'Somehow, without them seeing, she got a hold of the big scissors and started to chop'

'Somehow, without them seeing, she got a hold of the big scissors and started to chop'

Margaret remembers the day her cousin Angela is brought home to stay with her family after the death of Angela's mother.

Margaret McLoughlin

Trinity College Dublin

1946

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Margaret McLoughlin

Childhood and Early Life

Life Story

Dublin

1950s

We had cousins living in Sligo an Aunt in Bridge Street Auntie Maggie (a dressmaker) and Aunt May Teeling St. I visited the house in Teeling St. once that I can remember. I can visualize the long hall and then the living room and my Aunt May. I don't remember seeing Uncle Jack but I understand now he served in the war so maybe he was away at that time. I do remember seeing him in Dromahair when he came to visit. My mother always said he was a very handsome man. When I was knitting or sewing Mammy always said I was the image Auntie May as she was always doing things. Shortly after that poor auntie May died at childbirth and I remember all sorts of commotion going on in our house and then Mammy brought home Angela just nine days old. I think Anna must have been about a year and a half at that time. We all accepted the new baby. I can remember her in the pram and everyone stopping to admire her beautiful Shirley Temple curls. I don't know how we knew about Shirley Temple in those days because there was no tele or wireless. Those curls must have been my mother's pride and joy because my other recollection is of a Saturday night when we all had our bath at the kitchen fire; I have a vivid picture of Angela sitting on my mother's knee and her rolling the wet curls around her finger. Maybe, we were all dying to have her hair. When she was about three disaster struck. She used to play under the big table where Daddy and Jim Dolan worked. Somehow without them seeing she got a hold of the big scissors and started to chop. There must have been hell to play because again I can remember the commotion. I later found out it was Anna who cut her hair. I'm sure Anna was a bit jealous as of course everyone admired Angela for her beautiful curls. One side was gone so of course my mother had to cut the other to suit. During that time my aunt in Sligo who had taken Mary Angela's sister, would come to visit us and we would try to cajole my aunt to let Mary stay and I in turn would go into Sligo for my holidays. My aunt brought me to Bundoran on a holiday and it was great. We stayed in a thatched guesthouse called Lavelles. It was very exciting. At night we would go to see a play. It was wonderful to spend all day on the beach and also going for long walks. When Angela was five it was decided that she would go to live with my aunt in Sligo to be with her sister. It was an awful wrench. My mother was always very upset when she came from visiting and my father would be at the door eagerly waiting for news about her. We never thought much about it but it must have been an awful experience for Angela. She would cry her eyes out to come home with my mother. Of course it was the right thing for them to do she would be brought up with her sister and the good schools were in Sligo. They did what was best.

Irish Research Council for Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS)

Dr Kathleen McTiernan (Trinity College Dublin)

Dr Deirdre O'Donnell (Trinity College Dublin)