Frank Gaynor

Our source of drinking water was a hand pump over a well in the middle of the field behind the house, which we called the pump field. The pump was about 400 yards from the house. The task of providing the house with a good supply of drinking water helped to keep us fit and healthy. Some years, towards the end of a dry spell, the water in the well would be too low for the pump to work. We then travelled over half a mile down through Byrne’s long narrow farm and crossed into James Gaynor’s field where we found a small spring with fresh water. The beauty of nature was all around us – the wild flowers, the birds, the rabbits, a fox now and then, the lambs and calves playing in the fields, the ewes and the cows just taking it easy, and the noise of the crows going home to roost. Years later, standing on the highest point in the pump field looking across the green fields towards Knockeyon and lake Derravaragh I began to appreciate what a privileged childhood I had roaming freely and without danger around Clondaliever. Our horse also enjoyed standing on that same high point in the pump field. As he stood there he always positioned his backside to face into the wind. As he altered position he acted as a kind of local met office.

Our cousins living in Dublin had great sympathy for us poor souls stuck in the middle of nowhere. We did not see it that way, partly due to the fact that our parents made the effort to bring us to the limited number of organised events that were within reach. I recall travelling by horse and trap to the Delvin Gymkhana, the Crookedwood sports at lake Derravaragh, the swimming gala at Lough Owel and the opening of the GAA field in Collinstown. My mother was at her best on these occasions, displaying great social skills and confidence. I remember her as a picture of happiness, with a generous smile, a friendly greeting and some light-hearted comments for everyone she happened to meet. An orange or a three-penny ice-cream made my day.

Every two years a car was hired to bring us on a Sunday to my mother’s home place in Kilbeggan. Her parents were still alive, living in a small thatched house. While the men drank bottles of porter and the women chatted in the kitchen we explored the stream that ran close to the house and the well in a field near the entrance gate. At age 11 I had my tonsils removed in Mullingar hospital. When I woke after the operation I was frightened by the sight of blood all over my pillow. I was left with a very sore throat and had great difficulty eating for over a week. To help me recover from the shock of this experience my mother arranged for me to spend a week with her parents and her brother Joe in Kilbeggan.  Joe was a workaholic. My mother told him that I was on holiday for the week and that he was not to work me too hard. It was my first time away from home. I was happy doing simple tasks like bringing lettuce and onions from the garden and water from the well.

Joe stuck to his instructions and did not involve me in any heavy work.  From 6am until about 10pm he was moving at a fast pace. He spent the early morning around the farmyard, milking cows and feeding calves and pigs. He then moved on to working in the fields. I was used to my father moving at a much slower pace. When it was time for me to return home granddad transported me with his donkey and cart to the bus stop on the Tullamore road. While granddad sucked on his pipe and talked to the donkey I sat proudly in the little cart, and wished that I had a donkey of my own in Clondaliever. I do not remember seeing granddad again. When he died I was in St Finian’s College and was not allowed out to attend his funeral.

A few times we were taken by car to Dublin and out to Dunlaoghaire where my parents had spent their honeymoon. On a few occasions my mother travelled by bus from Collinstown to Dunlaoghaire to spend a couple of weeks with her aunt who had retired there from her business in Mullingar at a relatively early age. I enjoyed those days when my mother was away in a strange kind of way. My father was better working outside the house than inside. He just did things differently. He tried hard and managed to remain calm and kind to us at all times. He never complained about my mother going away for a holiday even though he never took a holiday himself.

My father, Matt Gaynor, was born in Clondaliever in 1886. He started life as a landless herdsman, watching over herds of cattle on Murray’s (pronounced Mur–ray’s) farm in Clondaliever. In the early 1900s he joined some of his peers in driving cattle off big farms during the night and leaving them in front of the ‘big house’, as part of a campaign for land reform. His reward for these strange moves was a field in Battstown about three miles from Clondaliever. This was his first time to own land. He later bought two small farms and was given a small field near home by the Land Commission, when Mur-ray’s farm was divided up in the 1930s. This made him the proud owner of about 100 acres. At the age of 49 he married Lena Farrell from Kilbeggan, who was then aged 24. We always referred to them as Daddy and Mammy.

My father was an only son, and the youngest of four children. His three sisters were called Kate, Bridget and Mary. Mary died when she was 21 years old, possibly as a result of tuberculosis (TB). For a number of years before he got married my father lived with Bridget and Kate. By all accounts they did not make a very happy threesome and it surprised no one that my father was keen to move out. What surprised many was how long it took him to make the move. In 1934, with the help of two local men, he built a house a short distance away from where he was living with his two sisters. At this time Lena Farrell was friendly with a man in Coralstown, but refused to marry him because he was living with two of his sisters. Matt Gaynor was introduced to her as a man with his own farm, living alone in a new house. A month later they were married. Bridget and Kate always felt that Lena Farrell had taken away their darling brother; they never fully forgave her for that unkindness. Over the following months and years Lena’s main regret was that she had not taken him much farther away from his sisters.

When I was born my father was 55 and my mother was 30. I was the fourth of seven children, two boys and five girls. Paddy was three years older than me. Between us, for two short a time, was Mary – she died of pneumonia at the age of three. I do not remember ever seeing Mary. My mother carried some guilt about her death for the rest of her life. Considering the cold and damp that we experienced during the winters of our early years, the surprise is not so much that one child died but that the other six survived. Nancy was the eldest and was left a bit on her own as myself and Paddy gradually did more things together. Helen and Kathleen came next and were just one year apart.  Breeda was the last to arrive.

By the time I was able to help with the farm-work my father was in his mid-60s and beginning to slow down. By then the compulsory tillage scheme had ended and he now had less tillage and more cattle. His focus now was on having young cows rearing their own calves. When they calved the calves were left with their mothers in the field. This required close monitoring but overall it worked well. When the young cattle reached the age of roughly two years and my father decided it was time to sell, myself and Paddy would be asked to drive them to the street fair in Delvin or Mullingar. Sometimes the cattle for sale had never left the field where they were born and had seldom been touched by hand. Our task was to separate these, almost wild animals, from the rest of the herd, somehow steer them on to the road and drive them to the village of Delvin or the town of Mullingar. Mullingar fair started at about 6am to give the buyers a chance of getting the cattle they bought at the fair on to the cattle-train which left Mullingar at 8am. The cattle went by train to Dublin and by boat to Birkenhead, near Liverpool. For all this to go according to plan we had to be out of bed by 3am. It was mostly wintertime, frequently cold and always dark when we were trying to communicate directions to these mesmerised animals. There was much shouting and running backwards and forwards before we finally linked up with other farmers in similar situations on the main street of Delvin or the fair green of Mullingar. My father was difficult to please at a fair and reluctant to part with his precious animals. It was not unusual for us to be driving the cattle home again on the evening of a fair.