My aunt never married.I would say that she never had a boyfriend.I can't be sure of this and have no way of checking,as all those nearest to her are all dead now.I would say that I am the sole remaining live person who was near to her and I write this tribute to her as,when I go,there will be no one left to record her existence.This story will be added to as time permits.
In her eighty years she once attended a doctor .That was when she was in her teens,when she developed scarlet fever.Never again did she attend either a doctor or dentist.She self medicated with bread soda for the stomach and ,before it was fashionable ,worked out the benefits of taking an aspro daily,which she did.
When I was sixteen years old ,which was 44 years ago I dug a well beside the house with a spade ,shovel and pick axe.The well was divined by Mick (The West ) Newman from Easkaroon,who had the gift.He was spot on.Water flowed after about 20 feet.My uncle Tommy was the engineer.Well liners were put down as the depth allowed and the project was a success.
Before this she used walk to the well,about a mile away,in Floods Field (subsequently Mulligans,then Conway's and now Loughran's ) and carry home two buckets of water.This water was used solely for cooking and human drinking.All other water was sourced in either rainwater barrels or the ditch in front of the house.
In my youth there were no indoor toilet facilities.Nor outdoor ones.Hail ,rain ,frost or snow,you did your business against certain sheltered ditches.Dock leaves were the favoured toilet paper ,although grass and bad hay would do in emergencies.Some years after the well was dug,one indoor cold water tap was fitted and eventually two indoor toilets were installed.No electricity until the early 1960's when my father wired the house.
Bath was fitted in 1986 but never used.
Molly never socialised as such,but was very well read.She used read the daily paper,the Irish Press as it happens ,from cover to cover ,on weekdays and the Sunday Press on Sundays .The Meath Chronicle was similarly devoured.She listened attentively to the news and weather forecasts and was the arbiter of when meadows and turf should be cut and saved.She kept the blue cards for the cattle,although she never owned any,and could trace a calf back through several generations.
Her brothers were very social animals on the other hand and liked a jar from time to time.Themselves and her father were fierce GAA heads and travelled far and near in support of Dunderry and Meath.They shared their experiences with her and she knew as much about the goings on in the Parish as both Publicans and the Priests.She knew the birthdays of every child in the parish.This must have been memorised as I have never found any list of these dates.
She performed extraordinary feats of compassion and service to her family and the State.She attended to and ministered for her mother who was basically bed ridden for over 15 years prior to her death.This at a time when there was no indoor water facilities whatsoever.I never saw a bucket nor Po in the house.Nor was there ever any hint of a smell.My granny was always impeccably clean and dressed.Doctor Dorgan was a regular caller.Very occasionally my granny would appear at the open fire in the parlour ensconced in an armchair.How she got there was always a mystery to me.
In her younger days my granny was a very generous woman,a fact well known to the travelling community whose members were regular visitors to the house and who attended her funeral in huge numbers.This was in the nature of her own (Mallon) family as her nephew Sean Mallon often went begging with tinkers kids who used camp beside his place in Bohermeen.
Any traveller who called to the house was brought inside and fed.These were not plentiful times and they way she operated was to produce an extra plate or plates for the visitors and to reduce the amount on her own family's plates pro rata until the contents of all plates were equal.
One story passed down is about a particular tinker woman ,who used call every summer selling trinkets ,accompanied by her daughter.They would be fed with the rest of the Mc Cormack family.Mother and daughter called as regular as clockwork until the daughter was about sixteen,when mother turned up without daughter.My granny eventually broke and enquired about the whereabouts of the daughter,"Oh she married a grand fella .She done well.She got a sweep" said the delighted mother.Not that much has changed .A chimney sweep is again a good profession.
My granny was one of the most decent ,caring and generous people I have ever met.There was not a bad bone in her body.Her view of life and indeed that of her husband and unmarried children ,who,when the chips were down,walked the walke ,was that the elderly should be minded at home right up to time of death.She was so minded as were her husband ,my grandfather and Tommy ,who died from cancer at home and Joe ,who unfortunmately died unexpexctedly while unavoidably in Hospital.The burden of this fell overwhelmingly on Molly,who effectively cared for her father,mother and two brothers up to death during a full and devoted lifetime.I myself put my shoulder to the wheele and helped as best I could with Joe and Tommy,especially,whose cancer diagnosis was tardy in the extreme and who lived only three weeks from diagnosis to death.A braver man I have tet to meet.
Molly ran the house with an iron fist.The cooking was done in earlier years on the open fire,which was always lit.There was a gantry in the fireplace and a plenitude of cooking pots.Spuds were the staple diet in my time there.The spuds were placed in their jackets in a bucket and then submerged in cold water,She used a broken pick axe handle to pound the submerged spuds and separate them from the earth clinging to them.They were then cooked in their jackets in water and inevitably turned into balls of flower.The skin would just fall from them when touched.They were delicious,whether accompanied by either Flanagans cooked ham,chicken or ,pleasure of pleasure, steak.
More often than not they were accompanied by a blob of butter and an onion,a satisfying and filling meal in itself.
Neither Molly,Joe nor Tommy ever visited a dentist.Toothbrushes were a rare commodity and toothpaste unheard of,although bread soda was occasionally used.Troublesom teeth were fiddled with until they came out or else the nerve died.
It is just as well that none of them died incognito as medical records to identify them just did not exist.
For some reason that escapes me,Tommy had a perfect set of teeth until he died but the teeth of Molly and Joe were anything but.Mostly black stumps.And they lived the same way and ate the same food.
And no Molly did not smoke.
One by product of the state of their teeth was that they loved meat but their teeth could not bite it off unless it was extremely tender.To overcome this Molly evolved a method of cooking meat until it crumbled in their mouths.Neither myself nor anybody I know have ever tasted such succulent meals and the combination of the meat,flowery spuds and the gravy,my God the gravy,were to kill for.
People actually volunteered to work for nearly nothing as they knew that they would be fed the same as themselves and they would experience her cooking.
In fact my son Evan,who had the good luck to be practically reared there,said when asked by the waitress at his confirmation dinner in the Wellie,how he would like his steak cooked,replied "the same way Mollie does it"much to the amusement of a packed dining room.
Well this is how Molly did it.She started with good material,always sirloin.She had an ancient iron pan,which she anointed with a light covering of "Cookeen",a lard bought in Flamagans.She cooked it extremely slowly ,in latter years on a gas cooker,with the flame barely higher than a strong candle.It took maybe two hours to cook and from time to time she would sprinkle water on it.And I mean sprinkle in that she would splash just a small dash from a bowl with her fingers,just enough to keep it moist I would say.
When done it would melt in your mouth and what little gravy was generated was like nectar from Heaven.I have never tasted its beat and Myles still talks with wonderment of his only visit and treat there.
J.W. has just reminded me of another speciality that Molly excelled in.It was a good walk from the house to the most distant fields,a long and narrow farm.If you working there she would often send refreshments down to allay the hunger.A good spread of ham sandwotches would be accompanied by a bottle of sweet tay,kept warm by being encased in a good woolen sock belonging to one of the lads.No need for thermos flasks there.
Tommy was the first of the three to die,about which more later.When he died Molly and Joe lived on in the house and was there regularly as Joe was not very robust and unable to cope with the heavy work which farming necessirtated.Because of their bad teeth the weekly meat requiurement was seven succellent chops for Molly and the balance up to £20.00 of surloin for Joe.
Mickey Callaghan delivered every weekend and Molly cooked to perfection for both.
Joe died after a while and that left Molly on her own.I stayed there four nights a week and saw her every day.To show how good the neighbours were Paddy (Scan) Conway used slip down at dusk to the ditch on his land in front of Mc Cormack's house and stay there until the house lights were put on .He knew that if she was o.k. the lights would be put on.I knew Paddy was at this,Molly didn't and Paddy didn't broadcast it.
Any how when Joe died I kept up the order.I was working in Dublin at the time.This meant that four mornings a week I waswoken by the waft of the most delicious surloin ,with the gravy already described ,which I would eat with buttered loaf and steaming hot tay.NO Arabian Prince ate better.In the event that the meat ran out,I was reduced to two boiled eggs in a cup,mixed with buttered toast witha side plate of toasted loaf and hot tay.Talk sabout having it made.
Molly and my own wife really hit it off ,despite the age difference of over thirty yeatrs.They became the best of friends and totally loyal to each other.They totally loved each other in the purest and most innocent sense of the emotion.I have never seen any thing even approching their mutual respect and plain easiness ,nearly telepathecic they had for each other.So much so that they used gang up on me if they thought I misbehaved.
And misbehave I did one weekend.I went on thre beer in Dublin one Friday evening and having spent the weekend in a haze returned to Dunderry the following Monday.The reception I got at home was not too pleasant.I was lifted out of it sequentially,starting with my wife and working its way down by seniority to my youngest.Jesus I got some verbal abuse.Probably deserved ,but I didn't see it that way.
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