LUCEYS OF "CAHIREEN"

The family farm, 'Cahireen', is on rather high ground, with a beautiful view of hills and mountains on three sides. It is almost equally situated from Clondrohid, Carriganima, Ballymakeera and Kilnamartyra. In fact, one could hear the Mass bells ringing in all four parishes at once if weather conditions were favourable. Cahireen is seven miles from Macroom, the market town where the butter and farm stock were sold and the household commodities purchased.

My father, Con Lucey, familiarly known as 'Conny Cahireen', and by no other name, was easy-going and affable. He would never beat any of us, but could warn you with a look. For education he went first to a hedge school in a barn on their own farm, given free by his own people. This was before the National Schools were thought of. He was keen on learning, and under better conditions, would be ranked as brilliant.

He was tall and well-built and had a reputation for being good-looking. He was also an athlete of ability. On one particular occasion his ability to run served a very useful purpose when a man-hunt had been arranged to catch a dangerous lunatic who was ranging about the locality in possession of a large cleaver knife. Conny was the first to catch up with the man and hold him until the others came up, even though the knife had been driven through his hand by the lunatic.

The police present wanted him to join them and offered him early promotion, but he would not. He loved horses and would only have the very best. They should be rather wild and spirited and this meant that they were often flighty and dangerous, especially in the hands of others. A good horse for saddle or cart was a necessity for the farmer if his prestige was not to suffer, because his neighbours would so often challenge him to a road race after weddings or funerals or when coming home from fairs or markets. Conny Cahireen never believed in being last on such occasions.

Julia Kelleher, his wife, also came of farming parents, and was a highly competent housekeeper as well as a champion butter-maker, securing three first prizes for butter-making at an Agricultural Show at Clondrohid—first in churn butter, first in separator butter and first for the best butter at the show. She was small, but virile; and I know that once when she saw a salmon sailing up the river that ran by their land, she jumped in, spread out her apron and went home with a fine big salmon.

Being very interested in their family's education and imbued with a keen desire for setting up the children in positions that would save them from the emigrant ship, it was she who encouraged me to study for the Civil Service. She was in Cork City arranging for Nora to enter a training college for Domestic Economy the day she contracted her final illness and had died within a week.

My mother enjoyed growing up at Ballyvourney in the midst of a large family when times were free and easy and every neighbour's home was free to enter as one willed and where, at all hours, there would be the welcome cup of tea and friendly gossip. The Kelleher house must have been a well-kept one, because more than once they won the parish prize for the best-kept house. Her father and mother were unfortunate in old age, however, her father losing a leg in a horse riding accident, and her mother being badly burnt in the home. Her father, and my grandfather, was John Andrew Kelleher (known as Seán Andreas, or John Andrew) owner of five substantial farms in the area.

My father had two brothers, Jerry and Patsy, both tall, strong men. Both emigrated to the U.S.A. So also did two of his sisters, but the third married Mick Lynch, a merchant in Macroom. My uncle Patsy performed a feat that was often talked of locally. It seems they were building the new dwelling-house and the two builders had a very suitable corner-stone, but it was so heavy that they could not lift it or lever it in. Patsy said he would have a try, so he caught the giant stone, lifted it and placed it in position. But then they said of him that he was 'a giant of a man'.

My mother, Julia, had four brothers and four sisters. Some married farmers and some emigrated. The two youngest, Hannah and Humphrey, stayed with us at Cahireen and grew up there.

My father's uncles, to their great credit, were prominent in the Land Movement of the time, and suffered for it. One of them was killed in Carriganima by British troops. His horse galloped home without him.

The Family at Cahireen

We grew up a very happy family, giving and taking knocks and forgiving them as quickly, loving our parents and neighbours and being respected by them in return. Each member of the family had his, or her, duties to perform, which they never dared to forget. After school hours the boys worked on the farm and the girls in the house. There were no such things as Trade Union hours at that time. Fairs and markets were held seven and ten miles away, and this meant getting up at two or three in the morning in order to be in town before daybreak. The procedure was that the buyers, or jobbers as they were called, came along and asked, "How much do you want for that miserable thing?" The farmer asked almost twice what he expected, but the jobber offered only half the value. So then the haggling went on until finally agreement was reached, ending what would appear to an onlooker as a life and death quarrel. Now all this has been changed. There is no trading in the cold and darkness, and all sales are by auction, a fairer and much easier system. If the farmer, as often happened, brought his saddle horse to town, nothing would suit him better, after he had a few 'jorums' with his neighbours, than to challenge the said neighbours to a road race on the way home. This often resulted, even though they were good horsemen, in one or more of them being flung over the ditch, due to taking the bends at too high a speed.

There were thirteen of us in the Cahireen family; and it has ever been a mystery to me how our parents managed to provide for us, and the more so since our mother died at the early age of 46. It was from appendicitis, which at that time was considered incurable. But Nora (Quill), the second girl of the family, must always be remembered for her great goodness in becoming a mother and provider for nine younger brothers and sisters, down to the youngest who was then only one year of age. She also ran the house and farmstead and did it very efficiently.

My eldest sister, Mary (Coleman), became a Monitress and later a Teacher. She later lived and taught school at Lombardstown, where a son grew up to be a Priest and another a Doctor.

My brothers Jer, Con and Tim went to the U.S.A., James to Australia. Julia (Desmond) married in Liscarrigane, Bridie (O'Sullivan) at Millstreet and Kit (also O'Sullivan) near Crookstown. Hannah lives with Kit on the farm. Free entered the Land Commission and farmed land in Co. Clare.

I am afraid I cannot tell my good niece from Brisbane much that she does not already know about her late father, James Lucey (my loved brother); but I must tell her that I saw the said James once do an enormously brave thing. I was present in the farmyard when two horses, who very evidently did not like one another, and were tackled to a mowing machine, started to bite and kick one another madly. They even had a leg each across the shaft when James went between them and by his courage and great strength separated them. It was certainly at the risk of his life. James was invited to Brisbane by Father O'Leary, nephew of an tAthair Peadar, and lived in North Queensland, near the tropics, for several years, before going to Brisbane.

When I was a little fellow, Agriculture was taught as a subject in the schools; and it shows the trusting nature of my father that he allowed me to set all the farm seeds each year, as prescribed in the school books. He also let me guide the horses, which were often as wild as hares and which often frightened the very life out of me in trying to handle them.

The Family at Local Schools

We all liked going to school, not for the amount of learning we imbibed, but rather for the simple pleasures that associating with children of our age and tastes gave us.

We went to school first to Clondrohid and later to Carriganima 3½ miles away. I think we all liked Carriganima the better because in the summer time, and in fine weather generally, we could travel on the grass across the hills, and over a good-sized river crossed by stepping-stones, crooked and so badly worn that it was common for children to slip and fall in. We were not very fortunate in the principals at either school, because of their tendency to ease the tedium of their occupation by retiring to houses where stimulants to ease their weariness could always be obtained. I don't think they could be blamed much for this, since nothing is more tiring than trying to drill facts and educational fancies into the heads of young imps who resent anything of that kind.

I went to school at Macroom for a year to finish up. I had a very good donkey and saddle to take me and found the seven miles quite pleasant. I then went to a Civil Service Academy in Cork for a few months, in lodgings near the Shandon Steeple, where the bells rang out melodiously every quarter of an hour and played Irish airs to match. Going to Macroom I enjoyed very much because my little donkey had speed and the town boys were for ever trying to race me, but they never succeeded—even with their jennets, then a very numerous animal.

A few months later I moved to Manchester as a Telegraphist. There I remained for some years before being transferred to Cork. When our own Government took over I was taken to Dublin, where I worked in the Castle, in the Secretary's Office for eight years before being promoted to Claremorris and later to Galway, where I retired as Postmaster on pension, in 1949. In the course of my duties I travelled extensively in the Counties Mayo and Galway and enjoyed every moment of it. My spare time was taken up in Catholic Social work, with vegetable and flower gardening thrown in, and some reading whenever I had any time left.

My wife, Elizabeth Fitzgibbon, was also a Civil Servant and came from near Newcastlewest. Our greatest pride—Lill's and mine—was in our children. They were ever dutiful in the extreme, and never caused us a moment's anxiety. They could study and pass examinations just as they wished. Sheila joined the Civil Service for a few years, but all the time had the Convent in her mind. She finally joined the Sisters of St Columban and served abroad in the Philippines for 17 years. Betty and Conn acquired distinctions all along the line in studying for their medical degrees. I believe all are happy in their choice of profession which was entirely their own.