Rory & Ita (26 page)

‘I didn’t mind leaving work at all. I loved work, but I didn’t mind leaving, because it was the thing to do in those days. You just accepted that you had to leave work. The marriage bar was up, and you were out on your ear. In some places, I suppose, you could stay on but not where I worked, in UCD. I’ve a vague memory of getting double money the last week, which we used to get at Christmas too. And I got a little bowl of flowers, Royal Doulton, from Professor O’Farrell; I still have it. I can’t remember what Professor O’Kelly gave me, but he certainly gave me something. And the cleaner, Lily – I can’t remember her surname – brought me a white table cloth with napkins. And the men who worked there, the technicians, they put in a few bob each – none of them were well-paid; in fact, they were pretty poorly paid – and they got me a glass bowl, with glass dishes to match. My neighbour, Mrs Carmichael, brought me over a tiny little teapot, with a pound of tea stuck in it. And Mrs Hingerty opposite brought me a set of glasses, with a jug to match. I can still remember the glasses, the red and white spots. Mr and Mrs Wilkinson next
door gave me a glass cake dish, still intact, and their daughter, Ruth, who worked in the China Showrooms in Abbey Street, gave me a cheese dish in the shape of a little cottage; I still have it. Then there was the usual collection of statues of the Blessed Virgin and a few Children of Prague and a few other holy pictures as well, and the Sacred Heart. And we got three irons. Nobody gave us blankets. We had to buy our own and, because of the war in Korea, the price of wool shot through the roof. The blankets cost five pounds; £1 per pound weight. We bought the cheapest we could get. Rory’s Aunt Mag gave us an eiderdown, and this saved our lives.’

She doesn’t remember much about the wedding ceremony. ‘I can still remember arriving at the church with my father, and going in.
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Early in the morning and very chilly; it had never crossed my mind that it would be cold, but it didn’t worry me. Rory’s brother Jackie was the best man. I can’t remember the ceremony; I just can’t pin it down. I can’t remember saying, “I do.” I must have said it, but I can’t remember. My wedding ring had a little design etched into it; the design has long since worn off. I don’t remember it going on my finger. I remember coming down the aisle and, of course, there was confetti; Rory’s sisters had the confetti. And all the neighbours outside, and all the relations. I remember all the talk and chat outside, and all the neighbours wishing us well, and a few distant cousins. There was one in particular, a nice woman, a cousin of Rory’s, and she came to see the wedding; she had a tweed coat and a beret on her head and a pair of solid shoes on
her feet and she just plonked herself there in the middle of the photograph – with all our palaver. Nobody would have been rude enough to tell her to buzz off, so she’s there in that picture for ever more. And, of course, Aunt Bessie always stood out; she always stood with the heels together and the toes parted; it was part of an affection I had for her – that was the way she was. She’s there in the foreground, with her feet apart. Everyone was very happy.

‘The wedding meal was a great success. Daddy had a few old friends there: Pádraig O’Keefe,
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and his wife, Peg; and James Carty,
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another Wexford man, who was also Máire’s godfather. My going-away suit was made of fine grey wool, a plain tailored jacket and an accordion-pleated skirt. I bought it in Macey’s, in George’s Street.
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My blouse was mauve silk, and my small, plain felt hat was also mauve. With black court shoes, black leather handbag and black kid gloves, I decided I was fit to go anywhere. And we both had new cases. Mine was grey. Suitcases were all made of cardboard then, except you decided to have a leather one, which would have been hugely expensive – and ridiculous, because we never foresaw the day when we’d be travelling.’ It was the 17th of September, 1951. ‘It also happened to be the day that the
Irish Times
burnt down – two historical events in the one day. And the problem was getting the taxi from the hotel to the railway station; we thought we were going to miss the train. The traffic was held up along O’Connell Street because of the fire. The taxi man was
taking it very easy, until Rory had a go at him and explained to him, in a not too polite fashion, that there were other routes available. It must have been Amiens Street Station we were going to. We were quite sure we were going to miss the train.’

‘T
he taxi turned down, into Westmoreland Street,
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and there were fire brigades all over the place. The
Irish Times
had gone on fire. And the taxi man just rested his hands and arms on the steering wheel and said, “We won’t be getting through here for a while.” So I said, “I don’t care if all of Dublin goes on fire, we’ve got to catch the train for Cork.” Then I said to him, “Turn around,
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and go down Anglesea Street and on to the quays and you’ll get clear of this jam.” I was peremptory, and annoyed, and I felt like taking his life. He knew it: he looked at me in amazement, and said, “OK.” And off we went and made the train just on time. I firmly believe he was going to stay where we were and wait for the street to be cleared. I don’t know if I gave him a tip; probably not.’
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‘The house was red-bricked, with a kind of paler colour, a yellow ochre pointing, between the bricks. That appealed to us; it had a warm, friendly look. And the
inside was fabulous, because it was a bungalow; there was space – loads of space, as you’d expect in an empty bungalow, and we were both used to relatively small houses. Mine was particularly crowded. We were both in agreement about what we wanted, we both liked the look of it, and we decided that it was the one we’d go for. It was more expensive than we’d thought; the general price of a three-bedroom house was about £1,600 and ours was going to cost about £2,000. But it didn’t make any difference; we had our minds made up.

‘We paid the deposit, and I got a mortgage from Dublin Corporation. The Small Dwellings Act provided mortgages to people who had incomes between a minimum and maximum amount. It was pitched for a certain class of buyer; if you earned over the maximum, you weren’t eligible – you didn’t need it; if you earned below the minimum, it was considered that you wouldn’t be able to pay. There was always much manoeuvring to get employers to give you a favourable account of what you were earning, to get through. I had no problem in that regard, since my wages met the required criteria. The full price for the house was £2,154, to be exact, minus the grant which came from the Government because it was a new house, and the deposit, £200. I was granted a thirty-five-year mortgage, £ 1,700, at 4 per cent. I was rather aggrieved because, if I’d applied for it a month earlier, I’d have got it at 3.75 per cent.
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We
were saving money then, and the house was being built. We had to buy furniture – I didn’t even know that we had to buy our own light bulbs – and we got various presents; we had three statues of Our Lady of Lourdes and a couple of the Child of Prague. We had two magnificent kettles. But it was mainly a matter of saving. We had barely enough to get married, and make arrangements, taxis to the church and on to the hotel for the guests, particularly aunts and family.

‘At home, there was much cutting-up of yards of material, sewing, making, deciding what hats to wear and, to tell you the truth, I skedaddled. I just had my meals and left, because I couldn’t understand what half of the fuss was about. I was getting married, and that was that. But there was a considerable amount of activity. My sisters were expert dressmakers – it came naturally – and they took these things very seriously. I bought a grey suit in Clery’s, and a white shirt, a covert cloth overcoat, a corduroy jacket and a grey flannel trousers, and a green velour broad-rimmed hat. I must have been the best-dressed pauper in Ireland. My brother Jackie was the best man; his suit was a lighter colour.

‘Ita and I went to see the parish priest of Terenure, to make the wedding arrangements, such as the date and the time of the ceremony. His reverence suggested that the matter of the expenses be settled as soon as possible in order to avoid unnecessary distraction on the day itself. He was naturally anxious to get his fee, which, I suspect,
often went unpaid. He then mentioned the matter of the reading of the banns. At that time, people of a certain social status paid a fee of about
£5
, in order not to have the banns of matrimony read, as prescribed by the laws of the Church.
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The Christian outlook in Ireland at the time was that the reading of the banns was the hallmark of the dregs of society. However, Ita and myself didn’t subscribe to that view, and we told his reverence that we’d be delighted to have the banns read. When I went home and casually mentioned the matter, my mother went ballistic. She described, in terms that would now be called politically incorrect, the type of people who had the banns read. Almost simultaneously, Ita was getting the same message from her stepmother. We were both definitely in the doghouse and decided, for the sake of family harmony, to return to his reverence and reverse our decision. He smiled quietly and held out his hand for the five-pound note.
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‘I had six aunts at the wedding, no uncles. My family was a country family, and the men weren’t involved in things like that, unless it was their own children. But the women were. So, that was six aunts and all my sisters and brothers, and the rest. There was a considerable amount. We had cars for them.

‘I slept alright the night before, but I’d caught a cold,
making the final arrangements, booking taxis and informing my aunts about the times.
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The cold didn’t manifest itself until later in the day – I was sneezing a bit, but it wasn’t bad. The wedding ceremony itself, in my memory, tends to go by like a dream – nothing substantially memorable. But there was quite a crowd outside, Ita’s neighbours and some of my innumerable relations. A photographer turned up – we hadn’t thought to engage one – and various groups were photographed, in one of which an elderly lady from Balrothery, Mag Carthy, insinuated herself conspicuously in the front of the grouping. Mag had a particular
grá
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for me, possibly because I was polite and civil to her when we met around Tallaght. She wasn’t used to such behaviour and so she travelled down for my wedding, uninvited. My friend Dick McGuirk and Gwen were there as well, to wish us luck; they’d been married a fortnight earlier.
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And the wedding breakfast was quite pleasant; it was very, very good – a decent meal; everybody was quite happy about it – but, of course, it was very early. There was a short speech from Jackie, and I made a speech, thanking the bridesmaid and all who were at the wedding. That ended the speechifying.
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I don’t recall any telegrams; they weren’t a feature of weddings at the time,
but my father spotted the piano and started a bit of a sing-song. My father, incidentally, could knock a tune out of a zinc bucket. We left them to it. We had a train to catch.’