In a Word . . . migration

Today's the day. Yes, folks, on this date in 1962 we McGarrys became Ballaghaderreen blow-ins. We remain so, albeit joined since by Pakistanis, Syrians, eastern Europeans and – God help us! – people from Mayo.

Except, December 7th, 1962, was a Friday. It was deliberately chosen for the move as it is an old west of Ireland superstition that there is luck in moving on a Friday.

We moved from the rural “bogland” of Mullen (sorry, dear father of ours, and RIP) where our family had been for generations beyond history. It has now disappeared back into a forest from which it was hewn all those centuries before, ruled now by Sitka spruce instead of tiresome rushes.

Mullen was about 15km from Ballaghaderreen. It might as well have been the moon. We traversed centuries, galaxies even, on our journey to Ballaghaderreen that damp, miserable day, which was the beginning of the rest of our lives. We were on our way to a grand metropolis, which has remained the centre of our universe these many years since.

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“Swish-swash, swish-swash,” went the wipers on family friend Ned McDonagh’s old black Ford Prefect car, its windscreen divided down the middle. Each brusque wiper had a half all to itself. Neither could keep up with the downpour, and lights from oncoming cars were soon swimming all over the windscreen again.

"Look, there's Ballagh, " shouted my brother, pointing to a drunken line of silver street lights in the distance, swirling across the windscreen. With every curt swipe they pulled together, only to fall back into graceful chaos before being whipped into line again. An age-old struggle. "By Dad, it is," said Ned.

Stepping from the car outside our new home on the town square, we small people looked up. It seemed to go on for ever. Three storeys high, with an archway underneath and a pub attached.

It was too big to be comprehended that evening. The scale of the hallway alone was awesome, its ceiling seemingly as high as the clouds.

The de Valera years were gone. Seán Lemass was taoiseach, and everything was changing. Changing utterly. Our parents caught the mood, and we who had been fixed in the countryside for so long, moved to town. And the heavens wept.

Migration, from Latin ‘migrationem’; ‘migrare’, “to move from one place to another”.

inaword@irishtimes.com