"CAHIREEN" THE FARM

An adaptation of the

Memoir of John Lucey (1884-1978)

Eldest surviving son of Con and Julia (Kelleher) Lucey - penned in 1975

How 'Cahireen' is Situated

Until 1926 the family farmed about one hundred acres of mixed tillage and grazing land, known as 'Cahireen', in the parish of Clondrohid in the County of Cork. They were known as 'Cahireens' because of a fort, or cahir, situated on the land from earliest times, although the official title of the townland is Baranthanaknuck (var. Bawnatanaknock). Canon Peter O'Leary's (1839-1920) place adjoins, just across the river, and any interested reader could not do better than read his book, 'Mo Sgeal Fein', of which there is a good English translation, for particulars of the district and the day-to-day life of its people. It was at Cahireen that I first saw this troubled world in the year 1884.

Cahireen was built a few years before my time. Though plain, it was quite a substantial house for its time, and great pains were taken to make the floor suitable for dancing, especially jigs, reels and hornpipes, and so the first requirement was to get a fine flat flagstone about four feet square for a position in front of the fireplace, and under it the hollow space was to be filled up with several old pots and pans, to give a deep hollow sound when danced upon.

The house is situated almost equally distant from Clondrohid (Cluain Droichead), Carriganima (Carraig an Ime), Ballyvourney (Baile Bhúirne) and Kilnamartyra (Cill na Martra). The market town of Macroom (Maigh Chromtha) is seven miles distant and Millstreet (Sraid an Mhuilin) ten miles. The Kerry border is along the top of a range of mountains to the north-west, having on its near side Gleann Dav, a deep glen containing the fabled resort of Diarmuid and Grainne when they were evading pursuit, and a very safe refuge indeed it was. The Glen is now totally cleared of residential farmers and planted with a couple of thousand acres of fine forest trees. At the top of the range nearby is one of our main television stations.

Ballyvourney, where my mother's people lived for many generations, had much more tradition than Clondrohid parish and retained the language and customs that had become lost in Clondrohid to quite an amazing extent. Ballyvourney honoured St Abbey as a patron saint, and Whit Sunday (Cinncis) was a day of Rounds for adults and of almost riotous enjoyment for the young. They had one day in Ballyvourney, however, that they could well have done without, and is now happily gone, and that is St Abbey's ended up with faction fighting. Fortunately, this is now all ended. Adjoining Ballyvourney on the west is the parish of Coolea (Cúil Aodha). It leads up to the Kerry boundary. It shelters probably the most virile Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking district) in the whole country, including a School for Irish Poetry, consisting entirely of local working farmers, and their families.

Footstep hills rise from our place — to the west Cladagh and to the north Mushera, the latter being in my time an important pattern (or patron) resort in the early summer. Both these mountains have for many generations afforded a very reliable weather forecast for the farmers for many miles around, and I hear that even yet farmers do not quite discard them as reliable weather prognosticators. Clondrohid means the meadow by the bridge. It is also called Gurrane na gCopall (of the place of the horses). Carriganima means the Rock of the Butter, being famous for the flavour of its butter. Several small tributaries of the river Lee rise around here, and all run south-eastwards to join the main stream, and most of them offer good trout fishing.

The farm itself is roughly square-shaped, being bounded on one side by a main road and on the other side by a tributary of the river Lee.

Farming Projects

Cultivation began on March 1st every year. The ground was ploughed into five-sod ridges by a pair of horses, and the potato sets (or scillauns) flung into holes made with a spade by the planter who carried the prepared sets in a knapsack across his shoulder in the fashion of a school-bag. The ground was next prepared for the grain and root crops, but in a very laborious and time-consuming process; but then it did not matter so much, for labour was plentiful and cheap. Next came the turf-cutting and saving work. The turf was on our land and the work was interesting and welcome. The cutting and saving of the hay in the autumn was light and very interesting work, helped along generally by fine and balmy weather. The hay at that time was all cut by scythe — generally by two or three men working in unison who pulled their scythes in unison. The resulting sound was loud and musical.

The Farm Animals

The horse was predominant. What a pity he is being superseded all along the line by noisy machinery. He is generally good-tempered and easy to handle, and gets to know one readily. In fact, even the worst tempered ones have been known to have formed an attachment to their owners that seems nothing less than the love of humans for one another. The mule and jennet are not liked by farmers, and are going out. The mule, of course, is a cross between a female horse and a male donkey, and is noted for its sure-footedness in rough country. The jennets I have seen have been notably bad-tempered. The jennet is a cross between a female donkey and a male horse. Neither will produce offspring, and both are dying out as species. There remains the old reliable and much abused donkey. He is a useful adjunct on the farm, but is generally overloaded and shamefully underfed. He deserves better things and especially better treatment.

Cows are indispensable, not only to the farmer but to urban residents as well, since they are the source of all our milk and butter supplies. In the main they are quiet and easily handled animals, though there are a few I have had to hold while they were being milked. There was one also, a very fine animal in all other respects, who had her calf standing up, and when she had finished flung out both her hind legs with a viciousness that would have killed a mere man if he were in the immediate vicinity.

Calves are interesting creatures. Besides being likeable for their friendly characteristics, they are notably frolicsome. We kept about half a dozen on the farm each year for replacements, but we could never forgive our father for not keeping them all. As regards future breeding of stock, I saw an item in the paper a few days ago where an English farmer has started crossing the Yak (a Himalayan animal, but not a cow) with an ordinary English cow. The resulting animal is large and long-haired, and better than our native mountain breeds. Perhaps there is a point in this for future breeding here.

A good milking cow in my young days cost £7 or £8. Now she would cost perhaps £200. My father used to breed half-hunters. It would take a real good one to fetch £50 at that time. Now the cost would be £200 to £300.

The sheep is not an interesting animal, although quite a useful one. It is especially useful in mountain districts, and is necessary for our wool and meat requirements. The small mountain breeds give remarkably sweet mutton. Sheep require dry and sound land to be at their best; and this rules them out in respect of many farms that are inclined to be wet and to require draining.

The dog is a necessity to the farmer, despite his deservedly bad reputation as a sheep worrier. The sheep-dog, or collie, is highly intelligent. I have seen a dog go among two herds of cattle, one herd being our own which had gone 'over bounds', pick out and drive our animals to their home grounds, the dog being unattended and not being told what to do. On another occasion, when home on holidays, a bull on the farm charged me, but the dog saw him before I did and was at his nose in a jiffy. To my mind this sheep-chasing can be prevented if suitable steps are taken by owners.

Pigs are the most unattractive of farm animals. Nevertheless they can be the most profitable of all. Their numbers vary with the market demand. In my time there were over one million in the country. They respond very quickly to intensive feeding and can be sold as fat pigs at six months old. They are usually the care, and indeed the pride, of the farmer's wife; and she takes care to show off her young pigs, the produce of a couple of sows, to all her visiting mammas. Pigs, though not regarded as clean animals, respond very well to clean and competent treatment.

Goats can be the bane of a farmer's life, except perhaps in the few cases where they can be trained to herd with the cows. They could be chained together in pairs, and that way they could not be so mischievous. They were important to the lives of very poor people in the past. They ate the bark of young trees and shrubs, and so killed them. They liked the coarse tops of the furze bush so much that any amount of paring or pruning could not be so well done with the human hand.

Fowl on the Farm

Hens and ducks, and indeed all the fowl, are the perquisite of the farmer's wife, and along with milk and butter, her principal stand-by for the purchase of household commodities. Hens are rather senseless creatures, and do not seem to know much about life except in the matter of laying eggs, in which they are adept and in which they can beat us all in supplying the breakfast table, the chefs, the cooks and the shopkeepers, not to mention that their eggs when nicely cooked form such a pleasing accompaniment on the breakfast table along with the ever-tasty rasher. The hen, however, is a non-provider, and has to be fed. Not so the duck, an open-air prowler that spends all day on the surface or margin of ponds delving with its long bill into the mud for a feed of worms and other watery creatures. They are an interesting sight coming home at the 'knell of parting day' in regular single file to their little shed in the farmyard, where in the quietness of the night they lay their welcome eggs, and unlike the hens, make no cackling about it.

Now the habits of hens and ducks are different in many respects. Hens are careful and painstaking hatchers that in my time not only hatched their own eggs, but also those of the ducks, who did not seem to like this overtime job at all. The result was that the hen being a water hater, and the young ducks water lovers, that the hatching hen had to follow her brood to the pond or river and from the bank, view her progeny with several kinds of heart failure — that is, if hens have hearts at all. Young goslings are very attractive little birds, but young ducks are a treat for the vision with their delightful covering of fluffy silk.

The Table Birds

The chief of these are the turkey and the goose, and though associated here, they are indeed very different. The turkey is not native. It is a delicate bird not yet acclimatised, and in its youthful days could be completely wiped out by a shower of rain. It requires specialised food, and I well remember in my young days having to gather and chop up nettles to mix with their food. It has to be fed, and very carefully. Not so the rough and knock-about goose. The goose can fend for itself and generally forages about the farm, eating grass and any seeds it can find. It revels on the stubble land in the autumn. It can fly, but usually does not care to do so —perhaps the weight of its body is the reason. Unaccountably it does sometimes rise into the air in a batch, and with great acclaim heads skywards and away for a couple of miles; and if you do not see them going you may have lost them entirely — for the goose has not enough intelligence to find its way back home.

In my young days it was always goose for Christmas; and I think it may be so again. It is succulent and very appetising, and compared with the turkey it is still more popular on the table in country districts. The goose, however, is becoming rare. I think the reason may be that cattle do not like to graze where geese are allowed to roam, because of the effect of their droppings on the flavour of the grass. This year they are dearer than turkeys, so the wife may win the argument with her husband about their keep, as generally happens anyway.

Geese are notable for the care they give their young offspring. I have a clear memory of being attacked, about the age of four, by a gander who, with his wife, was parading their youngsters in the yard. He probably wished to do the big fellow in front of his goosey wife; so at me he came, attaching himself to my front and beating me most unmercifully with his bony wings. It was well for me that my father came along and detached the brute, because I was very nearly out and senseless for a while. A few years later about twenty geese got into a corn field. My father picked up a small stone and flung it the sixty or so yards distance, killing one of them. It showed the force of his throw. Next day we had stuffed goose for dinner, a rare treat in those sparse times that made it something for me to remember.

The goose egg is a meal in itself to eat. It is very strongly flavoured, and for a holder would require your largest tea-cup. Not so the turkey egg, which is smaller and is beautifully flavoured. These are a very scarce egg, however, as very few are left after the hatching requirements. The guinea-hen has the sweetest egg of all. Unfortunately, it is a most noisy creature around the farmhouse, and so is going out of favour.

Of all the animals of the farmer, however, the horse stands out unequalled; and it is indeed a thousand pities that metallic pieces of machinery activated by fuel-oil should have so stepped in as to make most of his usefulness inoperable. In spite of this, he will remain the farmer's pride and joy. He is the animal that has responded best to care and breeding, having increased in size down the years from that of a dog to that of the present shire horse. I think it will always hold its place in the farmer's stable, and certainly in his affection.

It is my fervent hope that the farmer and all associated with him will bring this beloved country along in the peace and prosperity which the urban dweller, with his factories, seems unable to do.