West, in the Foggy Valley Read online

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Lisa Steppe author and poet, who introduced me to ORIGINAL WRITING;

  My granddaughter Rabecca Kenny, student at St. Mary’s Secondary College, Ballisodare, who set up and managed the E-mail link between ORIGINAL WRITING and me;

  The great Irish Language teachers at the Mercy Convent Sligo, National and Secondary schools, where I learned Gaeilge/the Irish Language.

  Cursa Gaeltachta, G.A.A. na Dunaibh/Downings, Dun na nGall, where for the past twelve years I have enjoyed and benefitted from Seachtain na Gaeilge, each July;

  Micheal Mac Aodh, retired teacher, Carrigart Gaeltacht, who proofread and authenticated my translation.

  INTRODUCTION

  The great Arigna Mining Area where the three counties, Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon meet is where the author Tadhg O Rabhartaigh had in mind when he wrote Thiar i nGleann Ceo. As well as giving a graphic insight into the mining of coal in Ireland and the dangers associated with it, it gives a social history of the people from the time of the Landlords until the foundation of co-operatives.

  Tadhg O Rabhartaigh was born in the Rossa, Tir Connell in 1909. He began his teacher training when he was sixteen years old. He spent short spells slaving in Scotland; one such spell was spent on the farm where his father had died. Most of his education was done from books, but it was from a series of Lectures on Lirtiocht na Gaeilge/Gaeilic Literature, by the renowned author Seosamh Mac Grianna that his interest in writing was awakened. He spent thirty years teaching in a Vocational School in Breifne Ui Ruairc, Leitrim/Cavan border. He returned to his native parish in 1953 when he wrote Thiar i nGleann Ceo. He died on July 6th 1982. He was predeceased by his wife Ellen in 1976.

  Also woven into the story is the Fight for Freedom and a harrowing love story.

  A THREATH FROM THE LANDLORD

  It was a quiet evening a few days before Christmas, and the Gleann/ Valley was looking peaceful under about a foot of snow. It was difficult to decipher between houses or sheds, ditches or trees. It looked as if the snow would last until the Spring. It was freezing hard and the warm rays of the sun had left it shining. But it was easy to see that a thaw was setting in and the sun was taking its leave down behind the mountain to the west.

  Triona Guildea was standing at the back of her own house surveying the whole Gleann/Valley. This house where she was born and reared was set high up on the side of the Gleann with sharp mountain peaks rising behind it. The highway that was coming in from Cul le Grein to Barr Gleanna passed between the house and the peaks, continuing down to the mouth of Loch Eala. On the other side of the Gleann there was another big highway also leading to the Loch. Triona could see every corner of the Gleann from the house. This girl was about seventeen years of age and you would have to like her from the first time you saw her. She was fair skinned, with long curly nut -brown hair falling to her shoulders. She was tall, and her body and limbs were well shaped. However she was never in the reckoning when the beautiful women from the Gleann were discussed in the rambling houses. People remarked on her refinement and prudence. Strangers might say that she had unusual understanding and courtesy for a girl who was reared among the miners in a rough place like Gleann Ceo.

  She had her hands on her face and she was looking towards the old monastery beside Loch Eala where both her father and mother were buried. Ten years earlier her mother was buried. She died when Triona’s little sister Una was born. Her father was just one year dead. He was only forty- five when he was taken from them, after a long period of ill health.

  Her grandfather came around the corner of the house banging the ground with a stick. He had a letter in his hand.

  “I was looking for you pet. Read this letter until we see what it is about.”

  He handed her the letter and he straightened himself as if he was expecting a blow that would hurt him.

  “I believe that the news is not good, pet”

  He was an old man, big boned, touching on six feet in height, a native of Gleann Ceo, who had been a miner and a good one, until age forced him to leave the pick aside forever. This man knew the history of the Gleann. He knew that when Big Conor Guildea was in his prime, he was regarded as the number one man from the top of the Gleann to Loch Eala. He was so strong in his youth that he was nicknamed ‘The Horse’ and when neighbours were asked who they were having in the meitheal they would say ‘Big Conor and a fist full of men’, which caused plenty of laughter.

  But that day passed and this day has arrived. Big Connor was touching on seventy years at this time, and little of his old strength was left. The one son that God had sent him was lying by a wall in the old monastery on the banks of Loch Eala and there was no one to look after his two daughters and two sons. That young family was left with Big Conor and his wife and they both getting on in years. If it wasn’t for the money that Triona and the old woman were bringing in with knitting, and eggs they would have nothing to eat most of the time except potatoes and oatmeal. Ill health and the death of his son had left them with the debt they had in Eoin an Droichid’s shop in spite of themselves. Mac Alastair, the landlord who owned the whole Gleann and the mine as well, had neither patience nor mercy for those who were late with their rent. Only five or six days earlier a letter had come from him about it. But alas Big Conor did not have the rent, or the half of it to give to him, and the only thing that he could do was to wait until the snow was gone, go to the landlord, explain the story and ask for time. But it appeared that the landlord was not about to wait for the snow to be gone, because it was from him that this letter had come. The old man was certain of this even though he could neither read nor write.

  “Triona pet what’s in it?”

  Triona could always see something good no matter how bad the situation was.

  “He is giving us ten days,” she said.

  “And what will we do then?”

  She did not answer that. Her heart would not allow her to tell the old man that Mac Alistair was threatening eviction in ten days time. But the old man noticed a tear collecting in her eye and he also noticed how hard she tried to conceal it. But the tears came in spite of her and flowed down her cheek. She was gazing down the Gleann at the walls of the old monastery on the banks of Loch Eala. The old man knew what she was thinking and he also looked towards the old monastery.

  “My poor girl” he said. “If God had left him alive and in his health, MacAlaistir would not be threatening us with eviction today.”

  The tremble that was in his voice and his depressed appearance went to her heart. She stopped looking at the old monastery and she began to look at the wooded island that was only a hundred feet out from the edge of the lake, a little bit farther south. That was Inis Colman, and that was where Mac Alaistir the landlord lived in a grand house among the trees. She turned her head slowly and looked at the mine that was about a mile or so on the side of the highway that went by her own house. An engine, which was drawing out the excavated coal, was sending smoke up into the sky from the mouth of the mine. There was a heap of coal as big as a hill nearby. There was also a little village with a Church, the priest’s house, a little thatched school, where the mistress lived in part of it; The Greasai Rua / the cobblers’ shop; Seimin Ban’s house, the man who was managing the mine for Mac Alistair. Some of the miners were more afraid of the shop owner Eoin an Droighead than they were of Mac Alastair. A little river from the mountain flowed under the bridge in the middle of this little village; and according to the oldest man there, it was never called anything else but ‘Droighead an Mhianaigh’ / The Mine Bridge or sometimes only ‘An Droighead’ /The Bridge.

  Triona dried the tears from her eyes with a corner of the sock she had around her neck.


  “Five pound you have to give him?”

  ”Five pound,” he sighed, “if I had it.”

  “All we have in the house is half a crown.” she said.

  “Five pound,” the old man repeated, “and only God knows where we will get it. That is a year’s tax that by right he should have had since November. This is the first November ever that I was behind with the tax. Surely he won’t have the heart to evict me after all the coal I dug for him since I was twelve years old. I’ll go down in God’s name; I’ll go straight down to him, I’ll have a talk with him. I was the best miner he had in my time; and he knows that. I am sure that he will give us space.”

  “God be with you grand-dad, going off in the snow on such an errant.”

  “I have no second choice in the matter,” the old man said. “I’ll ask for time until St. John’s Eve. By then your grandmother and I will be getting this pension that they are talking about, we will be getting it out here in the spring, we will be hail and hearty, and the cow will be calving, and the two sheep will have at least two lambs, with God’s help. With all that we should be able to give him the five pound by then.”

  “Do you think that he will give us until St. John’s day?”

  “It is difficult to say pet. He is tough and contrary the same lad; but just the same we do not know what God is doing. Maybe I might be lucky”.

  “And if he refuses you grand-dad, what will we do?”

  “Well pet, I was thinking about that, too. There is no good in us asking Eoin an Droighead for a penny because we owe him seven pound already. All we have left is the cow and two sheep. We will have to sell some of them; and if it goes to that we will have to sell the sheep, pet.”

  “The boy’s sheep!” she said as if to herself.

  “I would find it difficult to sell them, Triona, but if it goes hard on me it would be better to be without sheep than a cow. But I hope in God that we will not have to do anything like that at all. The man that’s departed, God rest him, would not like to see the sheep sold on the boys; and it would be a mortal sin for us to let them go cheap now and they carrying lambs. I don’t know who would take them apart from Eoin an Droighead; and he wouldn’t be giving the top price for them I’m sure.”

  The two sheep were left to the two boys by their dad, one each, before he died. They were on the mountain above the house, and not a day had passed since the dad had died that the two did not go up the mountain, late or early, to look at them. They had two lambs the previous season; but the boys and in fact the whole household wanted to keep the lambs, but they had to let them go against their wills.

  The sun was sinking behind the mountain, and dusk was over the Gleann, when Big Conor hit the road for Inis Colman. He was wearing his hard hat, with his blackthorn stick in his fist. You could hear his footsteps on the frozen snow a long way off; and you could see his breath bright in front of him. Triona stood at the back of the house and she watched him until he went out of sight, around the bend on the other side of the bridge. Her teeth were clattering, and she returned inside to the warm fire.

  MINERS IN HIDING

  The school door opened and a gang of children ran out into the snow. They made a lot of noise. The Mistress had just divided a can of sweets between them and gave them leave until the New Year. There was a heavy snowball battle; and Eoin an Droighead was standing frowning, and watching to see which of then would dare to hit the iron roof of his house or on his shop. It would be too bad for the one who did, either in fun or in earnest. But as well as he kept his red eyes on the rowdies, the iron was hit from a place that he could not see. Out he went and around behind the back of the house as fast as he could. You would have to laugh at his angry appearance and his slow movements. But there was no one to be seen at the gable of the house or at the back either. He was like an antichrist when he returned to his house. The scholars who were around the street decided to go home, and they moved off east and west. The ones who glanced over their shoulders at him saw him giving out like a lunatic, while the Greasai who was standing in his own door, was enjoying Eoin’s temper tantrum. The children stopped chiding and laughing because they didn’t like to anger Eoin an Droighead. Very few people in the Gleann escaped being in his book for credit, and the children well knew that the parents would not be pleased if they discovered that they had annoyed him.

  Triona Guildea was watching what happened, from her own door. She saw the sudden end to the snowball throwing, and it wasn’t long after that until she saw Feargal, Peadar, and Una among the children who were passing by. The boys were throwing the snow again. The girls were rushing ahead in a clique together, all but Una. She was among the boys and every bit as energetic as any one of them. It was she who threw the snowball on Eoin an Droighead’s roof when she got him concentrating totally on the boys. She was a little ten -year old girl and already she was one of a kind in Gleann Ceo. Her jet- black wavy hair fell over her face and her forehead in ringlets. Her eyes were full of devilment. She was as lively as an eel and as hardy as a wild duck. It would do you good to watch her, and listen to her laughter. She was determined to get her own way, because the grandfather and the grandmother had spoiled her since she was an infant. The old pair wouldn’t let anyone look cross at her let alone lay a finger on her.

  Triona watched as Una came towards her up the highway. She was out of breath and her two cheeks as red as apples. She had her hands behind her and she was leading the group. Triona had to laugh at her because she knew that she had two snowballs in her fists. She waited until Una was almost beside her, then she turned her back in the doorway. The snowball smashed into smithereens on her back. Peadar ran up to the window and he stooped at the doorstep to clean his shoes with the cattle brush that was used in the yard. When Una caught him stooping she put a fistful of snow down the neck of his jumper, and ran in behind the old woman in the corner.

  “Maise, that the wind may take you, you little fairy, you have the cut of the hangman about you.” Peadar said as he cleaned the snow from himself. “Wait until I get you outside, you little blackbird.”

  He charged at her up the floor, but Una only laughed at him. She was safe and sound; and any how she knew that he was not serious about half what he said. He was a well -built black haired boy, almost thirteen years old. He had ruddy cheeks and black curly hair.

  Triona left a dish of potatoes sitting on top of a pot in front of the fire and Peadar sat on a stool to eat them. He peeled the potatoes with his fingers, and he dipped then in a small plate of milk and salt. This soup was called ‘Blind Herring’ in Gleann Ceo. Every now and again he took a mouthful of buttermilk from a mug. The old woman was peeling the skins from the roasted potatoes she had on the hob for Una.

  Feargal came in. He was about fifteen years old, and big boned for his age. He was promised to be a big strong man like his grandfather, and he had the handsome jaw of the old man as well. His hair was brown, the same as Triona’s, and he wasn’t any different from her in his ways either.

  “Where is my grandfather?” he said as he drew up a stool and began to eat.

  “ O Maise,” the old woman said, “he went down there to the bottom of the Gleann; and he won’t have much to show for it when he returns, the poor man. Alas, I never thought I would see the day that Big Conor would be going on his knees to a descendant of the hangman.”

  She stuck the poker into the grate and she sent a puff of ashes up the chimney. She was a big strong woman, the same age as her man. The rough and refinement were both in he nature. The Irish pride was bred well in her; and behind it all she had a kind heart. Grainne Rua was her name, although it would be a sharp eye that would see a red rib of hair in head at this time. She had a black tea-saucepan on the fire.

  “Triona,” she said, “Make small sandwiches of oat bread, love, and let us eat our fill in our fists here at the fire. God protect the poor old man who is out on a night like this. It is bitter.”

  “Did another letter come from Mac Alastair today?” Fearg
al asked.

  “It did.” the old woman said. “May God forgive him for sending such letters to the people in the days of Christmas! But indeed it is difficult to expect anything different from one of his kind. The man whose grandfather hanged ten creatures, it would be hard to expect any good from him.”

  “Where did he hang them, Morai?” Una asked.

  “The Oak tree is still there on Inis Colman,” the old woman said. “It was the Year of the French. He was a captain of a Yeomen brigade. God rest my grandfather, I often heard him telling the story. The poor man was a hundred and one when he died. I was thirty years old the year he was buried, and I was married, here. I heard him say that he was a lazy man, when he was thirty, the year of the French. I often heard him tell of that sunny morning at the harvest time, when everyone in Gleann Ceo was wakened by the big guns of the French. They came from Drumkeeran, and were already fighting a gunning battle with the British who were in pursuit. They spent a good part of the day on the banks of Loch Eala, and they sent messengers up the Gleann asking for men to help them to banish the British from Ireland. Ten men from Gleann Ceo went with them, and my grandfather was one of them. They gave him a pick and he was with them to Ballinamuc. It wasn’t easy to get the poor man to describe the carnage he saw that day in Ballinamuc. It wasn’t the battle that killed them but the abuse that the Irish got after the battle. Himself and the men from Gleann Ceo got out with their lives. Two of them were captured after being in hiding for two days in a field of oats, and they were hanged in Rooskey. They continued to hunt my poor grandfather until he was forced to leave the country under cover. He returned home when it was all over.”

  “And what about the men that Mac Alastair hanged, Morie?” Una asked and she brushing her chin with one of he nut brown curls.

  “O yes love, the thieving Mac Alastair and his Yeomen got them. Five of the men were from Gleann Ceo, the five who had been with my grandfather in Ballinamuc. They were caught here and there, while they were trying to return home, under cover, from Ballinamuc. He took them in on the island; and God protect us, himself and his Yeomen tortured them before they hanged them. The tree is still there at the back of the island – an Oak tree, and not a single leaf on it any day of the year. Now you know the breed of Mac Alastair.”