Remembering Gurranes

My blog name Gurranes relates to the townland where I was born. It is located in the parish of Tuosist, which starts about eight miles west of Kenmare, a fairly large town in the southern part of County Kerry. My father was a sheep farmer in Gurranes when he married my mother, a returned Yank, who spent eleven years employed as a domestic worker in New York. She was very attached to her parents, who lived in Canfie, a different area of Tuosist, and she was on her third trip home when she met and married my father.

Ireland was predominantly an agricultural country at that time; most families lived in small farms, eking out a frugal existence because the prices paid for livestock were notoriously low. However, farmers had the big advantage of growing their own vegetables and providing their own milk and poultry for their children. Families of laborers and small shopkeepers in the towns often experienced more poverty than their country counterparts. Still, my father sold the farm in Gurranes before I reached my fourth birthday, and we moved to a new house a half mile from Kenmare. He never fancied sheep farming, and my mother was determined that, somehow, her children would get a good education, which was more available, after national school, in the towns than in isolated country areas.

I have a few clear – and happy – memories of my years in Gurranes. Our house was located about three hundred yards from the main road from Kenmare to Castletown, a town in County Cork, which was about the same distance west from Gurranes as Kenmare was in the other direction. Above the house was mostly mountain, with some reclaimed fields where the few milch cows grazed. Below the house, in my memory, was a meadow, stretching in a steep decline to the road. Somehow, I recall rolling down that field on a bright summer day, gamboling, enjoying myself thoroughly. I also remember a clear sense of positive expectation for candy or chocolate from my mother returning from Kenmare on the Castletown bus on a Wednesday, the market day in Kenmare. That Wednesday bus service continued until the 1970’s.

Our nearest neighbours were the Healys. Their house was located directly across the road from the bottom of our lane, and both families were and still are close friends. Evidently, I would make my way down the lane and across the road, causing some consternation in both families because of the danger of crossing the road unattended. So I was warned that a motor car might come by and kill the baby. My childish response to this was mo ca come and kill bobee. For many years afterwards when the families met, I would be greeted humorously by something like “Oh my God! Look at himself! mo ca come and kill bobee!”

I have one other distinct memory of my childhood visits to Mike and Josephine Healy’s house, and that involves my effort to consume a boiled egg. I was more than three years old, but, I felt very frustrated because it seemed the more I scooped the white part of the egg, the more egg there was separating me from reaching the shell and finishing the meal – a similar feeling to climbing a hill in a dream and never reaching the top.

Mike Healy died many years ago, a wonderful man who was always very positive in dealing with our family. Josephine is still alive and healthy. I visited with her in Kenmare Hospital when I was in Kerry in October. Aileen was with me, and Josephine was typically gracious by directing her attention to my wife to make sure that she felt comfortable. She told Aileen that she got a fine man, but my wife gave no indication that she was impressed!! Josephine will not change her mind now!!