Just Mary (4 page)

Anyway, I didn’t take the opportunity. My sister, who was four years older than me and had trained in hotel management, had recently married and was no longer running the Hodson Bay for my
father as previously. He told me he had a job for me now and that I could take over from Anne. So I stayed at home and worked in the hotel for a good salary, also helping out my brother Paddy in
the haulage business he had just set up. I had Enda in Athlone too of course, and that was all I wanted in my life. And I was delighted to be in my home town again.

Chapter
2

I
was 22 and Enda was 24 when we got married. Enda did the traditional thing and spoke to my father. My father was in Dublin on business and Enda
and I went there and got the ring and then we met him for lunch in a place called The Bailey, which was a classy pub-cum-hotel. Enda told him, ‘I want to marry Mary’, and luckily my
father agreed to it. Naturally, we got married in my local parish church and had the reception in the Hodson Bay Hotel. We went for two weeks’ honeymoon to the Channel Islands, which was an
unusual choice in those days. We had a lovely time, and the first morning we opened our door to happen upon another couple from Athlone who were staying only two doors down from us! I still
remember that. We hired a car and went everywhere there was to go and did everything there was to do.

When we came home, we lived for a month in the Hodson Bay Hotel, as we were in the process of building the house which was to become our family home, and in which I still live to this day. My
father had a couple of sites on the same road and he gave us one as a present, which was fine. We needed a county council loan to build the house, as I wasn’t working at that time, and Enda
was earning £10 a week with a wholesaler, Michael Hanley, in Athlone, working as a seller from the vans. He would take orders from the shopkeepers and then deliver to them when all was ready.
We borrowed £2,200 from the council, to be paid off at £2 2s a week, which sounds quaint now no doubt, but was a huge amount of money in those days and in fact the maximum you could
borrow at the time.

Once we got married, Enda and I wanted a family. My two brothers and sister had each married in their turn and within the year they all had had their first child, with child number two arriving
the following year. So I thought it was only a question of getting married and you would have children as a matter of course. However, it isn’t always the case, and it didn’t work out
like that for me. It wasn’t because we weren’t trying — we had a very active sexual life — but it just didn’t happen. We used to wonder why, and every month I would
think I would get pregnant, but I didn’t. I didn’t start to worry for about two years. We had a great social life and were very much enjoying ourselves. I remember how on Sundays, we
would fly out of the house at 10 a.m. and not come back until midnight — we would drive to different towns and eat in hotels, and we thought we were wonderful and had a great life. And we did
have a fantastic married life from the very start. I look back on our early years now with great joy. We had no responsibilities whatsoever: imagine — 22 and 24, and no responsibilities at
all!

When we were about three years married and there was still no sign of a baby, I decided it was about time to do something about it. I went to my local
GP
, Dr Jim Keane,
and he made an appointment for me to see a man called Éamon De Valera, who was the most eminent gynaecologist in Ireland. I can still remember the day I went to Dublin to see him. I was
really quite modern: I went up on the train and then got a taxi. I can vividly remember sitting in the waiting room, surrounded by other women. I went in and told the great man my tale: that I was
married and that we had satisfactory sexual relations. He asked me how often. How often? How often
not
!

Dr de Valera was a lovely man. He did all the examinations, including an internal and told me I would become pregnant soon; that he had no doubt about it. That must have been a standard line of
his, but it gave me such great courage and hope. I remember thinking to myself, to his mind no doubt, a healthy 25-year-old girl and 27-year-old fella were sure to get pregnant. But they’re
not, and you read about fertility problems more and more now — but it was not publicly discussed then. We are talking about 1960s Ireland so needless to say, we had to keep this to ourselves:
it was our secret. Enda had to go and give a semen sample in the Mater, where Dr de Valera had a clinic. Looking back now, I think, wasn’t Enda marvellous to do it? Most guys wouldn’t
have done such a thing, especially in those days. I remember how, when Enda got a letter saying that his semen was 100 per cent mobile, he exclaimed, ‘Yippee!’ and was most pleased with
himself.

Dr de Valera had given us a thermometer so that we could take my temperature, and when it came to mid-month and my temperature rose, we knew we were supposed to make love then. Making love to
order never suited us, however, and Enda used to say ‘Oh God!’ when I would announce to him in the middle of the day that we had to go to bed. It wasn’t as nice because it
wasn’t spontaneous. Within six months, however, I found out that I was pregnant and I was very happy. So that ended that trauma in our lives for the time being — but I always think how
well we managed it together.

At the start of my pregnancy, we went back to Dr de Valera and followed up on all the advice. I thought my bump would never get bigger: I couldn’t wait for it all to happen, and wanted to
be bigger and bigger and bigger. I had my son Feargal in Dublin’s Hatch Street Maternity Home. Dr de Valera was my gynaecologist for the birth: it was the August Bank Holiday Monday and I can
still remember him coming in, wearing his tennis shorts. Feargal was born on 3 August 1964. I had a very easy birth — I went in at 3 p.m. and I had him at 5 p.m. — but I do recall
screaming during labour and the nurse saying to me, ‘Oh please, you are going to upset the whole nursing home!’ There were no such things as injections or the like: you just had your
baby — not like now. On the other hand, I was kept in for ten days after the birth, as if I was sick, while now you are lucky to be allowed to stay two nights at the most!

Feargal was a lovely child, but very cross and crying all the time. I breastfed for a short while — maybe two weeks or so. I did my best, but it just didn’t work out. When I first
came home with my beautiful baby, I thought I had it made. I felt I had fulfilled myself. Most women feel the same, I think, because I believe that as a woman, you are programmed to have children
— in my opinion that is the way your hormones operate and your body cycles move.

Looking back now, it is clear that I suffered from postnatal depression, but didn’t know what it was, as nobody talked about such things in those days. I remember sitting in the living
room with Feargal on my knee and the tears coursing down my face, and Enda coming home and saying, ‘This can’t be right, that you are crying — we have a lovely baby and a nice
home’, and so on. Reading about postnatal depression now, it is obvious I had all the typical symptoms. I had longed for a child and I now had a beautiful son — give me an Irish mother
who doesn’t want a son — I had everything I wanted, a loving husband, a lovely home, a delightful baby, and I was crying about it! I just felt that I would never get on top of it, of
minding him. Gone were our lovely Sundays, and now I had to mind this little baby, who was crying morning, noon and night. I didn’t feel the wealth of love I should have felt for him. But I
got out of it very well, fortunately. Enda spoke to Dr Keane, who came to visit me. He referred me to a psychiatrist in Dublin: a nice, helpful man, who said that I had postnatal depression, and
that I was a classic case. He gave me medication, which I took and I met him two further times, after which he told me that I had fully recovered. In all, it must have lasted for about four months
and thankfully, I have never had any episodes of depression since.

I thought that once you had one child, they would just keep coming: that it was a matter of having babies to order. Particularly since my two brothers and my sister continued to have more
children: they were all very fertile. But it didn’t happen with me, and about two years after Feargal was born, I said to Enda, ‘Isn’t it funny there’s no sign of another
baby?’

When Feargal was three, we arranged for me to go back to Dr de Valera. I was still a young woman — I was only 30, for God’s sake. The doctor did more examinations and then said that
it could be that I might not have any more babies. I think he was a wily old fox and that, from the internal examinations and other tests, he knew more than he was letting on to me. He told me I
might not be a very fertile woman and he asked me if we had thought of adoption. Afterwards I went back home to Enda and told him all this, saying that I would like us to adopt. Enda felt the same,
so I went back to Dr de Valera and he began to set things in motion for us. It was all to be arranged through the St Patrick’s Adoption Society in Dublin. We told our respective parents and
families and were happy to go along with all the initial formalities. My brother Brian’s wife, Ann Lenihan, was particularly supportive during this whole process and came along with me on
many of the exploratory visits. She was and has remained a true woman friend to me.

Not very long afterwards — or so it seemed anyway — Dr de Valera contacted me to say that he had a client who was single and pregnant and that the background would suit us well. And
then, on 4 September 1968, he rang me and told me that we had a baby son. I was delighted, because I had already been rearing a son and reckoned I would know what to expect. We went to Dr de
Valera’s clinic on the appointed day to collect our new son. Feargal, who was four at the time, came with us. There was a nurse there also, as Aengus was just five days old. I think it was
because he was so tiny — almost newborn — that I thought of him as my son from the very beginning. He was a beautiful baby — he has remained a very good-looking man — with a
head of dark hair and gorgeous, swarthy skin. I just loved him from the minute I held him; so did Enda. As far as Feargal was concerned, we did all the right things without realising we were doing
the right things, because he held the new baby as well the first time he met him.

The three of us took Aengus home and Enda’s sister came over and there was lots of fussing over him. That evening we put the cot up in the corner and put Aengus in the cot. He was such a
good child. Aengus didn’t cry much as a baby (although he became more spirited as time went by!): it was almost as though he was just happy he had found his mother.

Adopting Aengus was a momentous thing to do. It was unusual enough to adopt in those days when you already had a child: most people who adopted didn’t have children. I realise that I may
have made the process sound less complicated here than it was at the time — there were undoubtedly procedures and bureaucracy to be negotiated — but it was nonetheless far simpler then
than it is today. Of course Aengus knows all about it: we told him in stages as he was growing up. When he was a young child, I got a book from Barnados,
How to Talk about Adoption to your
Child
. I told Aengus that I had been sick and not able to have another baby in my tummy, but that another mammy who was not sick had the baby for me. They say you should start to introduce a
child to the idea early and explain more when they start to ask more questions.

As time went by, however, we never emphasised the issue and it never really came into our lives very much again. Years later, in the early 1980s when Aengus was in his late teens, it came out
that you could trace your mother and that you had a right to do so and to make contact and meet, as long as your biological mother was willing. Aengus was in his first year in college, I remember,
and he had a very bad bout of glandular fever and was ill for almost 12 months. All he could do was mooch around; he had no energy for anything else. At this time, I remember telling him that he
could look for his biological mother if he wanted to — that we would not take it amiss and would understand completely if this is what he wished to do.

I did not even allude to the matter again until some years later, on the eve of Aengus’ wedding to his lovely wife, Lisa. We were in my apartment in Dublin and I said to him, ‘I am
sure you have told Lisa about your adoption?’ He replied, ‘Of course, Ma, she knows all that.’ I then asked him if he had ever looked for his birth mother, and he said at once,
‘No Ma, I didn’t. I thought about it, but who could have been as good to me as you and Enda were?!’ And I thought, what a lovely thing to say to me.

I was always very close to my Dad — I suppose it was our shared interest in politics and English literature that was part of the strong bond between us. One evening, when Feargal was about
two years old, my father called into our house with a copy of
The Irish Times
. Pointing out an ad for Maynooth College, he asked me, ‘Do you see this?’ It seemed that the
college was opening its doors to external students — up until then, only student priests had been able to study there. The first such course they were offering was the Higher Diploma in
Education, which could be completed within one year, and they were inviting applications from mature students who had a
BA
,
B
.
COMM
. or
B
.
SC
.
AG
. ‘Would you be interested in doing an
H
.
DIP
.?’ was my father’s next question.