Читать книгу An Irish Country Childhood - Marie Walsh - Страница 5

I WAS BORN in 1929, so the period I write about in this book is the 1930s and early 1940s. I left Ireland in October 1946. Our village is situated about seven miles from Ballina, a town on the River Moy near Killala Bay, County Mayo. In my youth our village was a thriving community of many families. People relied on each other as money was scarce and everyone had to work hard to survive. The land was poor and little of it was suitable for growing crops, surrounded as we were by bogs, hills and water. Luxury was a full stomach and being clothed. We had no modern conveniences and the ass and cart was the only mode of transport for many of us. Yet people were happy with their lot and a wonderful community spirit prevailed.

When I wrote this narrative in 1988, my village was a ghost village. Only two families still lived there, my own family home was unoccupied and most of the other houses were in ruins. On visits to Ireland for holidays I would revisit the scenes of my childhood. When I walked through the deserted village tears would stream down my face as I bade those kindly neighbours, long-since dead, a fond greeting. In my mind I would restore them to their rightful places and tell them who I was and that I had not forgotten them. Eventually I decided that I could not let the village die and started to write down my memories of childhood and especially of those wonderful people who so enriched my young life.

Now, the village has happily been restored to life again as people from all over Europe vie with each other to purchase those ruins and convert them to their former glory. Children are again using the bog road to schools, and cars and jeeps have replaced the bicycle and the ass and cart. The farm-houses have all the modern conveniences and a personalized German postbox now stands at the end of the boreen.

If the spirits of the long-since dead revisit their old homes, I hope that they will not be envious of the new occupants’ more relaxed lifestyle. In turn, I hope that the newcomers will be worthy trustees of homes and lands that were once wrested from the wilds by people whose harsh rulers forced them to survive in the wilderness. May all live together peacefully in the future and be as content as we were in my childhood.