Christmas always brings with it surprises. Pleasant or otherwise they are an almost
essential part of the festive season as people renew contact with family,
friends and acquaintances. My surprise,
and it was surely that, while admittedly a pleasant one, was to partake of
Scotland's national dish a few days after the last of the turkey had gone. Haggis is, we are told, a fine example of the
Scots woman's ability to create a gourmet dish from the humblest of
ingredients. A gourmet dish might seem a
somewhat inflated description for the stomach lining of a sheep which is
stuffed with the inners of the same animal, seasoned with oatmeal, onions,
peppers and a myriad of undeclared seasonings.
Boiled, for how long I don't know, before it took pride of place in the
centre of the kitchen table where the native Scottish woman plunged a knife
into what Robbie Burns called the “Great Chieftan 'o the puddin-race”. At the same time she recites the first
verse of Burn's “Address to the Haggis”.
“Fair
fa' your honest, sonsie face
Great
chieftan o the puddin'-race!
Aboon
them a' ye tak your place,
Painch,
tripe, or thairm:
Weel
are ye wordy of a grace
As
lang's my arm.”
We Irish never quite made such a praiseworthy item
out of our national dish, the potato, but if we had, it's doubtful if we could
have mustered the same disciplined approach to the festivities surrounding a
potatoes meal as have our Celtic neighbours, the Scots, while they partake of
their Haggis dinner. It was my first
Haggis and presumably the first time that Coneyboro paid host to the time
honoured Scottish dinner of Haggis, bashed neaps and chappit tatties. All in all it was a wonderful experience.
On St. Stephen's Day the Wren Boys made a
reappearance on the streets of Athy for the first time since Johnny Lynch and
his friends from Shrewleen gave up playing the wren almost forty years
ago. It was great to see the musicians,
singers and dancers all dressed down for the day, recreating a Christmas
tradition with which those of my generation and earlier were familiar as we
grew up in Athy in the 1950's. What was
missing however was the Wren Boys song, “The Wren, The Wren, the King of All
Birds”. Maybe the absence on the day
of a caged wren (real or otherwise) was the reason. In these politically correct days it would be
unacceptable for a wren to be caught and brought around in a cage as was done
in the old days as an incentive to the householder to hand over some coins to
ensure the wren's eventual release. I am
told that in one part of Connemara the Wren Boys always had a live wren in a
jam jar as they went from house to house and they must have timed their arrival
at Fermoyle Lodge as the last call of the day for they knew that John Spellman
as he had done for the previous forty years or so would demand the release of
the birds before the Wren Boys left his house.
Where a wren could not be caught to fulfill the needs of the Wren Boys a
potato sufficed and when suitably adorned with feathers more than adequately filled
the bird's cage or the jam jar to create the caged bird illusion as the Wren
Boys travelled from door to door. The
Athy Wren boys and girls were organised by Aidan McHugh from amongst the gym
club's Gaisce Group. The youngsters and
the not so young involved on the day did a wonderful job, recreating something
we were familiar with nearly half a century ago.
Book launches in the last days of the year are to say
the least very unusual but such was the time in which it fell for the late
Michael Delaney's book “Are you coming home now? - Memoirs of Old Kilkea”
to be launched. His friend John Clynch
of the High Cross Inn provided the venue for Michael's family and friends to
gather together for what was the second launch of the book which Michael completed
just days before he died on 27th May last. Michael's sisters Jean and Pauline travelled
from England and Dublin to attend the launch and Jean mentioned to me Michael's
fascination with the traditional customs and ceremonies associated with some of
the English towns. It was an interest
which saw him visit in the company of his sister Jean many of the towns in the
South West of England to see at first hand cultures and traditions which if
examined closely are not too far removed from many of our own.
Michael's book which should be bought and read by
everyone in South Kildare is a lovely re-telling of the folk history of Kilkea
as collected or remembered by him over the years. The book is a wonderful mixture of text and
pictures, of fact and fiction but everywhere can be seen the native son's love
for his own place. He may not have been
a native son by birth, having spent the first three years of his life across
the River Barrow in County Laois, but Kilkea was embedded in his heart of
hearts, despite Michael having spent the last thirty five years of his life in
County Kerry. Michael Delaney had walked
the fields and the boreens around Kilkea, he knew the faces as he passed but
more importantly he listened to the older people of the area and encouraged
them to talk of the decades now gone when work was hard and living in the Irish
countryside was tough.
Danny Sheehy, a friend of Michaels whom I met in the
High Cross Inn, had launched the book in “Tig Kruger” in Dun Chaoin a
week before Christmas. He e-mailed me a
copy of the address he gave on that night and I was particularly moved by his
description of Michael's last visit to his beloved Kilkea. The occasion was the funeral of an old
neighbour, Ann O'Brien, and Danny accompanied Michael on the long journey which
was made on the last day of January.
After the funeral Michael called to a few neighbours, visited the Moone
High Cross and the village of Ballitore before setting off on the long journey
back to Dun Chaoin. He talked as he
drove of the history of South Kildare, the Fitzgerald's of Kilkea Castle and of
the labouring tradition of South Kildare.
When he left the Silvermines behind him and was out of sight of the
Midlands he stopped talking. Michael
Delaney did not speak for the last eighty miles of the journey on what was his
last visit to his native Kilkea. He knew
that his life was slipping away, and yet he found the energy and the will to
complete the work with which his name will always be associated – his memoirs
of Kilkea.
Michael Delaney's death was a great loss for his
family and friends but also for historical research without which the people
and events of the past cannot be properly or adequately documented. With his all too premature passing we have
been deprived of many more works of historical interest but still he has left
his friends and neighbours in Kilkea this final offering. “Are you going home now? - Memories of Old
Kilkea” which is a fitting tribute to a scholarly local historian.
