A Harsh God

Grace was my eldest sister and Dad was very hard on her, although she was a quiet gentle girl. She worked at sewing for a while, then she got a job in the Post Office canteen in Dublin. She worked from 12 noon till 9 at night. She did not go out much, but she liked to go to the pictures on a Sunday afternoon. My cousin Will was not reared with his family but with his father’s sister Maureen. Their family was grown up and he had a good home with them, and they looked after him well. His own mother, my Aunt Kath, had 11 children, and there was only 12 months between all of them. Aunt Kath had twins and when her sister-in-law Maureen went to see her 1 day, she picked up Will and took him home with her to Ballinahown and never let him go back. Will was 4 years old at the time.

When he was 18, he was apprenticed to a grocer in Phibsboro in Dublin. Although he was our cousin, because he had been reared with his father’s people, we did not know him. When he came to live in Dublin, he came to see us and started to visit regularly. One day he asked Grace to go to a football match with him. He was a great follower of Shamrock Rovers and after that she started to go with him to the football all the time. One day he came in and asked Dad if they could get married. My father drew himself up, opened the door, and ordered him out. He told Grace if she ever went out with him again, he would break her neck, and Grace obeyed him. Every night when she came out from work, Will would be waiting, and would walk home behind her, neither of them speaking.

She grew very thin and pale, and I knew she was pining. She would often go to morning Mass before she went to work, but Dad accused her of wasting good shoe leather by traipsing to the church. My heart broke for the two of them because he was so lonely too. Sometimes I would meet up with Will because I hadn’t been forbidden to see him. I arranged to meet him at the pictures one evening and also arranged to meet Grace at the same picture. I bought the tickets and gave them each one, unbeknownst to the other saying, ‘I might be late and to go in without me’. When they both sat in their seats, they found they were sitting next to each other. She came in that night and told Dad to do what he liked; she was going back to Will. Ten years later, after a special dispensation from Rome and legal permission, they got married, but she was never forgiven for marrying her cousin.

They had five children, one boy and four girls. Their third baby was a lovely fair-haired child called Madelaine and she was beautiful. When she was 3 years old she got the measles. She became very sick and started fitting and the doctor sent her to Cork Street Fever Hospital. She was only there a few hours when she died. I went with Grace to see her in the mortuary. She was dressed in white and her golden ringlets were clustered around her tiny face. It was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. She was so tiny and she looked like a small doll. Grace stood on the other side of the slab where she lay and started to cry, and through her broken sobs she said, ‘This is the price I have had to pay for loving Will.’

After the death of Madelaine, Grace always seemed grave, gone was any light-heartedness. I am sure she grieved for her little lost daughter for the rest of her life. In 1978, Grace died of a heart attack. Will never got over her death. He visited her grave every Sunday. Until he died himself in 1983. I hope they found in death the peace they were denied in life.

• In the final 18 months of her life my mother wrote a simple, unpublished memoir telling of her life. This is one of her stories. I have made a few small editorial changes, and have also changed the names of the people to protect their real identities.