Rory & Ita

  ‘I was at home one morning, on my own, and the waters burst. I didn’t know what to do at first. I went down to Sheila Mulvaney, and I stayed with Sheila nearly all day. Until Rory came home – it probably seems strange now, but you didn’t take people out of work; you couldn’t phone up and tell them to come home. Sheila was awfully kind to me and so was Leo. Leo had a car, and it was they who brought me into the nursing home that evening. Aideen was born that night.*

  The nursing home was over in Phibsborough; a Nurse Borrowman owned it. I stayed there for nearly two weeks; that was the thing then. They were very nice, but I was dying to come home. I can remember being as proud as punch. And she was the first grandchild, on Rory’s side, so there was huge excitement. They all arrived with presents galore, all kinds of things; Breda made beautiful little dresses, beautiful work altogether, smocking all across the bodice. I was in there for my birthday and they all arrived with birthday presents.

  ‘Aideen was christened while I was still in the nursing home, in Christ the King church, in Cabra. But we had a tea when we came home from the nursing home. I still had the top tier of the wedding cake; that was her christening cake. We had the grandparents out, and Rory’s Aunt Bridge, Aunt Mag, and Aunt Lil, and Máire and her husband, Jimmy. There was a bottle of sherry, the height of luxury. I’ve forgotten who was pouring the sherry – it could have been me – and Rory’s mother said, “You can give a glass to Bridge and Mag but don’t give much to Rory; he’s not used to it.” She really believed he’d never had a drink.

  ‘We had a new pram. I think it was about £14. It was dear enough, but it was lovely. People would stop to look at Aideen; they’d seen me pregnant, and they’d stop, and I got to know everyone that way. It was mostly young couples, starting off; we were nearly all newly-weds. We went walking miles with those prams. Saved heat in the winter; got us out in the summer. I brought her out every afternoon, no matter what the weather was like, up to Sutton Cross or, sometimes, up Baldoyle Road – three or four miles sometimes.

  ‘We had to borrow the cot. She slept in the pram for three weeks, maybe a month. Then somebody who worked with Rory in the Independent lent us a little cot; it was big enough for her – it was grand. Then, there was another man who worked there – I’ve an idea his name was Bob Peffers* – and he made us a lovely cot. He charged very little for it. All our children slept in that cot.

  ‘Being a mother was a question of trial and error. But what could I do, only take to it; I had the baby and I had to take care of her. I tried breast-feeding for the first few weeks, but I obviously couldn’t; she screamed and screamed and screamed. And it was my doctor, Dr Chapman, who said it would be better to put her on the bottle. I must be quite honest and say that I wasn’t upset at having to give up. It was a relief. I was very sore and uncomfortable, and Aideen wasn’t happy. I put her on the bottle and she stopped crying; she was the quietest baby after that. And if I went out and left her with Rory, which was seldom, he could give her a bottle – he couldn’t breast-feed her.

  ‘But I loved the whole idea of being a mother. I managed it fine. She was the first grandchild in the Doyle family and, as far as her Grandad Doyle was concerned, she was absolutely perfect. She was late walking, and he’d say, “All the better. When they walk too early their legs get bandy. Much better.” She was late having teeth: “All the better, much better; she’ll have them longer.” There were sleepless nights – there are always sleepless nights. You’d be livid when you had to get up, but it didn’t seem to matter the next day. Loss of sleep never really affected me; I seemed to get by great on what I had.

  ‘I was delighted when Rory changed jobs; it was what he wanted. And he’d worked very hard in the Independent. He used to work on Saturday nights, for extra money. He’d cycle in, and work until two in the morning, and cycle home. It was heavy going, but it was the money that enabled us to pay the mortgage and everything else. But, now that he was teaching, he had set hours. He had long summer holidays. I was delighted that he was at home more, although he was never what you’d call a great man for hoovering or dusting; he wouldn’t have known how to put the hoover together.* He cycled to work at first, and then he started getting the train into work. The same group of people used to run up the road to the station every day. There was one woman, Teenie Moloney, who was living in her bungalow with her sister, Belle, before she got married; she was a civil servant. They used to go haring up the road, and they’d cut through a field, a short cut. It was the usual Irish thing, of bóthar. The word for a road in Irish is bóthar, and it really means a cow track, the way cows cut through the shortest way possible. Bó is “cow”. And they really made a bóthar through the field to the station. But I remember, one day, they were running up and there was a young priest with them; he was a cousin of Teenie’s. He tripped in the field, and he was delaying the others. And Belle, at the top of her voice, shouted, “Get up, you dirty-looking eejit, or we’ll all miss our train.” It was an unusual way to address a priest, even if he was your cousin.

  ‘I had one miscarriage, between the first two children. It was in the third month. I was taken into Holles Street.† I went in at about six in the morning; our neighbour Kiernan Coghlan ran me in. He was very kind; he was one of the few men on the road with a car. I was put on a trolley – I had the miscarriage; the baby came in the hospital – and I was still on the trolley at six o’clock that evening. And not only that, but nobody asked me if I had a mouth on me; I didn’t even get a cup of tea. I’m not blaming the hospital either: the nurses were busy and I just lay there. That was the kind of sucker I was; I took whatever was coming.* At about six o’clock a matron came around, and she went through a few of the nurses, and I was put into a lovely, comfortable bed; I thought I’d gone to heaven. I was very weak when I got home. I remember my legs being weak, and feeling groggy. I don’t know how distressed I was; I can’t remember. It was just before Christmas. Rory had changed jobs by then. He had time off and he was able to mind the baby.

  ‘I was happy when I was pregnant again. It was still a shock – it’s always a shock when you realise you’re pregnant. There was no such thing as a planned pregnancy; it just happened, and that was it – you took whatever was coming. Some women had babies year after year. I did well; I had two years between mine – I got a good break. I went to the same nursing home, Nurse Borrowman’s. I don’t remember going in. I was well cared for. I remember one particular night – it was an oldish house – there was a storm. Those windows rattled like hell all night. And I could have sworn I heard a mouse scratching too. I thought I’d never get home.

  ‘And now I was juggling two babies, two girls, Aideen and Pamela. And, of course, the grandparents were delighted. In the Doyle household, there was no such thing as, “Oh, it’s a pity it wasn’t a boy.” Rory’s father always seemed to pray for girls. Pamela was a very quiet baby, placid and healthy; she hardly ever cried. I fed her on the bottle from the word go; I wasn’t going to have her crying with hunger. I fed Pamela on Sister Laura’s Food, the same as I had fed to Aideen. But nappy-washing was the bane of my existence. It was a terrible time of the year, and that November was an awful month. You had to soak the nappies in a bucket, and then you washed them by hand in the sink. You hung them out, and you hoped that God gave you a dry day. And you looked along the road – there were no walls or hedges yet; it was just wires between the gardens – and there were nappies flying to the left of you and nappies flying to the right of you. And maybe, “Hello, how are you?” and “How are you?” and the nappies going out. It didn’t matter what day it was. We broke the Sabbath, and out went the nappies.

  ‘The only social life consisted of meeting people and chatting, or visiting each other. There was a picture house in Sutton but we seldom got to it. The first time we went out was for our first wedding anniversary. We went to the pictures and had our tea out. That was a great treat. I can’t remember the film.* But I never felt isolated from the world. As far as I was concerned, this wa
s the world. I always got a newspaper, the Independent, and the radio was a godsend. There were sponsored programmes. I loved the music. I used to join in; I had a bit of a voice then. “What’ll I do – when you – are all alone …” “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” And the songs from the shows. “Whispering While You Cuddle Near Me”. There was the Hospital Sweepstakes programme; I liked the mix of music they played. And there was Frankie Byrne – she was Jacob’s biscuits – an agony aunt. And, of course, there was the Walton’s programme – “If you feel like singing, do sing an Irish song.” We bought a second-hand piano in Walton’s, when the girls were bigger, and I can still see old Mr Walton, a grey-haired, good-looking man, with a kind of a beard. There was Living with Lynch, with Joe Lynch; lots of Irish music, and the conversation was witty and easy. And then there was Din Joe’s programme. Din Joe became famous for having Irish dancers on the radio; it was the one thing he’d be remembered for. He was a big, heavy man, and he lived in Tallaght. And I believe – it may or may not be true – that when some of the kids said, “Hello, Din Joe,” he’d get annoyed with them, because it was only his stage name. He was actually a motor dealer.’* And I was really keen on Mrs Dale’s Diary; I looked forward to it every morning – it was the time I had my coffee. Looking back on it, she was such a smug lady, but it was great.

  ‘We went to Mass in Baldoyle, which was our parish at that time. And very awkward it was; it was like a country parish. There was a bus, but we couldn’t go together because of the babies. One of us went first, and then there’d be a second bus for the second Mass. I’d go to the first Mass, and it was a Father Dillon who said that Mass. He was a brother of that Fine Gael TD, James Dillon. He’d start off, and that was fine. But then he’d get up to make his sermon. He’d take out his handkerchief, a big white handkerchief,* and he’d wipe his forehead and blow his nose, quite a loud blow of the nose. And then he’d begin talking. If the TD was good at talking, he wasn’t a patch on his brother. He went on and on, and on and on, and all I’d be thinking about was getting home and seeing if the girls were alright and getting the meat into the oven for the dinner. When that particular priest got older, he became very forgetful. One Christmas morning, I decided to go to Mass in Raheny instead – fortunately, because Father Dillon forgot it was Christmas Day and somebody had to go and wake him up. But he was getting on in years, so I suppose he can be forgiven.’

  ‘He was born in the same place where I had the girls. But I never saw him. Rory saw him. He was blue – his lips were blue – but Rory said he was a fine-looking baby, with black hair, and he was big. He was over the eight pounds, or even bigger. But they knew, from the time he was born, that there was something wrong with him. So he was taken to Temple Street Hospital straight away, and I never saw him. He lived just a day and a night. They asked Rory could they do a post-mortem, and they discovered that his whole insides seemed to be wrong – the valves of the heart weren’t properly attached, there was something wrong with his stomach, the bowels were all twisted. So, it was just a day and a night.† We called him Roderick Anthony. He had to be christened straight away and I said, “Call him Roderick Anthony.” “Roderick” because that was Rory’s name. And “Anthony” for the simple reason that I was told that Saint Anthony was great; if I prayed to Saint Anthony, the baby would be grand. I gave somebody half-a-crown to put into Saint Anthony’s box in the church, and to light a candle. I thought, well, call the child after him and give him half-a-crown, the least he can do is take care of the baby. But he didn’t; he let me down. I don’t pray to Saint Anthony any more. I decided he was a dead loss.

  ‘He’s buried in the Angels’ Plot, in Glasnevin. Rory and my sister, Máire, went with him. I’m not certain what happened. But, even in death, there was something to laugh about. My stepmother had given Rory an umbrella for Christmas; you pressed a button and it shot open. Well, it was a wet, miserable morning and Rory had the umbrella with him. And himself and Máire were running for the bus after the funeral, and Rory hit the handle of the umbrella in some way, and it broke. The handle was full of some kind of white powder, like chalk, and it flew all over the place, on to him, on to Máire, on to the road and everyone in sight. The two of them held each other up, laughing.

  ‘I was kept in the nursing home the same length of time as if the baby had lived; I think it was ten days. It was very distressing, but Rory’s mother, I remember, sent me in wool. I had some patterns and I began to knit for the two girls. I was very upset, but I took everything and got on with it. You couldn’t be lamenting in front of the two little girls; they might have thought that he was more important than they were.

  ‘The strange thing is, three other babies died in the locality, at that time. All women around my own age, all within a few months. I often thought about it but, in my usual procrastination, I never did anything. I always felt, well, these things were meant to happen; they happened, and that was it. It did seem very peculiar but, as it was, everybody accepted things that came along. They’d probably query the whole thing now.’†

  ‘When all the payments had been made on the cooker, I had my choice of a fridge or a washing machine. Strangely, I went for the fridge. So, when that was paid for, I got the washing machine. I can’t remember the make, but you had to fill it from the tap with a hose, and the hose went out the back door, to empty it. But it was a miracle, in its way. And the mangle. Of course, there was no dryer, so I still had the problem of drying. But it was great. I was very busy, with the kids’ – she had three by now† – ‘and getting them to and from school, but I always managed to go for a walk in the afternoons. I enjoyed life. I used to meet Maura Coghlan, two doors down, and Aileen O’Connor, from around the back, and the three of us would go off, pushing the prams. We had great chats. And, in a way, life was easier than it is now. The kids had great freedom; they could play tennis and football on the road. The world was their oyster. We didn’t have to go rushing from this club to that club and the other club, to keep them occupied. You could leave the doors open. They’d come home for their dinner, in the summer, and go off playing again; they were out from morning till night.

  ‘We didn’t get a television straight away. I remember the night that RTE started;* a couple down the road, the McCloskeys, had a television, and they invited us down to watch the opening programme. Down we went and, really, all we saw for the opening night was snow. You could see the odd little figure arriving through it, and you’d hear great laughing and joking, and then we’d get another fall of snow – but even to look at the snow was something. It was unbelievable, really. And when we got our own, sure, it was marvellous altogether. In the beginning, for about the first six months, I looked at anything; the whole thing was a wonder. I remember Little Women, and the cowboy ones, McKenzie’s Raiders, and The Virginian, and Have Gun Will Travel.† I loved those westerns. Then RTE showed a lot of the old musical comedies. I’d seen them in the cinema and thought they were wonderful. I’m afraid, second time around, I lost interest; I couldn’t really watch them at all. Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald. The music was still beautiful, but you could listen to that on a record. I couldn’t take to all the dancing and swinging. Then there were the Laurel and Hardys, and all those silent films. I looked at everything at first, and just got a bit fussy after that.’

  * * *

  There was one more child. ‘He arrived too soon. He was five or six weeks early.

  ‘I began to bleed. We had the car by then, and I think Rory drove me in to the Rotunda. A doctor examined me and said I’d have to stay until the baby was born; otherwise I might lose it. That was kind of worrying, but it had to be done. I was only there a few hours – I remember being in the bed, and the labour pains started. I said to the nurse that I was getting labour pains, and she said, “Not at all; you couldn’t be.” But the pains persisted and began getting worse. I wasn’t on my own; there were other women in the ward. And I told the nurse again, I was still getting the pains and they were getting worse. She said, ?
??Nonsense;” she was quite offhand. So the lady in the bed opposite said, “Did you ever have labour pains?” And the nurse said, “No.” “Well, this is this lady’s fifth baby; she should know what labour pains are. If the woman says she’s having labour pains, then she’s having labour pains.” I blessed her for it, because I wouldn’t have shouted or roared in a million years. So a doctor came to examine me, and there was a mad rush.

  ‘I remember, it was a coloured doctor who delivered him, an African man, I think. And I said to him, “Is she alright?” For some reason, I thought it was a girl. And he said, “It’s not a she; it’s a he.” And he smiled. He was delighted with himself; he was really a happy, very nice man.

  ‘I was brought up to the ward, but I was on my own. Shane had been left in an incubator. He was only four pounds. And we were told – one of the nurses told me not to hold out too much hope.

  ‘When I came home, we had to leave Shane there. We were told that he’d have to stay there, in the incubator, until he gained weight and, again, not to hold out much hope – the same nurse. He was a tiny little thing. And his poor little head used to wobble all over the place. But he was kind of spunky-looking; he’d look you straight in the eye.* We went in every day to see him, or every evening. There was a matron who came around, and she asked was this our baby. And I said, “Yes. Do you think he’ll live?” And she said, “Of course he’ll live.” So I said, “The nurse told us not to hold out too much hope.” The matron was absolutely livid; she wanted to know who the nurse was. He was perfectly healthy, just too small.