Category : Stories

Sub Category : Historical Fiction

It was a hot summers morning in the summer of 1971 when I was an 11yr old boy and as I sat in the asse's cart my father stood up right, com,up there Neddy he commanded and Neddy the ass took off at a canter up the gravel boreen leaving a cloud of dust after us. Bump, bump, bump, my arse hopped off the wooden floor of the cart.
It was a good 3 miles to Derrycoffey bog were we were to cut turf for our own use and for sale. I was to learn how my ancestors including my father made their money from these ancient peat bogs that surrounds the Townsland of Toar. You have to appriciate this was a time before technology and political correctness.
I remember like yesterday my father's commentaries on these journey's to and from the bog as he stood like a man driving a chariot from a time long since passed. You see I had spent my first ten years growing up in London, so dad was giving me his own version on the history of his home, this lovely quiet peaceful part of the Lake Co, of Westmeath.
From my first day here in 1970 I could not explain why I felt so drawn to this land and the people, that like many other answers came to build into a very unique story.
No matter who we past on these journey's to and from the bog, I was told a story about every one of them, sure dad had been in London 32yrs but you could not mistake his affection for Toar and everyone he ever met.
This small once close knit community had a deep and long caring nature of eachother that went back for many generations and I was fortunate to see the last few years of a way of life now gone. As we passed an old stone cottage just in on Derrycoffey bog a tall old man with a fedora hat on him stood at the door, it was worlds away from anything I ever saw. As he waved to us in passing dad told me his story. That's the nigger Hannon they called him the nigger because he only washed his face once a year at Christmas Eve.
The black peat of Derrycoffey bog was in his skin and pores, he did really look like a grown man rather than white.
He is an old man now said dad but when I was a boy like you he was a huge strong man who possessed the strength of three or four average men. One day a nearby farmer's bullock had sunk to it's belly in the soft peat as it drank water from the silver river that ran through the bog. The farmer and two of his strongest labourers exhausted themselves trying to pull the bullock to safety but the couldn't budge the animal and they were about to give up, till one of them suggested to go get the nigger Hannon. They did and when Hannon arrived and saw the exhausted men he never even asked them to help him, he knew they were beat, so he wrapped the rope around his shoulders and waist and began to heave, and he kept heaving till he single handedly pulled the bullock to safety.
It was an incredible feat of strength from one man, not only the weight of the full grown animal but the suction of the wet peat it was talked about for many years to come.
These first stories my father told me has led me on a forty seven year journey of looking back to the lives and customs of these great Irish people.