cripple.
Before leaving Ballinrobe she was compelled to take one more cruel decision. She had to part with her young daughter Una, nine years of age, whom she loved as much as she did the rest of us. Our
aunt, Martha Jennings, a sister who had emigrated to New York when young, had offered to take Una to live with her. My mother believed that it would be a wonderful opportunity for Una to be free
from the threat of an Irish workhouse; there was hope for a life in America, away from the hard-faced society in which she lived. Unaccompanied, Una was sent to the States in an emigrant ship which
sailed from Galway. To the end of her life, Una was embittered by this apparent rejection by her mother. Inexplicably, for she was too young to understand, she had been sent on that long fearful
journey to America to live with someone whom she did not know. Worse still, the aunt exploited her as cheap domestic labour. In spite of this, Una finally managed to complete her training as a
state registered nurse. Married, she knew much happiness for a few years, and made a life for herself and her family, who loved her dearly. In the end she was afflicted with a rare form of
tuberculosis, Addison’s disease, from which she died at an early age, having previously suffered the loss of her eldest son, Paddy, in a car accident.
There is reason to believe that a subordinate cause of death arose from the shock of Paddy’s death. He had completed his military service with the US Navy, and with his discharge bounty
had bought himself a sports car, popular with the ‘young bloods’ in the United States. He had taken it onto a busy highway while still unused to it. Shortly after midnight Una heard the
telephone ring to give the message most feared by all mothers— ‘There’s been an accident’. Paddy was dead. Una worshipped her Paddy, a red-blooded Irish-American, full of a
sardonic wit and charm inherited from his mother.
After Una had left the house with my mother in a car, I can recall myself, my brother Jody and my sister Martha sitting on the top of the stairs with our arms around one another, crying our eyes
out. Because my mother had had to leave us to travel with Una to Galway, we wrongly believed that we too had been abandoned by her. Between self-pity and the loss of Una we endured our own
‘American wake’ for our tiny emigrant sister. I was not to meet her again for forty years.
But what of the agony of my mother? Una had simply become one of the many hundreds of thousands of rejected Irish unwanted by their own society. In the words spoken for all of them by my young
school friend in Ballinrobe, ‘It’s no use coming to us to be fed’; this would be an apt epithet for our Irish ethos.
The carriage doors slammed, with no-one to wave us farewell. Surrounded by her young family, my mother finally broke down, and wept quietly. The train steamed out, on its way to the emigrant
boat, and London.
Eileen found a temporary home for us with an English family in Herne Hill near London. My mother had saved us just in time; within days of our arrival, she lay in a coma. My final memory of this
unique woman is when we children were each called into the hallway where she lay on a stretcher to bid her ‘good-bye’. I was twelve years old. I recall leaning down across the stretcher
to kiss her on the forehead. It was moist and sallow in colour, a single bead of sweat on it. Her eyes were closed, as if in a sleep of deep exhaustion. She did not acknowledge our farewells.
Shortly afterwards she was moved to the waiting ambulance outside, and brought to a public ward in a London hospital. Within a few days she was dead. The final humiliation of this proud, brave Mayo
country girl still awaited her; she was buried in an unknown pauper’s grave in London because Eileen could not afford anything better for the mother she so dearly loved.
Recently I made a visit to Ballinrobe with my wife. I walked through the streets for the
Before leaving Ballinrobe she was compelled to take one more cruel decision. She had to part with her young daughter Una, nine years of age, whom she loved as much as she did the rest of us. Our
aunt, Martha Jennings, a sister who had emigrated to New York when young, had offered to take Una to live with her. My mother believed that it would be a wonderful opportunity for Una to be free
from the threat of an Irish workhouse; there was hope for a life in America, away from the hard-faced society in which she lived. Unaccompanied, Una was sent to the States in an emigrant ship which
sailed from Galway. To the end of her life, Una was embittered by this apparent rejection by her mother. Inexplicably, for she was too young to understand, she had been sent on that long fearful
journey to America to live with someone whom she did not know. Worse still, the aunt exploited her as cheap domestic labour. In spite of this, Una finally managed to complete her training as a
state registered nurse. Married, she knew much happiness for a few years, and made a life for herself and her family, who loved her dearly. In the end she was afflicted with a rare form of
tuberculosis, Addison’s disease, from which she died at an early age, having previously suffered the loss of her eldest son, Paddy, in a car accident.
There is reason to believe that a subordinate cause of death arose from the shock of Paddy’s death. He had completed his military service with the US Navy, and with his discharge bounty
had bought himself a sports car, popular with the ‘young bloods’ in the United States. He had taken it onto a busy highway while still unused to it. Shortly after midnight Una heard the
telephone ring to give the message most feared by all mothers— ‘There’s been an accident’. Paddy was dead. Una worshipped her Paddy, a red-blooded Irish-American, full of a
sardonic wit and charm inherited from his mother.
After Una had left the house with my mother in a car, I can recall myself, my brother Jody and my sister Martha sitting on the top of the stairs with our arms around one another, crying our eyes
out. Because my mother had had to leave us to travel with Una to Galway, we wrongly believed that we too had been abandoned by her. Between self-pity and the loss of Una we endured our own
‘American wake’ for our tiny emigrant sister. I was not to meet her again for forty years.
But what of the agony of my mother? Una had simply become one of the many hundreds of thousands of rejected Irish unwanted by their own society. In the words spoken for all of them by my young
school friend in Ballinrobe, ‘It’s no use coming to us to be fed’; this would be an apt epithet for our Irish ethos.
The carriage doors slammed, with no-one to wave us farewell. Surrounded by her young family, my mother finally broke down, and wept quietly. The train steamed out, on its way to the emigrant
boat, and London.
Eileen found a temporary home for us with an English family in Herne Hill near London. My mother had saved us just in time; within days of our arrival, she lay in a coma. My final memory of this
unique woman is when we children were each called into the hallway where she lay on a stretcher to bid her ‘good-bye’. I was twelve years old. I recall leaning down across the stretcher
to kiss her on the forehead. It was moist and sallow in colour, a single bead of sweat on it. Her eyes were closed, as if in a sleep of deep exhaustion. She did not acknowledge our farewells.
Shortly afterwards she was moved to the waiting ambulance outside, and brought to a public ward in a London hospital. Within a few days she was dead. The final humiliation of this proud, brave Mayo
country girl still awaited her; she was buried in an unknown pauper’s grave in London because Eileen could not afford anything better for the mother she so dearly loved.
Recently I made a visit to Ballinrobe with my wife. I walked through the streets for the
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