My father, like many Irish emigrants to the US in the past, longed to return to Mayo, which he had left as a boy in the early 20th century. But, unlike most Irish emigrants, he did return: with my mother, my sister and me. As in the Frank McCourt remark, when everyone was going to America, we were going to Ireland in the 1950s.
After 12 days at sea on HMS Ascania, we finally spotted the green hills of Cork on Easter Sunday 1954. A tender was sent out to fetch the handful of passengers embarking at Cobh. When we were walking around the town that evening, children stopped their play to laugh at me: a girl wearing trousers!
Ballycastle, a little village in north Mayo, was our destination. With a population of 195, it was a total contrast to the bustling New York I grew up in. We arrived on the eve of the monthly fair. What a shock it was to wake up next morning to the sound, sight and smell of herds of cattle on the street just outside our door. I had never even seen cows before.
In New York, I was in a class with 57 children. The local school in Ballycastle had 54 pupils in total. Never before had the nun had to completely begin the teaching of Irish to pupils at the ages of nine and 11.
Some days, when we were all packing up to go home, my sister and I would exchange glances, hoping that the nun had forgotten about our Irish lesson. Then all of a sudden we would hear: “The two Yanks come up for the Irish.” And up to her desk we had to go, with half the school listening as we spluttered our way through the difficult pronunciation of this mysterious language.
Those first few years living on the edge of the countryside brought me into close contact with rural Ireland. For the first time in my life, I was free to wander among fields and woods, to learn the ways of country people, to see how cows were milked and butter was made.
In the words of Dylan Thomas in the poem Fern Hill:
Time let me hail and climb Golden in the heydays of his eyes. Time let me play and be Golden in the mercy of his means.
We would love to receive your family memories, anecdotes, mishaps and triumphs. We are also seeking submissions with a focus on winter and Christmas. Email 400 words and a relevant photograph to familyfortunes@irishtimes.com. A fee will be paid
