The Mains

By Eileen Beck (nee Main)

I was born in the Sigerson Arms Hotel in Ballinskelligs in 1920. I was the second daughter of William Main and Ellen O'Leary. My sister Peggy was 2 years older than me and my sister Kathleen was born in 1922. My mother came from Ballyhar near Killarney. She never really took to living by the sea, preferring the mountains, trees and lakes of Killarney. As children we were often taken back to visit her 'old home', a dairy farm, still in the O’Leary family and thriving to this day.

Unlike my mother, I grew up loving the sea and mountains. Our father taught us how to swim by swimming out from the shore with one of us on his back until we were out of our depth and then threw us off, telling us to 'fire away now!'

William Main was the eldest son of David Main and Brigid Haren. He took on the family business started by his father, David, and Brigid's uncle Patrick Haren. Patrick had originally come from Co. Clare to work in the coast guard station in Ballinskelligs. Patrick built a shop and bar and obtained the licence to run the post office in the shop. His niece Brigid had married David Main. David had come from Falkirk in Scotland to work in the Western Union Cable station. Both David and Brigid died young but Pat Haren lived to a ripe old age.

David built up the business and opened a small hotel next to the shop and bar. My father, William (the eldest of 13 children) carried on expanding the family business, acquiring fishing boats, establishing a small farm (pigs, cattle, and poultry), providing a hackney carriage service and selling petrol. The shop was a general store and pretty much sold everything from crubeens and salted ling to horseshoe nails, shrouds and much more! Tea and sugar came in chests and sacks and had to be weighed out into paper packets.

I grew up in a bustling environment surrounded by extended family and local men and women who worked in the business, some of whom lived in. For example, my mother's sister Mary Ann helped out in the kitchen and a local man, Paddy Curran, became my father's right hand man and both he and Mary Ann had a big influence on my life.

There were always lots of people coming and going, family, friends, guests and commercial travellers. The bar and shop only closed on 3 days of the year: St. Patrick's Day, Good Friday and Christmas Day.

I went to the National school in Ballinskelligs, where in the cold weather, pupils were asked to bring a sod of turf every day to help heat the classroom. We walked to school. Most children left school at 14 and went out to work. When I reached 14 years, I was sent to board at Drishane Convent, near Cork. I was very happy there. The nuns belonged to a French order and we were lucky to be given delicious food, much of it home grown! However, I was less enchanted with studying and was happy to leave at 17 and return home where I looked after my mother who had suffered a series of strokes.

We had a carefree and happy childhood. We were lucky enough to have a grass tennis court - (although we were responsible for cutting the grass and marking out the court ourselves!). This was the source of much arguing between us sisters. I really loved tennis and swimming but my sister Kathleen preferred being out in a boat and was a great oarswoman!

When we were older we enjoyed cycling into Caherciveen to the dances (during the war there was a shortage of petrol). We would cycle the 10 miles there and then the 10 miles home in the morning, have a quick wash and change and go straight into preparing breakfast in the hotel kitchen. We were also taken to all the football matches by my father, including the All-Ireland at Croke Park. This gave me a lifelong passion for football - Gaelic, rugby and later, soccer.

Sadly my mother died when I was only 23 and then my father when I was 29. The three of us daughters took over running the business. I mostly worked on the hotel side of things, supervising the housekeeping and working in the kitchen. Peggy ran the bar and Kathleen, the Post Office. Over the years we formed lasting friendships with many of the families who came to stay in the hotel.

In 1956, while working behind the bar I met Harry Beck from Leicester. He was connected through his late wife to the O'Driscoll family in Caherciveen. My father had been good friends with Mikey O'Driscoll. Following a whirlwind romance, I made one of the biggest decisions of my life to leave home, to marry Harry and move to Leicester in England.

We lived in Leicester for more than 30 happy years bringing up our 6 daughters until Harry's death in 1987. Since 2010 I have lived in Newbury, Berkshire, close to two of my daughters. I had the great good fortune to inherit a house in Ballinskelligs from my father. This enabled us to return every summer holiday to Ballinskelligs when the children were growing up. Now they, along with my grandchildren and great grandchildren continue to love coming to stay in 'Mama's beach house'.