When I was in
Bandon some weeks ago I had occasion to come across the house in which the
English writer William Hazlett lived for a few years over 200 years ago. Last week I was in London, a city which I
first visited many years ago with my friend Frank English. I have lost count of the number of times I
have since passed up and down Shaftsbury Avenue, that broad expanse of roadway
which connects Piccadilly with Tottenham Court Road. For some inexplicable reason last week I
ventured into an old graveyard lying just off Shaftsbury Avenue which I had not
previously visited. St. Ann’s Graveyard
and an imposing apparently free-standing tower is all that remains of the
Church of St. Ann’s which was bombed during the air raids of 1940. What startled me as I examined some of the
ancient gravestones was to find that William Hazlett, the man who as a boy
lived in Bandon, was buried in that peaceful oasis amidst the busy streets of
central London. What a coincidence I
thought to find and view within a matter of a few weeks the physical reminders
of the youth and of the man whose contribution to English literature ensures
that he is still remembered, even after the lapse of almost two centuries.
Within a day or so
of my visit to St. Ann’s I got a telephone call to tell me of the death of an
Irishman living in London. He was 85
years of age, unmarried, and had been living alone in sheltered housing
accommodation in North London. Born in
County Mayo during the height of the War of Irish Independence, his father and
mother were natives of that county and lived on a small farm which had been
passed down from father to son through generations past.
The family lived
in the same area of County Mayo as my mother’s family and the eldest daughter
of the house and my mother grew up together and were life long friends. My mother ended up in Athy, while her friend
joined an Order of nuns and lived out the rest of her life in a convent in New
York. The youthful friendship was not
forgotten when in the early 1950’s the friend’s family consisting of her mother
and father and her brother who was then in his middle age took up the offer of
45 acres of good land in County Kildare in exchange for their 40 acres of
marshland in County Mayo. They came to
the shortgrass County as migrants, the elderly parents perhaps hoping that
their only son would have a better chance of making a living in Kildare than
they ever had in Mayo.
Life for Mayo
migrants in their new surroundings in the 1950’s was not easy. Even for those who had family connections in
an area going back generations life in rural Ireland tended to be lonely and
isolated. Public transport was not to be
had in rural Ireland of the 1950’s, shops were often too far away for easy
access, while the absence of relations and friends was perhaps the greatest
hardship to bear for migrant families. A
few years after migrating from Mayo to Kildare the head of the family died at
83 years of age. The loneliness of rural
life was soon to be exchanged for the loneliness of a different kind when the
elderly mother and her son sold their Land Commission holding and took the boat
to London. This must have been a
traumatic change for the 74 year old mother who would live another 5 years
amongst the cosmopolitan setting of North London. When she died her remains were brought back
for burial alongside her husbands in the Kildare countryside which they had
once hoped would provide future generations of their family with as happy and
contented a life as their past generations had enjoyed in Mayo.
Last week their
only son died after spending almost 44 years in London where the one time
farmer worked as a school caretaker before retiring 20 years ago. My mother, always mindful of the family
friendships forged in Mayo long ago, kept in touch with the one time migrant,
now an emigrant in London. When she
passed away in 1995 my brother Jack undertook to keep in touch with the Mayo
man, who by then was retired. The
loneliness of a countryman living in a strange environment can only be imagined
but nothing perhaps prepares one for the isolation which slowly but almost
inevitably surrounds an elderly man living alone without family or relations.
I was reminded of
this when the funeral arrangements had to be made which in the English context
requires visits to the local Town Hall to register the death, documents to be
secured for the undertaker, etc. The
hardest job of all comes when the home of the deceased man had to be visited and
the possessions of a lifetime examined, evaluated and disposed of. As I looked at what the 85 year old man had
gathered around him, even as he grew older, I quickly realised how unimportant
is the accumulation of the material flotsam and jetsam of life.
Emigration was for
so long a central feature of Irish life that we tend to overlook the dampening
effect it had on the rate of change in Irish society. The departure of so many eased the job crisis
at home, but at the same time it weakened the impetus for social change which
would inevitably have followed if the unemployed did not have the opportunity
to make new lives in England or America.
The Mayo man who died last week in London was just one of the many thousands
of Irish men and women whose departure from our shores helped in some small way
to improve the prospects for those of us who remained at home. Their sacrifices have never been properly
acknowledged but now as their generation dies off their stories are being
recorded in publications such as “An
Unconsidered People” by Catherine Dunne and “Across the Irish Sea” edited by Pam Schweitzer, just two of
several publications recalling the lives of the emigrant Irish.
Willie Hazlett is
remembered long after he died and his memory will continue to be recalled so
long as English literature is studied.
The man from Mayo who died last week in London and whose remains were
brought back to Ireland to be buried alongside his parents, will be a casualty
of memory before too long.
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