INTERNMENT on our island usually produces uneasy feelings, but sometimes it can produce romance. In the 1930s, when de Valera was interning his political and spiritual heirs, he cast a wide net. Not only did he detain, at the Government's pleasure, people who dealt in violence but many others who peacefully pursued their republican dream. Two of the peaceful kind were May Mulready, a music teacher from Mullingar, and Mairtin Standun, who was born in Liverpool of Mayo parents. Both were interned for their political beliefs and it was their incarceration that brought them together for the rest of their lives.
The kinship developed even though they were being held in different detention centres. Mairtin was in the Curragh along with many others, including Mairtin O Cadhain, a writer from Spiddal who taught him Irish. And May, one of the first Irish women to be interned, had been detained in Mountjoy Prison.
When they were eventually freed and the political situation became quieter, Mairtin and May married and set out for Connemara on a cycling holiday that was to shape their future. They arrived in Spiddal where they were to settle and establish a business that eventually would become a Connemara institution.
Outside Spiddal they spotted a little drapery shop for sale. The price was £900, but it was 1946 when such an amount seemed ways beyond the reach of Mairtin's meagre earnings as a grocer's assistant, even if combined with May's income as a part time music teacher. But they managed to raise the down payment and opened up shop. After that, life became a 15 hour day of toil and commitment for both.
At first it was a shop where you could buy anything from bread to a bicycle, and where the delivery van was the family car, which was also used as a hearse. Over the years, the shop evolved into an emporium that became famous internationally, particularly for its traditional Irish clothing and crafts.
With tourism starting to grow in the 1960s, Standun's became a finishing factory for Aran sweaters and in no small way was responsible for spreading the fame of those garments across the globe. The product of thousands of knitting needles in cottages along the west coast from Donegal to Kerry, the sweaters were brought to Standun's for the final touches before being sold.
The shop also became a famous gathering place for Irish musicians, with May Standun often leading the sessions on her violin. Her sister, Cait, was a founder member of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann and a daughter, Dearbhaill, plays violin with the Galway group Dordan. The Dubliners, the Chieftains, the Clancy Brothers and Seamus Ennis are among those who made the rafters ring in Standun's.
It's sad that May and Mairtin, who died within a year of each other, won't be around to celebrate Standun's 50th birthday this year. The famous shop is now managed by their son, Donal, and his wife, Raymonde, who have brought a sense of contemporary style to the place while holding on to its essential traditional core.