time. Go raibh mile maith agaibh Amanda, Anne-Marie and all involved at the "Gathering".

Green Butter and Pink Butter Sandwiches. Yum Yum!

Green Butter and Pink Butter Sandwiches. Yum Yum!

I guess the above title for this particular vignette of a boyhood in the 1950s, growing up at Wyckham Park,outside Dundrum Village in the shadow of the Dublin Mountains, is as relevant as others that come to mind. My bespectacled friend Dennis Cahalane or "Caha" as we dubbed him made his family's house and garden a welcome rendezvous for our gang which included myself, my brothers John and Eddie, the Kennys, the Henseys, the Higgins lads and other chaps mentioned in previous scéalta. Dennis's mother Evelyn was a Mayo woman who was a close relative, perhaps a sibling, of Eamonn Mongey the great Mayo Gaelic football star who played midfield and center half back on the great 1950/1951 Mayo teams which won  All Ireland Gaelic Football Championships back to back. Sad to say Mayo have not won the Sam Maguire Cup since then although they were in this year's final losing to Donegal.  In later years I would run into Eamonn Mongey in his capacity as Probate Registrar in Dublin's Four Courts while I was a solicitor's(lawyer's) apprentice with my Uncle Jim who was in practice at 18 Saint Andrew Street, Dublin. My wife Kate also worked for my Uncle Jim briefly prior to our marriage in the United States. Eamonn Mongey passed away in 2007 after a distinguished career in public service. But I digress. Dennis's father was from Cork and a captain in the Irish Army. He had two sisters. Sheila was the eldest and the name of the "young wan" escapes me although Denise seems to ring a bell. In addition there was a cat known as "Bobby Socks" Cahalane who resided with the family and whose litter box was in the garage. This pompous feline had it's own special swinging door built into the back door of the garage where it could come and go as it pleased. It was  Dennis's back yard which provided the main venue for the impromptu Wyckham Park "Olympics" which we organized one year. Without wishing to appear boastful this was my brainchild fueled by a love of chocolate bars and other sweetshop goodies. Money would be collected from all the participants in advance, delectable sweets such as Cadbury's Chocolate, Crunchies, Aero Bars, Smarties and the like would be purchased with the proceeds, and these would serve as prizes for the various events such as the mile run, sprints, long jump, high jump, and triple jump which we included in our "Olympiad". I was at this stage the top runner in Wyckham Park and a decent jumper so I made out like a bandit winning the lion's share of the aforementioned goodies. John and Eddie no doubt were beneficiaries of my winnings too.

My friend "Caha" went to the same Jesuit preparatory school as I did: Gonzaga College on Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin. He was a class behind me. We would travel to school together on occasion taking the 48A bus. As I recall the bus stop was outside his front door on the Ballinteer Road . The game of importance at Gonzaga College was Rugby and I took to it like a duck to water. It was my favorite sport ranking just above running for me. I did like most other sports too but they paled in comparison to those I mentioned in my estimation although in later years after we had moved to Thurles, County Tipperary, I regretted the fact that I had not taken up Hurling earlier. In order to become proficient in this sport it helps to be born in a hotbed of this great sport like Tipperary where children pick up the camán shortly after they learn to walk. In my view Hurling and Rugby Union are the two best field games to play and watch. In Gonzaga I played on the successive underage Rugby teams, usually as center threequarter, from the under 8s through to the under 12s before our family moved to Thurles and Rugby became no longer an option. Our opponents in these matches included St Mary's, Willow Park, De La Salle Churchtown, St. Conleth's and Belvedere. A player who joined our team after I had been there a few years Con Feighery later played for Ireland as did his older brother Tom. The Feigherys lived on a farm in Dunboyne, Co. Meath, so they had a long commute to school each day. Later they moved to another Jesuit school Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare. A class or two ahead of me was the late Barry Bresnihan who became an Irish and Lions rugby star as well as a world renowned rheumatologist who treated my sister Anne in later years.  My father Gerry , sister Geraldine and perhaps my eldest sister Anne would come to some of the weekend matches to watch me play. We played against other school teams or practiced on Wednesdays and  Saturdays when we had  half days. One of our coaches Father O'Connell was in the mold of Vince Lombardi and would chew out ball hogs like Dennis Quilligan during practice sessions. Quilligan played scrum half and was oblivious to the fact that there were six other members of the backfield waiting for him to pass the ball. During class Father O'Connell rather than teaching us whatever subject he was supposed to  would have those on the rugby team gather around the board while he diagrammed rugby tactics on the blackboard. Talk about your Xs and Os; this man was a fanatic. The non rugby players would be told to study their books. Another priest who coached us would write a report of the previous inter school match and when he lauded your performance in writing and placed the report in the lunch room for all to see one would beam with pride. One time during practice Tony O'Reilly, the famous Ireland and Lions Wing threequarter and one of our heroes was invited in to give us a few tips. We paid rapt attention to the great Tony. The Jesuits were great encouragers to be sure whether in  academics or sports. Our school motto was Ad maiorem Dei gloriam  which means "to the greater glory of God". All the teachers that I remember were Jesuit priests with one exception: Signor Volpi, a short squat temperamental Italian, who taught us French. I remember the textbooks used En Marche (Cours de Francais I and II) by E. Saxelby. The books related the goings on of the Lepine family. One character in the book was named Toto but I cannot remember if this was a young lad or a family dog. The other sports played at Gonzaga were cricket in the summer and tennis. Neither game was to my liking but I did compete in the school sports and won prizes in the 100 yards and 220 yard dashes. Unfortunately one time the prizes I won were a cricket bat and a cricket ball. As mentioned cricket was not a game to my taste but to my mind any sport is better than none at all so I did make use of the bat and ball in Wyckham Park for a time during the summers.
Gonzaga College was on the same grounds as Milltown Park, a Jesuit training college and outside one of the school gates  was another Jesuit  institution then known as the Catholic Workers College.Taking classes there was Dennis Larkin, a son of the great James Larkin, General Secretary of the Workers Union of Ireland. This union had in its earlier days been affiliated with the pro-Soviet Red International of Labor Unions but had  entered the mainstream of the Irish Trade Union movement in the 1930s. During my time at Gonzaga my uncle Father Edmond Kent S.J. was rector of the Catholic Workers College. Subsequently the name was changed to the College of Industrial Relations.

                                         

Gonzaga College Building.

 

The years at Gonzaga were enjoyable. Academics for me were regulated to the sideline and sport and the craic were uppermost in my mind at this time. Apart from "Caha", schoolmates I remember were Michael Laffan, Adrian Kenny, Finnbarr Lloyd, John Murphy, Richard Rice, Dermot O'Brien, Alexis Fitzgerald, Esmonde Smythe, Brian Ruttledge, Stephen and Alphonses O'Mara, Michael Algar and Peter Deevey. I must have been one of the youngest in the class since lads in the class below me like Peter Sutherland, Conor Feighery , Dennis Quilligan and Gareth Sheehan were on the same underage rugby teams as I was. At least that is my recollection. I remember Richard Rice at age 9 or 10 having running spikes when the rest of us were running in bare feet or tennis shoes. Richard was a serious runner and fast enough too. A good friend was Finnbarr Lloyd who sadly passed away a few years ago while at a horse racing meet in the Philippines.  One of the kudos of being a schoolboy in Gonzaga was the availability of cheap season tickets to all Leinster branch rugby games both schools and club games. International match tickets for schoolboys were also readily available and I and "Caha" availed of the opportunity to get our paws on these. One game I can remember well is Ireland v. France in 1955. The great Jean Prat, a wing forward, from the Lourdes club was the pillar of the French team which won 5-3 that day. Other French stars were  Michel Vannier, the full back, and Maurice Prat, a brother of Jean in the center. Included in  the Irish team were the great Jack Kyle, his cousin Noel Henderson, Tony O'Reilly, John O'Meara, Jim McCarthy, Marney Cunningham, and A.C. Pedlow. "Caha" and me were  in the standing room terrace behind the goalposts at the Landsdowne Road end of the ground among some vociferous Frenchmen in red berets who appeared to have some strong drink taken and were in high spirits. We enjoyed their good humored carry on . On the way into the ground there was a mighty throng of rugby fans and the crush was such that we were a little panicky. I remember "Caha's" spectacles were almost falling from his head as the throng moved towards the stadium entrance with "Caha" actually lifted off the ground by the crowd.  He could not raise his hands to put his eyeglasses straight but in the heel of the hunt he was able to keep them on  and to see the match. "Caha" without his glasses would have been a veritable Mr Magoo. A year before we were in the same predicament for the Ireland v. Wales game when we saw the crowd behind us part to make way for a black limousine. We heard someone opine " It is the old shite himself". When the limousine drew level with us we could see a ramrod straight individual with thick glasses looking straight ahead and sure enough it was De Valera, who was Taoiseach(Prime Minister) at the time. In 1956 we saw the great Jack Kyle play what I think was his last game for Ireland when Wales were beaten 11-6. Kyle dropped a great goal from 45 yards out at an acute angle that day. "Caha" and I were in our usual spot behind the goalposts that day. Beside us were some drunken Welshman shouting " Come on the bloody onions!". Later we understood they were referring to the Welsh team whose emblem was an onion relative: the leek. The banter on the terrace added greatly to the occasion.

                 " Before the match was over, before the whistle blew

                    Henderson got the ball and up the wing he flew

                    He passed the ball to O'Reilly and O'Reilly brought it through

                    and that was the great defeat of the bloody English crew"

The legendary half back Doctor Jack Kyle runs at Wales. Kyle was voted Irish player of the 20th Century and is a member of the International Rugby Hall of Fame. 

Two Jesuits who I fondly recall during the few years I spent there were Father Leahy and Father Seán Hutchinson. The former priest taught us Geography in my first year there as an 8 year old. My classmates for some strange reason found the names of two African Rivers: the Limpopo and the Zambezi absolutely hilarious. When Father Leahy mentioned these rivers one of us would start chanting:

          

“The Limpopo, the Limpopo, the Limpopo,

 The Zambezi, the Zambezi, the Zambezi”

Father Leahy would try to suppress a grin which would only encourage us to keep up the crazy chant. Eventually order would be restored. Father Leahy was a new Jesuit and perhaps we took advantage of him but he kept his good humor. Fair play to  him. Father Seán Hutchinson came to Gonzaga from another Jesuit School Coláiste Iognáid in Galway where instruction was through the medium of the Irish language. He taught Irish and was our singing teacher or rather choirmaster. A lady would play the piano and the inimitable Father Seán would lead us in belting out patriotic songs such as :A Nation Once Again, O'Donnell Abú, Kelly of Killane, the Bold Fenian Men, Kevin Barry, The Mountains of Pomeroy, On Carrighdoun, Boolavogue and many more including songs as Gaeilge such as Cill Cais, Maidrín Ruadh, and Trasna na dtonnta. We may not have been the Vienna Boys Choir but we had fun and sang with gusto. One of his expressions was "Tá mé ar buile libhse" which can be translated as "I'm mad at ye". This would be said with a smile on his face when we maybe became a little inattentive . There was not a mean bone in his body and he was a very witty and good humored priest. He certainly contributed greatly to the enjoyment of my time at Gonzaga College. Other Jesuits teaching at the school back then were a Father Redmond, Father Willie White and our rector Father Charles O'Conor Don who was Chief of the Name of the Clan Ó Conchubhair, titular Prince of Connacht and senior descendant of the last High King of Ireland, Ruairí Ó Conhubhair(O'Conor) who died in 1198 AD.

To get back to the title of this vignette we must return to the Cahalane household. When Dennis's birthday would come around there would be a small party for him at his house with his friends in Wyckham Park invited. Mrs Cahalane would invariably make macaroons with a maraschino cherry adorning the top. I  did not find these too desirable but did go for her piece de resistance which were green and pink butter sandwiches. But for the food coloring used which was in actuality without taste we were eating bread and butter which was a staple back then for all of us. The color lent an exotic touch to the bread and butter. Though there was no discernible difference in taste Mrs Cahalane would ask us whether we wanted a green butter or pink butter sandwich. We invariably sampled both since "variety" was the spice of life. Haute Cuisine could be counted on for a "Caha" party. There are more stories to be told of our days in Wyckham Park, Dundrum in County Dublin but my pen or rather my middle finger on my right hand must go into recovery mode for now. More anon.

The Ballinteer Brats and the "Sanyora"

The Ballinteer Brats and the "Sanyora"

Panoramic view of Ticknock Hill (Tigh an Cnoic) taken from Ballycorus. Ticknock was the place where we would make the trek up from Dundrum to go tobogganing in the 1950s on snowy weekends.

Growing up outside the village of Dundrum in South County Dublin reminds me of the song: "Dublin in the Rare Old Times". For some Dubliners it would have been earlier and for others later but for the children of Gerald and Marguerite Kent  I think we all would concur that  it was the glorious 1950s. Looking back I see nothing but happy times, great adventures , cairde maith (good friends) and great characters. As related previously we had moved to our new home at 12 Wyckham Park outside Dundrum Village in the summer of 1952 where I quickly completed my convalescing from my mild bout with rheumatic fever. Soon  after  my recovery I was  in school at the Dominican nuns in Muckross Park in Ranelagh with my sisters Anne and Geraldine. That school year would see me make my First Communion. John was a toddler and Eddie was just about to make his escape from the pram so school was in their not too distant future in 1952. New neighbours moved in next door: the Enrights. Gerry was the father and Haddie was the mother. They had three children: Michael, Deirdre and Anne. Also living with them was an au pair lass from Cooraclare, County Clare named Teresa McCormack who had a great laugh. Mrs Enright was also from Clare and a very nice lady who with her husband Gerry became  good friends of my parents. Michael Enright was older than our other friends in the Wyckham Park "gang" but we came to admire him for his pipe bomb making skills. He and his pal Michael Errity would pass on their expertise to us in later years. We set off these small bombs for the innocent thrill of it . Nascent demolition men we certainly were not. I remember going into the hardware store as a 9 or 10 year old for weedkiller(Sodium Chlorate) "for my father's garden"which we would mix with saltpetre, sulphur  and sugar , to the best of my recollection looking back over a half century or more ago, before putting this explosive mixture into a length of copper or lead pipe "found" near the houses being built in the vicinity. We would then close the pipe at both ends and make a small  hole  with a hammer and nail in the middle for the fuse which was a trail of the aforesaid explosive mixture. We would then light a match and run for cover diving into the nearest hole. We were foolhardy chaps looking back and could have suffered serious injury but our guardian angels were looking after us well. As I recall the ringleaders may have been the oldest of our friends. It was a time when all ages from 4 to 12 or older were part of the gang with the younger ones taking their cue from the older boys.

These were carefree days and there are many more stories to relate so there will have to be more of these jottings. Our friends in the housing development at Wyckham Park were the Kennys, Keatings, the Higgins family, the Stephens lads from Kilkenny, the Dwyers, the Frees, Maurice Cord, Dennis Cahalane, Kevin Byrne, Andre Brennan, Joe Crammond,the Monks family and the Henseys to name just some. The River Slang, a tributary of the River Dargle bordered the side of  Wyckham Park facing towards the Dublin Mountains where we could see the baleful image of the Hellfire Club ruins and the Pine Forest in the distance. It was on the banks of the Slang  where the battles with our mortal enemies the "Ballinteer Brats" took place with the two sides drawn up in battle formation on opposite banks of the river with stones and sticks at the ready. We all became expert at throwing stones. Indeed at least on one occasion I got beaned with a well aimed stone that left a bump and drew blood. Once in a while the enemy would succeed in crossing the Slang and sometimes we had to flee to our houses to escape the ferocious barrage of stones thrown by the "Ballinteer Brats" or "BBs" as we shortened the name to so as to save our breath. One time we did engage them in hand to hand combat and I remember one of the enemy sitting on my head. I eventually shook him off or one of my compadres pulled him off me. This may have been the time when either Malachy Higgins or Willie Stephens overpowered one of the "BB" warriors and rubbed his face in cow dung. Due to the callowness of youth we experienced a feeling of schadenfreude upon seeing the poor guy's plight.    We fought on waste land not yet built upon where cows would stray from nearby fields and leave their calling cards. We won that particular battle but at other times we had to retreat with discretion being the better part of valor as the old adage goes. In retrospect a casual observer might have seen this as class warfare at the time but we would have not seen it that way. The "BBs" lived in public housing whereas our parents were homeowners in a new development although none of us were wealthy and our families struggled to clothe, feed and give us a good education in the Ireland long before the so called Celtic Tiger of recent years. We were completely satisfied with our lot in life and simple things satisfied us all. To us it was just one set of lads  versus another set of lads and we did not see anything of a socio-economic nature in the ongoing "wars".

Dublin Mountains in winter. Snow was more prevalent in the 1950s.

The River Slang was part of our territory. In its waters we would catch pinkeens in jam jars. Once the pinkeens made the jam jar their days were numbered although this was not the intent. Once they were out of the stream their regular diet was gone and the bread we gave them was no use.  Pinkeens were small fish about the size of sardines with a pink underbelly. We had a swimming hole upstream where we had dammed up the waters with tree limbs and other debris. We enjoyed swimming there until one day some mean soul dumped a dead horse in the stream. The River Slang was also the boundary of our back garden where my father had a great vegetable garden. A path ran from our back door the length of the garden. Once upon a time when "Granny" Kehoe was up visiting from Wexford she ambled down the garden with a walking stick in each hand to see the stream. She encountered what she described as a mentally disturbed women on the opposite bank pointing at the stream and   screaming " the ducks! the ducks! the ducks!". There may have been a few ducks there but "Granny" did not wait to see and being of a somewhat nervous disposition  retreated to the house as fast as her arthritic condition would allow . Obviously the appearance of the crone on the opposite bank of the Slang had somewhat unnerved her.

All our friends went to various schools in  Dublin city or other parts of the south County Dublin. The Keatings attended Catholic University School (CUS) off Saint Stephen's Green in the city where my father and his brothers had attended school for a while. The Kennys and the Higgins lads went to the Christian Brothers at Synge Street in Dublin . Both of these schools had numerous famous alumni. Ron Delaney the 1956 Olympic 1500 meters champion was at CUS. My brother John was attending CUS before we left Dublin for Tipperary some years later while our youngest sibling Eddie was with the nuns at Muckross Park. I went on to the Jesuits at Gonzaga College in Ranelagh after I left the nuns at Muckross Park nearby. Dennis Cahalane also went there. The Frees, Henseys, and Stephens lads went to the De La Salle Brothers in nearby Churchtown. Maurice Cord went to the Protestant school known as The High School in the city. Kevin Byrne was a "water rat" as those who went to Westland Row Christian Brothers School were nicknamed. Kevin was a good friend of mine and he was the ringleader of a gang within a gang which he formed. This was the Davy Crockett gang and Kevin designated himself "Davy Crockett" while I as his sidekick was "George Russell".  The rest of the gang were nameless. One of our gang Brian Kenny came up with a name for a heavy piece of coiled wire about three feet long which we would throw haphazardly on the waste land which adjoined the building site and wherever it landed  we would dig for what we hoped would be buried treasure. More often than not we would find a rusty nail or nothing. Once we unearthed a cow's horn though. Brian suggested the name Senora to give our "treasure" finder a name with an old west flavor. So it became the Senora or "Sanyora" as we pronounced it in our best Texas drawls. We were all aficionados of the Old West in those days. Cowboy suits, Davy Crockett coonskin hats, toy six shooters with holsters, and even Hopalong Cassidy pocket watches were desired items as presents at Christmas time and birthdays. We also were voracious readers of cowboy comics and "annuals". Reading the comics we noted the cowpokes saying "whoa" as they stopped their horses. Instead of pronouncing this word like "woe" we Irish cowboys pronounced the word as "hoo-a" when emulating our heroes like Roy Rogers, Buck Jones, Billy the Kid or Lash LaRue. 
Kevin Byrne had a cousin called Brenda Fricker. If the name sounds familiar it is because she played the mother in My Left Foot. Daniel Day-Lewis played Christy Brown, her son. Brenda won an Academy Award as best supporting actress for her role. Back then she was a blond tomboy who could jump off walls and climb with the best of us. She would visit the Byrnes from time to time and that is why I remember her.

               "Johnston, Mooney and O'Brien make the best bread,

                  bread you can rely on,

               Yes! It's  Johnson , Mooney and O'Brien,

                  for the best baked family pan" (or words to that effect)

There are more stories to be told about the halcyon days in Dundrum during the 1950s and these will follow in future months. One thing that comes to mind, looking back from the perspective of the present time in America where there is an emphasis on "Green Energy", was the number of electric vehicles used to make house deliveries of bread, dry cleaning and other goods in Dublin during the 1950s.  The strangely named Swastika Laundry, Kennedy's Bread and their rival Johnson, Mooney and O'Brien all used electric vans to make deliveries in our neigbourhood. Kennedy's Bread was delivered to us at 12 Wyckham Park. The driver always had the back rollup door opened while going from house to house. We would jump on the back for a ride and occasionally would attempt to purloin a "cream slice", a flaky pastry with real whipped dairy cream and raspberry jam. Once the driver must have completed his deliveries while we were sitting on the back of the van. We ended up not being able to get off for a few miles and had a long walk back for our shenanigans .  I'm sure the driver had a laugh. Served us right I suppose although we were good walkers so there really was no skin off our backs. Milk was delivered by a horse drawn wagon in those days and once when school was not in session I rode with our milkman on a foray through "enemy" territory in Ballinteer where I helped deliver milk for a few pence and had the thrill of getting to hold the reins of the horses.

"The use of the Swastika name for this company was as an ancient symbol of good luck in India; its name originates from the sanskrit svastika."

  The electric van shown above was a common sight in Dublin in the 1950s. The firm had nothing to do with the Nazis and the name was in use before World War II and before anyone had an idea of how evil Herr Hitler would become. Actually according to Wikipedia the laundry was named after a favorite racehorse of the owner with the appellation Swastika Rose. The use of electric delivery vehicles in Dublin at this time goes to show that Ireland may have been at the forefront of the "Green Energy" revolution although I suspect other cities throughout the world were doing the same. On a final note for this particular post we were not customers of the Swastika Laundry but Hughes Brothers Dairy(HB) delivered our dairy products and Kennedy's Bread delivered our batch loaves. To conclude here is a little ditty that we knew and were fond of saying when the bread van would come into view:

" Kennedy's bread
Would kill a man dead
Especially a man
With a baldy head..."

   

   


 

 

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"