Family Fortunes: The mug that was meant to be mine

There’s a clever old saying in Ireland: “What is for you won’t go by you.” I have generally found it to be true. The most precious item I own is a 62-year-old Belleek Pottery cup, which was made especially for me when I was born. But I had to wait 20 years before I got it.

When my mother was pregnant with me, a friend of hers asked her son-in-law, who was a manager in the famous Belleek Pottery in Co Fermanagh, to make a cup for me with my name inscribed on it.

Sadly the lady died before she gave my mother the cup. Her daughter and son-in-law did not know my mother as they lived in a different town.

When I was about 20, my cousin, Fiona, said to me: “You know that there is a new pottery shop opened on the main street in Bundoran selling cups with Christian names on them? Will you come with me to get one with my name on it?”

So off we went to the new shop. There was a nice, sweet, middle-aged, ginger-haired lady behind the counter. My cousin asked her did she have a cup with “Fiona” on it. She did.

And as it was so nice, I asked her did she have one with “Joan” written on it. She said: “What is your surname?”

When I told her she said: “I have a cup sitting on my mantelpiece for the last 20 years belonging to you.”

Then she went into the back, to the living quarters. My cousin and I thought she was crazy. But out she came with a Belleek Pottery cup with “Joan” written on it.

The cup was small, white with gold shamrocks and a gold handle with a black stamp on the bottom of it, which said it was made in Belleek Pottery.

She explained the story about how her mother had asked her husband to make the cup but then her mother died suddenly when they still had the cup and they didn’t know my parents to pass it on. She gave the cup to me and said she wouldn’t take any money for it.

By chance I met her two sons, who were around my age, at a social in the town. They told me that, when they were growing up, they used to look at the cup on the mantelpiece and wonder what I was like and where I was.

That is why I believe in fate. What’s for you won’t go by you.

Thank you to Mr and Mrs Arnold, who owned the Pottery Shop in Bundoran Co Donegal, for making and keeping the cup safe for me all those years. Sadly they are both passed away now.

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