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Family Fortunes: My mother’s 13 babies lived, a proud boast of hers

She was resourceful and nationalistic, a Gaeilgeoir and a great storyteller

‘My mother was a great storyteller; my father was in the special branch in Dublin Castle’

Michael Power
Thu Apr 30 2015 - 12:00

Home for me was in Drimnagh, Dublin, with a shed full of bikes bought in the Garda lost property sale and my father’s big side garden that produced vegetables and fruit such as gooseberries, rhubarb, redcurrants and blackcurrants. He also had an allotment and a shed where he repaired our shoes and himself.

He smoked his pipe and demanded silence for the 6pm news on Radio Éireann, after the pips of O'Donnell Abú. He was in the special branch in Dublin Castle. He died on duty one night in 1957. My childhood at home was over, as my mother had to get work.

My mother's means of relaxation was to play the piano in our "parlour". This was even more evident when she arrived in her sisters' houses in Waterford. An hour of songs such as A Nation Once Again or Gortnamona would ensue.

She was resourceful, nationalistic and a Gaeilgeoir. She got lifts to Kilmacthomas from government minister Seán Ormond. She knew Dan Breen, who gave us signed copies of his book.

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All her 13 babies lived, a proud boast of hers. Not alone that, she catered for us all and two cousins, and “no one starved”.

I remember her for her great storytelling. Tales of “Kilmac” and the war of independence, of herself and her rebel sisters and characters such as “Jimmy of the Hill” or “Tom of the Glen”.

One morning I woke in bed to find her chatting to an old woman she had rescued from the county home in Waterford. The chat was so good, I pretended to be still asleep to hear more.

My cousin tells of her English boyfriend coming to our house on his first Irish visit. My mother made him kneel for the family rosary and stand up for RTÉ's Amhrán na bhFiann.

She never forgot her Waterford roots and a turkey arrived from there every Christmas, to hang from a nail at our back door, eyes staring at me.

  • We would love to receive your family memories, anecdotes, traditions, mishaps and triumphs. Email 350 words and a relevant photograph if you have one to familyfortunes @irishtimes.com. A fee will be paid