Vanishing Ireland: saving the memories

Date Published: {J}

Tomás Ó Nialláin, Cnoclabhrais, Gort – farmer, policeman, and melodeon player. Born 1932.

If they had to choose their absolute favourite, the cows would probably opt for the Kilfenora Céilí Band. Certainly when Tomás played the Kilfenora”s reels to his cattle, the milk flowed pure and simple. But when he threw on a rock n” roll record, all hell broke loose. “It had them cracked,” he recalls. “They broke the machines and fences and everything.” To play it safe, Tomás just sang while he milked and that did the job. “Republican ballads,” he says. “Some of the cows sang along.”

Tomás is a quick-thinking, inspirational and engaging soul. His farmyard is neat and intelligently planned.

At his peak, Tomás kept a hundred head of cattle, as well as a substantial flock of sheep. These days he has eighteen Charolais and life is somewhat easier. In fact, he has lately renovated the old cow-house into a new residence for himself and his wife, Maureen.

“I was bred, born and reared in the shade of Lady Gregory”s Coole”, says Tomás. “But to tell you the truth I wouldn”t be sure when my birthday is.” He likes to think it was the same spring day that Lady Gregory died in May 1932. His father was a tenant on Lady Gregory”s estate at Coole Park, just as his grandfather and great-grandfather had been.

Tomás was one of ten children, five sons and five daughters, raised by parents Packie and Birdie Ó Nialláin.

As children they often played amid the abandoned house and gardens of Coole Park. That came to an end in 1941 when the Board of Works made the dismal decision to demolish the house where Synge, Yeats, Shaw and so many others drew their literary inspiration.

“It was a national disgrace,” says Tomás. “I have a very vivid memory of men throwing down the slates. There wasn’t a stone left upon a stone when they finished. But then a priest come to Gort and had an interest in Coole so he turned it into a national park with lovely walks and seven woods and forty-nine swans and all this. It”s a very fine tourist attraction now.”

Tomás is all about contingency plans, improving situations, making life smoother, smarter and, wherever possible, more enjoyable. Keeping busy is part of his raison d”être. “I couldn”t be idle. I belong to the great outdoors. . . . I always have things to do.” His desire to learn is lifelong; even at school he attended night classes, “woodwork, languages and things”.

After school, he spent five years working for a local stonemason, building houses between Tubber and Corofin. “Construction was the only work going at the time,” he says.

At the age of 23 Tomás successfully applied to join the Dublin Metropolitan Police and went east to be trained in Phoenix Park. He fetched up as a security man in Dublin Castle, with specific instructions to “mind and protect” Taoiseach Éamon de Valera and any visiting foreign diplomats.

After five years, Tomás resigned and returned to his native county. One day in 1955 he went to a dance in the local ballroom and met Maureen Sheehan, a niece of the couple who owned the venue. “That was where everyone went at that time,” says Maureen. “It”s where we met and it’s where every one of my friends met their husbands.”

“My own wedding was the first I had ever been to,” says Tomás. “The morning we got married, everyone was talking at breakfast and they asked me to say something. I was so excited and privileged to have the lovely girl. I wanted to thank her father and mother for giving her to me. But what the Christ did I say only I thanked them for giving me the farm.”

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.