Prose Michael Boyle

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: MICHAEL BOYLE

Michael Boyle is a native of Lavey, Derry, Ireland .His poems have appeared in the “The Antigonish Review”. “ Dalhousie Review.” “Tinteain” and “New Ulster Writing.” He was awarded “The Arts and Letters” prize for poetry in 2014 by the government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Michael has also written articles for the Irish language magazine “An t-Ultach. He is currently completing his first poetry collection “Whin Bushes from Drummuck.” In June 2017 he presented a paper in Magee College, Derry, on the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. In 2018 he gave a talk entitled “Echoes from the Barn Barrel.” to The North American Celtic Language Teachers Conference in St. John’s, NL. He currently lives in St John’s NL where he conducts a historical walking tour. www.boyletours.com

Memories of our old House

It must have been impossible for strangers to get to our house when years ago there were no G.P.S. devices. There was a train station in our local market town of Maghera, which was situated about halfway between Derry and Belfast. In a 1931 letter, a cousin on mine Patrick McKenna from Middleborough England described his circuitous hilly three-mile journey in a pony and trap to get to Drummuck.

“There are two roads from the train station: one the main road and bending off from Mayogall-the other the winding, badly metalled road up and down –twisting about –this was the road we took.”

Our thatched house was secluded away at the top of a steep stony lane. At the bottom of the laneway there were two lint dams, which were used to steep flax for several days. This “retting” gave a pungent smell to the whole countryside. In very frosty winter often we would skate on the dam making sparks our hob nailed boots From the road the lane went flatly and then suddenly to the left steeply for fifty yards at an angle of 50 degrees. If you stopped at the corner here you could have had a good view of the field to the road to Mooney’s and beyond that is Murrays Hill on the road to Maghera and in the distance the Sperrin Mountains. Across the road way was the home of the famous Lavey hurling legend Dan McCrystal.

As you ambled onwards up the brae on the your left hand side years ago you saw the remains of crumbling stones from the ruined wall steads, which were now part of a short dry wall fence which had barbed wire to deter sheep from escaping. A tall stately ivy tree grew half way up the hill lane and then at the corner there was once the mysterious sacred gentry bush. The lane veered a sharp left with “the well field” on the right sloping down to the moss and “the bungalow field” on the left. Both sides of the lanes were had tall hawthorn hedges

If you walked along another sixty yards and there was a spacious two-story bungalow house where my Aunt Maggie and Uncle John lived. They were probably the last two Irish language speaker on Boyle’s hill .A semicircular sandstone pebble dashed wall, several ornamental glass balls

and an elaborate iron gate were part the entrance to their house. In the front lawn were blackcurrant bushes as well as two white and green beehives. Davey Guess from Gulladuff came dressed up like

a

2

spaceman to collect honey from the hive at the end of the summer. We always enjoyed the sweet taste and the smell of the honey. As you went past the right corner there were gooseberries and red currant bushes. If you took another sharp right and then you would see the outline of farm out buildings. First old ‘Paddy O’ Neill’s dark grayish pig ‘cro’s’ (pig houses) then the ever expanding manure heap and in the distance the reddish rusty roof of the stable. A clump of bushes obscured a hidden entranceway, which had two six-foot concrete pillars with rusting wrought iron gates. During the wartime these gates were hidden to prevent them from being melted for armaments. Over the years quite a number of young novice Boyle car drivers damaged these old pillars and now like the gates they are gone completely.

If you continued on for another seventy yards and you are now on our stony yard, which for some reason was known as a street. On the left was a small house for boiling potatoes and mixing pig meal and on the right “a cow tailed” helmeted pump situated almost at the gate to the sow’s field. At the bottom of the street was an open tall shed for storing hay bales. Swallows and bats occupied the top corner by building nests there. Often our small grey Ferguson tractor and trailer was kept here in this large shed.. The back door of our house took you into the farmyard through a back linhay, which at one time or other housed pet lambs and pet pigs

Our house had no entrance or doorway and you stepped right on the street. It had three rooms, a loft and a central hearth. It measured about thirty by fifteen feet wide

with walls two feet thick. The house faced across the street to Drummuck moss with the infamous

well and the old milk house where every fall black berries were stored in a large creamery container. Tall leafy ash trees, laurels and hawthorn bushes hid our view of the moss. The lane way to the moss was used to bring turf to be store in the shed for winter. During heavy winter gales the house rattled and shook as the winds intensified. Indeed strong windy gales often accompanied by heavy rain which never fell straight down but always at any angle. The windows were quite small a feature which dates back to an earlier time when taxes depended on the amount of sunlight coming into a dwelling.

3

The lower “good room” was rarely used except for American visitors, a station Mass or a visiting

priest to say Mass.. I seem to remember that before visitors came, there was always a flurry of activity to spruce up the outside walls. They would be

white washed with a lime dissolved in water and the bottom of the walls were painted black to make a trim three feet along the bottom. My mother hid Christmas toys in the lower wardrobe, which seemingly we never bothered with. However, there was the yearly mystery of what happened the missing Quality Street tin box of chocolates my brother Brian and I were the usual suspects.

The living room.

The house had one main open living area a kitchen a dining area and a work area. The table in the kitchen was placed against the front wall underneath the windowsill. I don’t remember any soft

chair but only hard backed wooden chairs and a couple of sturdy three legged stools. There was a shelf for the wet battery radio that brought me out to outer space with Dan Dare and the Mekongs. And who could forget in the middle of night when my brothers and I were listening on the radio to boxing matches coming from New York between Rocky Marciano and Jessie Joe Walcott? We did mock boxing and this often ended in a real fight with one of my siblings. Then my mother came down to restore order and she got upset. She broke up the donnybrook by saying ‘’ Stop, Stop. In the name of God.” Then she uttered her prophetic warning to us all. ”Yees all will be separated soon enough.”

Beside the hearth was my pouting corner where I would sulk from time to time. We had a back pantry for keeping food cool and fresh. The churn for making butter was stored there. The upper bedroom benefited from heat from the central kitchen. There was lots of extra bedroom space in the loft and often at night you could hear rats scurrying along the thatch above the rafters. Opposing doors into the kitchen allowed for extra light. A half door had a dual purpose of keeping young children inside and wandering animals or fowl outside.

“This kitchen is like Grand Central station,” said my mother.

4

Everything happened there and everyone came through here. We had a large hearth fire with an over-hanging crane, a crook for suspending pots and pans on the fire.

Sometimes crickets could be heard chirping at the side of the hearth and were always regarded as a sign of good luck. But when coal replaced turf the crickets

disappeared. When we were all young there was an iron-meshed four-foot high fireguard to protect us from getting close to the fire.

My mother baked hot scones on the griddle. It was a real treat to have these with homemade butter and hot rhubarb jam. Dinner was always at midday as men worked in the fields and they always needed a big meal for energy. A big pot of potatoes boiled over the hearth fire. When it came to the boil the pot was strained outside and the steam from the hot water rose in the air like a huge vaporized cloud. We had an ample supply of potatoes all year round, but each spring we welcomed the fresh taste of imported new potatoes. On Fridays we had fish and especially herrings and you could smell them coming up the lane. We had plenty of cabbage, carrots and turnips. We grew kale to feed the animals. In our small kitchen garden beside the house my father grew lettuce, leeks, beets and parsley.

Each November year we killed and salted a pig for the winter. It was a terrifying experience and often we hid under the table when the pig squealed. We despised having a gruff amateur butcher come to the house barking out orders as he killed our pig in such a cruel manner. At first we loved the bacon but come April having bacon was no longer a novelty, as now it was so salty and less tasty. We churned our own butter and had buttermilk.

Sunday dinner meant a hen was cooked and the night before that we had soup on Saturday night. For many years Sean Tohill a butcher came from Maghera in a tiny black van selling roasts and sausages. For the Sunday evening we had a John West tinned salmon or a salad, which we called “rabbit’s dinner” because of the lettuce and tomatoes. Most morning we had brachan (porridge) and sometimes-we had that dreaded yellow India meal as a sad reminder of earlier Famine times. Who can forget the smell of the Ulster fry of bacon, eggs and fadges completely soaked in gravy? On

New Year’s Day when Uncle Father Felix came we had fresh Irish lamb

5

and the pleasant aroma filled the house. My mother sat close to the fireplace to keep an eye on the hearth fire and this was her vantage point as an umpire ensuring that everything was in order.

With a family of eight children she always seemed to be cooking, churning butter, washing clothes, sweeping and struggling with the impossible task trying to keep a farmhouse clean. People trekked in and out from the farmyard with muddy boots.

Often she had just washed our red and blue tiled floor when this happened. My mother always seemed to be working and rarely had time for herself. An extra chore for her was looking after the hens and as we got older then we all took over that responsibility from. Later, I learnt that the money from the sale of eggs was really the only grocery money for the house that my mother had. At the same time I remember my father not having a secure wallet, but having a wad of white five pound notes in his back pocket coming from a fair if he had sold an animal.

We had no indoor plumbing and we had a special name for our outhouse to show respect to British democracy in Ireland. We called it Parliament House named after a HP sauce bottle with a picture of the house of Parliament in Westminster. We had no running water, but there were two wells on close to the street. We kept a rain barrel to collect run off water and often in the winter ice formed on the surface on the water bucket brought in overnight from the well.

Being first up in the morning.

In May all through the night we heard ‘craik craik creek’ - the forlorn cry of the corncrake coming from the scrog meadow. Then many times just after dawn the rooster’s crowing wakened everyone. When I was a young child I liked to be the first awake in the morning and I was really close to my father. I followed him everywhere singing and shouting as I went along. In summer I helped my father clear out the ashes from the hearth. Before going to bed the last chore of the day was to bank up the fire with slack so it never fully went out. In the morning you could stoke the fire embers with a few jabs from a poker and it would come to life. I can vividly remember coming down from

steep stairs from the loft singing this prophetic song

6

“Pride gets a fall we all know that’s true.” I heard this song in Miss Mooney’s classroom and I am sure I must have woken up the whole house

Walking everywhere.

Before we got our car we walked everywhere. During the week we trudged over the Moss and fields to Dreenan School .We even walked cattle long distances to markets in Kilrea, Bellaghy and Maghera I have been told in the early part of the century that cattle were driven to summer pasture in Lough Beg near Bellaghy. On Sundays we flowed the well trodden path up the Moss to the chapel at Mayogall and as we walked through the graveyard to Mass we passed some unique old headstones with many family first names that belonged to generations long past. For example names we encountered were Henrieus, Jacobus, Dionysius and Laurentis. So in a way just as hairstyles and fashion change so do first names. But I was growing up I really thought things never changed and the world stood still.

These are some of my memories from the old house. In 1953 my father had a new modern second

story house built on ‘the well field’ about 200 yards from our old house.

(Michael Boyle)